What Did you Read Last Month (and which was your favourite)?

[Karen from AustCrime]

Thought it was time for a new topic for readers - what did you read last month? I got through:

Move to Strike, Sydney Bauer
The Bloomsday Dead, Adrian McKinty
The Bad Policeman, Helen Hodgman
The Paris Enigma, Pablo De Santis
The Interrogator, JJ Cooper
The Chalk Circle Man, Fred Vargas
Echoes from the Dead, Johan Theorin

It was a bit of a dead heat for favourite between The Chalk Circle Man and Echoes from the Dead. The most disappointing were probably The Paris Enigma and Move to Strike.

[Sunnie Gill]

Hawaii put a serious dent in the reading - started the month with
Peepshow - Leigh Redhead
The Killing Hands - P.D. Martin
Arctic Chill - Arnaldur Indradison
Bait - Nick Brownlee

A pretty good month after a long reading drought and a slow start with Peepshow. Not the fault of the author, I hasten to add. The Killing Hands helped, kicked along by Arctic Chill and Bait really did the trick.

[Eric Christopherson]

I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. A scary, post-apocalyptic world in which there are no longer any quotation marks and extremely few commas. Brilliant! (But on a strictly emotional level the "happy" ending didn't work for me as well as the rest of the novel. It felt fake.)

I also read Stephen King's Misery. (Brilliant too!) I'm currently re-reading David Morrell's Creepers, which is quite enjoyable the second time around. I'm planning to write a claustrophobic thriller myself, so these two are part of my preparation.

The Song is You by Megan Abbott underwhelmed me (but she had stiff competition this month). I just wasn't much into the main character and thought the historical setting got short thrift.

[Naomi Hirahara]

I started off with Michael Lister's BLOOD OF THE LAMB. Protagonist is a prison chaplain--some great inside prison scenes (Lister is a prison chaplain himself).

Then I began my great sports mystery reading binge:

David Rosenfelt's SUDDEN DEATH
Harlan Coben's FADE AWAY
Alison Gordon's PRAIRIE HARDBALL

I've come to the conclusion that I really enjoy sports mysteries. In terms of character development, Harlan is superb. I love Myron Bolitar, and can't believe that it has taken me this long to get to this series. I'll be reading some sports historicals next, and then returning to Coben and Gordon. Thanks to all the crimespacers who recommended these writers.

[I. J. Parker]

I hate to say this, but I rarely remember mysteries for a whole month.

[Jeff Ross]

McCarthy, The Road. i listened to this while running. don't do this. WAYYY too depressing for anything over 10K. And the scary bits are scarier when you're out on an empty trail.

Steve Hamilton: A lot of them. Finishing A Stolen Season now.

Pelecanos. Shoedog. I love this guys stuff.

Giles Blunt 'Breaking Lorca' Interesting. But while reading it I wanted to get back to 'crime' writing even though you can't get more of a crime than was happening in this novel. A very difficult read.

Malcom Gladwell: Outliers Very interesting stuff

[Dana King]

Shades of Darkness - Peter Robinson
The Ice Harvest - Scott Phillips
Hardcore Hardboiled - Edited by Todd Robinson
Russian Roulette - Austin Camacho
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

Leaving Chandler aside (as it's a re-read) I'd say The Ice Harvest and Hardcore Hardboiled were pretty even to me. Both excellent reads.

[Larry W. Chavis]

FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, Peter Robinson
SWEETHEART, Chelsea Cain
PIG ISLAND, Mo Hyder
FIELD OF BLOOD, Denise Mina
MALICE, Lisa Jackson
THE PSALM KILLER, Chris Petit
GONE, Lisa Gardner

Hands down, THE PSALM KILLER was my favorite, a complex tale of two officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary trying to track down a serial killer in the chaos of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Very well-written.

[John Desjarlais]

I teach American Lit so last month I read an awful lot: modernist short fiction (Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald), modernist poets (TS Eliot, Moore, Pound), Harlem Rennaissance writers (Hughes, Ellison, Hurston, Baldwin with some WEB DuBois thrown in) and - hooray - Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon." What's more "American" than the hard-boiled detective story? (hmm- looking over this list, it appears male-dominant, but over the semester we do read a goodly number of women writers, too).

[Dwight]

I haven't been reading much recently, but while on jury duty for two days I read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' and I have to agree with Eric; gloomy, but brilliant.

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

I read it before Christmas, but found the Road to be simply incredible.

[Jeff Ross]

I probably should have actually read The Road rather than listen to it over the course of a couple of three hour runs.