The Best (and Worst) of 2024

 

This is a place to celebrate and review my reading journey over the last year. And...despite 2024 not being the best reading year every (especially in the last three months or so...) it still wasn't bad. I didn't make the 200 books read as I have the last three years, but by mid-October I knew that dream was out the window. I did manage (somehow) to complete all 37 challenges that I signed up for (yes, I am a bit addicted to the reading challenge...) and I also managed to shift 117 books off of my own TBR mountain range (shhh--don't ask how many are left). Overall, a fairly satisfying year for this reader and challenge-aholic. I still don't visit my fellow bloggers as often as I used to (hardly at all--I'm sorry, folks!). I wish I could go back to the early days of the blog when I seemed to have time to read and write reviews and go visit all my virtual friends. And I wish life would stop getting in the way.

But...back to celebrating. Let's take a look at the year-end reading stats.

Total Books Read: 156

Books Owned & Read: 117

Pages Read: 38,801

Percentage of Rereads: 17%

Percentage of New-to-Me Authors: 30%

Percentage Mystery: 89%

Percentage Nonfiction: 5%

Percentage by Women: 51%

Percentage Written 2000+: 32%

Percentage Non-US/UK: 15%

Non-US/UK Authors: Australian, Brazilian, Canadian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish,Taiwanese

Non-US States/UK Settings: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, a Fantasy World, Fictitious European Country, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Outer Space, Russia, Ship (Atlantic Ocean), South America (unspecified), Sweden, Taiwan

Top Vintage Mysteries of 2024 (no rereads)

The Twelve Deaths of Christmas by Marian Babson (Silver Age, 1979; 4 stars)

Seven Keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers (Golden Age, 1913; 4 stars)

Crossed Skis by Carol Carnac (Golden Age, 1952; 4 stars)

Heberden's Seat by Douglas Clark (Silver Age, 1979; 4 stars)

Miraculous Mysteries ed by Martin Edwards (all stories Golden Age, 2017; 4 stars)

Murder by the Book ed by Martin Edwards (all stories Silver Age or earlier, 2021; 4 stars)

The Final Days of Abbot Montrose by Sven Elvestad (Golden Age, 1917; 4 stars)

Murder in C Major by Sara Hoskinson Frommer (Silver Age, 1986; 4 stars)

Dance of Death by Helen McCloy (Golden Age, 1938; 4 stars)

Bodies from the Library 3 ed by Tony Medawar (all stories Silver Age or earlier, 2020; 4 stars)

Bodies from the Library 4 ed by Tony Medawar (all stories Golden Age, 2021; 4 stars)

McKee of Centre Street by Helen Reilly (Golden Age, 1933; 4 stars)

The Owl in the Cellar by Margaret Scherf (Golden Age, 1945; 4 stars)

Death, My Darling Daughters by Jonathan Stagge (Golden Age, 1945; 4 stars)

The Final Deduction by Rex Stout (Silver Age, 1961; 4 stars)

Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout (Golden Age, 1934; 4 stars)

The Desert Moon Mystery by Kay Cleaver Strahan (Golden Age, 1927; 4 stars)

The New Shoe by Arthur W. Upfield (Golden Age, 1951; 4 stars)

Wicked Uncle by Patricia Wentworth (Golden Age, 1947; 4 stars)

Top Modern Mysteries 2024 (no rereads)

The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth (2004; 4 stars)

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves (2022; 4 stars)

Think Twice by Harlan Coben (2024; 4 stars)

Sepulchre Street by Martin Edwards (2023)

A Fete Worse Than Death by Dolores Gordon-Smith (2007; 4 stars)

Murder & Mendelssohn by Kerry Greenwood (2013; 4.5 stars)

What Cannot Be Said by C. S. Harris (2024; 5 stars)

Unnatural Ends by Christopher Huang (2023; 4 stars)

Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell (2015; 4 stars)

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi (2020; 4 stars)

Still Life by Louise Penny (2005; 4 stars)

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn & Janie Change (2024; 4 stars)

Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson (2023; 4 stars)

Top Fiction 2024 (no rereads)

Amphigorey by Edward Gorey (4 stars)

The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton (4 stars)

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin (5 stars)

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa (4 stars)

Top Nonfiction 2024 (no rereads)

Dorothy & Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers & C. S. Lewis by Gina Dalfonzo (4 stars)

Only in Books by J. Kevin Graffagnino (4 stars)

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson (4 stars)

Playing with Myself by Randy Rainbow (4 stars)

Making It So by Patrick Stewart (4 stars)

Monthly P.O.M. (Pick of the Month) Award Winners

January: Murder & Mendelssohn by Kerry Greenwood

February: The Final Days of Abbot Montrose by Sven Elvestad

March: Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

April: Sepulchre Street by Martin Edwards

May: The Owl in the Cellar by Margaret Scherf

June: Still Life by Louise Penny

July: Crossed Skis by Carol Carnac

August: Dance of Death by Helen McCloy

September: Think Twice by Harlan Coben

October: Wicked Uncle by Patricia Wentworth

November: Heberden's Seat by Douglas Clark

December: McKee of Centre Street by Helen Reilly

Now...before we move on to the big winner of 2024--the P.O.Y. (Pick of the Year) Award, I have a few other awards to hand out--my own version of the Razzie Awards.

The Penny For Your Thoughts [and mine aren't very good] Award goes to The Penny Detective by John Tallon Jones. I really wanted to give this a glowing review. One of my Secret Santas in 2016 sent me this and the second Penny Detective novel as part of my gift. But I just couldn't do it. I'm not a huge private eye/hardboiled detective fan, but when I do read them I want them to be good. And this one just wasn't. I assume the title is a reference to how much Morris Shannon's services are worth, because he certainly isn't a very good PI. Of course, he really hasn't been all that good or dedicated at any of the jobs he's had up till now, so why would opening up his own private detective business be any different? If he didn't have his ex-cop bestie Shoddy to do his leg work, he wouldn't be solving anything ever....

The Where's Waldo Award goes to Kill the Boss Good-by by Peter Rabe. Rabe has the honor of earning the only one-star rating I handed out last year (the previous award winner came close with 1.5 stars). The only thing it had going for it was an interesting look at the psychotic boss's descent into madness--but there was no detective, no clues, and nearly no mystery in sight. I had pretty good success with the Waldo books--but Rabe hid all hints of a good mystery where I doubt anyone could find them. If gang-land shoot-em-ups are your thing, then this may be for you. But there are better examples of those out there than this.

The Sleeping Pill Award goes to The Moneypenny Diaries by Kate Westbrook. This is meant to read like nonfiction--with Jane's niece supposedly going to all kinds of trouble to cross-reference and prove the validity of all these incidents. Which makes this read like a dry-as-dust historical account for about 90% of the book. It would be a heck of a lot more interesting if the story had just been told through Moneypenny's diaries and without all the footnotes and editorializing by Jane Moneypenny's niece. It has a great hook--with Moneypenny wanting to investigate what really happened to her father--but really poor execution.

Sleeping Schoolboy Reading a book by J. B. Greuze

The It's So Secret I Can't Even Tell Myself Award and the Math for No Reason Award both go to H. F. Wood for The Passenger from Scotland Yard. So....according to E. F. Bleiler, who provides the introduction to Wood's novel, this is the best detective novel between Poe and Doyle (and he doesn't really count Doyle's longer works because they are "detective short stories tacked onto historical romances"). I have to say--if this was the best thing going, I'm surprised detective fiction took off at all. Because Wood has a bizarre narrative style. Yes, a detective novelist is trying to pull the wool over the reader's eyes in an effort to surprise her with the solution at the end...but never have I read a book where the detective (here, Inspector Byde) almost seems intent on keeping the clues secret from himself. He never refers to any of his suspects by name, always using the most circuitous methods of description to indicate who he's talking about. And his obsession with mathematical theorems were enough to make me want to pull my hair out. 

And now...the moment we've all been waiting for...the presentation of the Mystery Pick of the Year! This has been a tough decision for our judges this year. If I go purely by the star-rating, then it's obvious that Murder & Mendelssohn is the winner with the only 4.5 rating (there were no five-star winners which were not rereads this year). And the review is a strong one. But Helen McCloy gave a great introduction to Basil Willing in a very solid, fairly-clued mystery. And Harlan Coben surprised with an out-of-our comfort zone mystery that tempts me to go back and read the series from the beginning (that doesn't happen very often). 

So...after much deliberation (drum roll please), I'm pleased to present the P.O.Y. Award to Think Twice by Harlan Coben!