So apparently it’s already that time of year. Time to begin the reductive reflexive response to the year's work as a whole. I look forward to it. I'm just glad it wasn't me who got the whole thing rolling. Publisher’s Weekly did that. They released their list of the year’s best books the other day and here’s the rundown for mystery/thrillers…
The End of Everything by Megan Abbott
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Revenger by Rory Clements
Hurt Machine by Reed Farrel Coleman
A Simple Act of Violence by R.J. Ellory
Field Gray by Philip Kerr
The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson
… What do you think? Did they get it right? Are they waaaay off the mark? I’ve not read all of these, but those that I have certainly deserve to be recognized. I’m a lover of lists. I love them for their throw-away certainty as stable as the weather. I love them as much for their educational potential as for the flimsy controversy they create amongst various sets of nerds, and the cheap geeky thrill of connecting various disparate people/events/nouns.
Here’s one I enjoyed this week from Matthew C. Funk over at The Criminal Complex on 5 Terrifying Crime Films That Actually Happened.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Do you agree? Do I? I dunno, but it’s a fun list and Funk supplies plenty of true crime detail that even a jaded dude like me didn’t know.
Or how about this one where Duane Swierczynski lists his internal soundtrack for writing his latest Hell and Gone over at Elizabeth White’s ever-stellar Musings of an All-Purpose Monkey. Who else ever put Neko Case and Frank Stallone in the same company?
The Revisionists author Thomas Mullen gave a glance inside his creative inspirations with his My Seven Favorite Dystopias in Book and Film list over at the Mulholland Books blog a couple weeks ago, while every Friday, Monkey Justice author Patricia Abbott puts together her Friday’s Forgotten Books list with a little help from her friends and they’re always worth perusing... Every week!
Hardboiled short fiction scribe and Mentalist staff writer Jordan Harper’s Twitter feed has been offering up #murderballadaday and will hit 100 soon. He kindly put together this playlist on YouTube featuring the obvious – Long Black Veil, Stagger Lee, Nebraska and The Night the Lights Went Down in Georgia alongside curveballs and are-they-reallys? (yes they are) like The Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays, Cypress Hill’s How I Could Just Kill a Man and Jim Carroll’s People Who Died.
David James Keaton got carried away and went way overboard listing his favorite movie car chases (in enthusiastic reaction to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive) over at Flywheel Magazine. He just couldn’t stop himself and gave four (count ‘em four) supplemental lists to round out his Gasoline Dreams.
So, hey, join a conversation now (and let me know about it), ‘cause I’m gearing up for arbitrary-lists-that-will-offend-your-opinion-maker season, and plan to offend you plenty. Soon.
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
