I cannot thank my readers enough for the support of Henry's latest outing, Fall For Their Lies.
A big part of being a writer is of course being a reader. Writing can be lonely enough at times, you wouldn't want to restrict your literary world to the words your own brain dumps out. Since I now work in a library, my choice of reading feels infinite at times. However, writing crime means I tend to drift to crime novels.
My goal this year was to read more of the library I have at home - those books you buy that end up waaaay down on the to-be-read pile. If I'm honest, I managed to dedicate ~30% of my reading this year to those titles. The other 70% were books from my library, either in print or ebook format (mostly print). So, my goal next year has two parts: a) ~40% of my reading getting through my home library, and b) reading far more genres than crime. To be fair, I was a judge for the Australasian Shadows Awards for the second year in a row, and that's all horror, baby. And I read more fantasy novels than I have in previous years.
This post is about my favourite reads, though. Like most writers/readers, once a year I put out a list of books I thoroughly enjoyed. During the year, I rate each book I finish out of 5. For the purposes of this list, anything mentioned scored 3.75/5 or higher. I have listed the titles in the order I read them, from January to December, so it's not in a numerical ratings order. Not everything was released in 2024, so it's not a best books of 2024 list.
Like my novels before my wife's editorial input, I've been rambling. Here are my favourite reads of 2024 (see the end of the post for a condensed version):
Velvet - Ed Brubaker (Graphic novel, complete series)
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect - Benjamin Stevenson
The Good Dog - Simon Rowell
Lone Wolf - Gregg Hurwitz
The Quiet People - Paul Cleave
An Honest Man - Michael Koryta
Malice - Keigo Higashino
All The Sinners Bleed - S.A. Cosby
River of Salt - Dave Warner
The Runaway - Nick Petrie
Listen for the Lie - Amy Tintera
The Newcomer - Keigo Higashino
The Gathering - C J Tudor
If This Books Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe - Jason Pargin / David Wong
The Night Shift - Alex Finlay
What Have We Done - Alex Finlay
His Favourite Graves - Paul Cleave
The Price You Pay - Nick Petrie
If Something Happens to Me - Alex Finlay
We Solve Murders - Richard Osman
Every Last Fear - Alex Finlay
A Death in Tokyo - Keigo Higashino
When it Rains - Dave Warner
Prize Catch - Alan Carter
The Ledge - Christian White
Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu
Sanctuary - Garry Disher
Dusk - Robbie Arnott
To Die For - David Baldacci
Hotel Lucky Seven - Kotaro Isaka
I hope you give some of these a try. As you can see, I discovered a couple of favourite authors I should have been reading years ago, namely Alex Finlay and Paul Cleave. I ventured into Keigo Higashino's other detective series (Detective Kaga), and read many of my staple favourites.
If you want a condensed version, my highest-rated titles were (all receiving the same score):
Velvet - Ed Brubaker (Graphic novel, complete series)
If Something Happens to Me - Alex Finlay We Solve Murders - Richard Osman
When it Rains - Dave Warner
Comments