BOOK REVIEW:The Island by Adrian McKinty

The Island is the latest blockbuster suspense thriller from Adrian McKinty, the author of the best-selling The Chain  and six well-regarded police procedurals with titles based off of Tom Waits lyrics set in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” era featuring a Protestant cop named Sean Duffy. The Chain is well-known for its killer premise, addictive pacing and plot twists; The Island shares several of these attributes.
The premise of The Island is apparently sourced from an actual incident experienced by McKinty that didn’t go as wildly wrong as what happens in the book: a car accident on a private island a short ferry trip from a major city (Melbourne in this case) where a single family has controlled life (and death) for multiple generations. In McKinty’s real-life version the accident was avoided and no one was harmed, but in the version in The Island a young deaf woman rides her bike suddenly into an oncoming car carrying a vacationing American family of four (a 40-something doctor named Tom, his 20-something second wife Heather and two kids, Olivia, 14 and Owen, 12). The parents, make the fateful decision to leave the scene of the accident in the hope they can resolve whatever consequences occur from the comfort and safety of the mainland. This turns out to be a spectacular bad choice that results in multiple violent deaths.

The Island turns into a suspenseful story of survival as the wife and kids are separated from their husband and father and are literally hunted by the few dozen inhabitants of the island. In such an extreme situation, everyone involved is forced to identify their limits and go beyond them in different ways. Olivia and Owen are recovering from the death of their mom, Tom's first wife and are resentful of Heather, who is much closer to their age then she is to their parents. Heather is still getting used to the idea of being responsible for two teenaged kids at the age of 24 and getting to know her new husband who views the world substantially differently from his perch of privilege and experience. That these emotional undercurrents have to be navigated and resolved while they are trying to escape a life-and-death situation on Dutch Island are the primary narrative fuel of The Island.

McKinty does many things quite well in The IslandFirst, he successfully gets the reader to invest in the fate of the characters. He provides the reader with the internal thoughts of multiple characters and uses this mechanism to help the reader connect emotionally with them, especially Heather. Second, he writes action scenes incredibly compellingly, and there is a LOT of action (and violence) in The Island. Third, he is not afraid to have real consequences for the characters for the decisions they make. Because, there are serious (and life-changing) injuries inflicted on multiple characters, this raises the stakes for the reader in speculating about the possible fates for the character or characters we are invested in knowing what happens to in the end.
That’s not to say The Island is not without flaws. It is so obvious about its intent to be breathlessly suspenseful that at times the plot becomes wildly unrealistic and shamelessly manipulative. But once the reader gives into the breakneck pace of the plot and accepts that The Island is going to be a roller-coaster, the book is an enjoyable bit of fluff (and its quite a quick read at 384 pages).

Apparently The Island is being made into a streaming “television” series for Hulu, which I think will work well. I could see it turned into an addictive suspense drama like Fox’s 24 where every hour/episode ends with a cliffhanger.

Overall, I would recommend The Island to anyone who read and enjoyed The Chain (which according to sales figures, critical acclaim and social media buzz, is a LOT of people!).

Title: The Island
Author: Adrian Mckinty.
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 384 pages.
Publisher: Little, Brown.
Date Published: May 17, 2022.
Date Read: November 18, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Chain by Adrian McKinty

The premise of The Chain is so simultaneously insane and ingenious I’m sure every other suspense thriller writer is thinking “I wish I had thought of that!”

I’m a huge fan of the McKinty’s Sean Duffy novels so I’m very pleased that The Chain has brought this excellent author such deserved success. (There are reports it has been optioned to be a major motion picture!)

Many other reviews mention that the book basically has 2 main sections. The first half is based around what happens when our main character, a divorced, cancer-stricken single mom named Rachel has am harrowing encounter with the devious extortion racket known as The Chain. The second half (which I found more compelling) is about what happens to Rachel after she experiences The Chain as well as the backstory of how The Chain came to be.

To me, the depiction of Rachel’s experience with The Chain is so perfectly designed to hit every note in a suspense thriller that I found it slightly tedious. Spunky, resourceful teenage kid! Plucky, resourceful mom! Ne’er-do-well, resourceful “uncle” (wife's ex-husband's brother who happens to be a military veteran with advanced weapons training and access to military-grade hardware)! Unreasonable demands by the bad guys! It’s all just a bit TOO much. Entertaining  but highly caloric.

However, the second half of the book, where we learn more about the psychoses and back story of the individuals behind The Chain are more interesting to me, although one could argue that this aspect of the book is even more cliché than the first half. (Yes, the bad guys were abused as children. Yes, they have done psychotically evil things all their lives. Yes, they are preternaturally smart. Yes, they do things which should have tipped of the people around them.) We also learn more about Rachel in this part of the book, and she gets to exhibit more agency about her life and her future, which is a good thing.

The Chain has a kick-ass, thrilling ending (even with the obligatory unsuccessful last-attempt-by-the-bad-guy-to-snatch-victory-from-defeat). There is a ridiculously improbable coincidence that (barely) motivates the final acceleration of the plot, but this is the kind of book where you just roll with it. One thing is sure, The Chain will make a freaking fantastic movie, and is a fun and exciting read.

Title: The Chain
Author: Adrian McKinty.
Paperback: 368 pages.
Publisher: Mulholland Books.
Date Published: July 9, 2019.
Date Read: September 5, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Missing, Presumed is the first book in the Detective Sargeant Manon Bradshaw series by Susie Steiner. This is a British police procedural murder mystery; if you like the work of Peter Robinson, Deborah Crombie, Val McDermid or Adrian Mckinty I suspect you'll like this. I wouldn't say she's in Tana French's league but I think it's possible she could get there. Missing, Presumed is a strong debut (and as I have said before, oftentimes the first book in a series is not the best) so it is notable how good the first entry is. The story is about a missing blonde white woman named Edith Hinds whose parents regularly socialize with the Home Secretary (chief law enforcement officer of the country, basically the American equivalent of the Attorney General). The plot takes a surprisingly sapphic turn as bodies start showing up during the missing persons investigation, however none of the bodies are of the missing girl. There are other surprises I did not see coming that make this book a satisfying read. DS Manon Bradshaw is quite an interesting character as the protagonist. She has numerous bad habits and is more than a bit of an asshole. But she also is incredibly generous (by the end of the book). Along with DS Bradshaw we get first person accounts from other members of the police team (DC Davy Walker, DI Harriet Harper) as well as from the mother of the missing girl (Miriam Hinds). The fact that the main character is a 39-year-old single female who is desperately lonely is an interesting aspect of the book which may put off some but to me (favorably) differentiated Missing, Presumed from other books in the same genre. (I received this book from NetGalley in return for an objective review.) Title: Missing, Presumed. Author: Susie Steiner. Paperback: 400 pages. Publisher: The Borough Press. Date Published: February 25, 2016. Date Read: January 15, 2017. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0). PLOT: A-. IMAGERY: B+. IMPACT: A-. WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Silent Scream (DI Kim Stone, #1) by Angela Marsons

This is the first book I have read that was written by Angela Marsons featuring Detective Inspector Kim Stone. 

I am a big fan of the police procedurals, and recently seem to be discovering a new niche category: the British police procedural featuring psychologically damaged female protagonists. Could this be a reaction to PBS’ Prime Suspect series (based in the work by Lynda La Plante)? Examples of books that fit into the category I’m talking about include the work of Robert Bryndza (featuring DCI Erika Foster), Angela Marsons (featuring DI Kim Stone) and to a lesser extent Stuart MacBride’s DI Roberta Steel.

That being said, there are a lot of male protagonists of murder-mysteries that have checkered pasts: Agent Will Trent (by Karin Slaughter), DI Tom Thorne (by Mark Billingham), Sean Duffy by Adrian McKinty and (of course) DI John Rebus by Ian Rankin.

This phenomenon can also be explained by the observation that it’s obviously hard to sustain a multi-book series centered around a specific protagonist if they don’t have vast wells of character development and/or psychological angst to plumb and explore through multiple volumes.

Clearly DI Kim Stone has a lot of this drama which we will learn more about as the series continues. What we already know from the first book Silent Scream is that she was in “care” (equivalent of child protective services) from around age 6 and that she had a twin brother who died due to some misbehavior by her biological mother, who is still alive but that Kim clearly despises.

So of course it turns out that the first mystery where we meet Kim Stone involves the murder/disappearance of three girls at a care facility for teenage girls a few decades ago as well as the contemporary murder of 3 staff members who used to work at the facility.

In my opinion, an important component of a successful series is the quality or complexity of the sidekicks or secondary characters. In the case of Kim Stone the side characters are not that interesting but she more than makes up for it by being such a strong-willed and complicated character all by herself

Overall, Silent Scream  is an intricately plotted mystery and quite suspenseful thriller. I look forward to reading others in the DI Kim Stone series.

3.5 Stars.

Title: Silent Scream (DI Kim Stone, #1).
Author: Angela Marsons.
Paperback: 390 pages.
Publisher: Bookouture.
Date Published: February 20, 2015.
Date Read: June 16, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham

Sleepyhead is the first book in the DI Tom Thorne series by Mark Billingham. It is yet another British detective murder-mystery series, this time set in London, and has multiple similarities to many other British police procedurals by the likes of Ian Rankin (John Rebus), Stuart MacBride (Logan McRae), Robert Bryndza (Erica Foster), Adrian McKinty (Sean Duffy), Val McDermid (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan), Peter Robinson (Alan Banks) and Susie Steiner (Manon Bradshaw).

Of course the first thing these books have in common is the promotion system (Detective Constable, Detective Sergeant, Detective Inspector, Detective Chief Inspector, etc). Another aspect these books have in common is a protagonist who either has a colorful past or problematic character traits (and in many cases, they have both). A third common feature all of these British police procedural mystery books have is the frequent consumption of copious amounts of alcohol and tea.

Tom Thorne definitely falls into the category of a main character who has a colorful past and problematic personality. When we (the reader) meet Tom in Sleepyhead, there are cryptic references to the Calvert case, apparently an old case which clearly still haunts and troubles him. When we find out about his latest case, which involves the murder of multiple women by someone using a similar modus operandi (stalking a single woman, being invited in to their abode, injecting them with a very specialized anesthetic and then inducing a stroke, which in all but one case is fatal) we learn that Tom has a reputation for being somewhat of a lone wolf and a loose cannon. Even though Tom acts on his hunches a lot, he’s not always wrong. For example, he figures out that the victim who survived the latest attack is not a failure by the serial killer; the “locked-in” state is what the perpetrator wanted to happen. It was the losses of life that were unintentional.

The problematic aspects of Tom’s personality reveal themselves pretty extensively as the story precedes. He quickly latches on to a theory of the case and identifies a prime suspect for which there is almost no confirming evidence, a fact none of his superior officers will let him ignore. He enters into a romantic (and sexual) relationship with a very close friend and confidant of this suspect. When the perpetrator (and target of his investigation) starts directly interacting with Tom through notes and a physical attack Tom gets himself re-assigned to another unit but continues his investigation (focused on the suspect he is convinced is guilty despite the absence of evidence). 

One notable feature of Sleepyhead is that the writing is significantly more lyrical than what is typical in the British police procedural/murder mystery genre in my experience.

In some ways I think this attention to style over substance is a problem sometimes. For example, I felt that there were several key action scenes in Sleepyhead where instead of clearly stating what action was occurring, the text actually obscured what was going on and this forced me to read the passage more than once.

Another notable feature of Sleepyhead is the inclusion of a first person perspective from one of the early victims of the perpetrator (the one who survived but now is “locked-in” her body with no control over it except for the ability to blink).

Overall, I found Sleepyhead to be quite compelling, although I was somewhat repelled by Tom Thorne’s character and often annoyed by the ornate nature of the prose at times. However, the cleverness of the plot and the deployment of the suspense and mystery elements were impressive enough that I am looking forward to exploring the rest of the books in this popular series.

Title: Sleepyhead.
Author: Mark Billingham.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Avon Books.
Date Published: May 1, 2003.
Date Read: March 15, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Police At The Station And They Don't Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty

Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly is the  sixth (and perhaps last?) book in the Inspector Sean Duffy series by Adrian McKinty. It is quite a corker, and probably the best in this quirky mystery thriller series set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s when "the Troubles" were at their peak. It is a good sign about the quality of these books that I had previously  said that the fifth book in the series, Rain Dogs, was clearly the best. (It was on my list of favorite books read in 2016.) The Duffy books just keep getting better and better!

The book begins with a scene where our protagonist is in such mortal peril that the reader is confronted with reality that this might be the end of the road for our favorite Catholic detective with the snobbish music tastes who has been trying to solve murders in a setting where religious factions (Catholics and Protestants) are frequently torturing and killing each other (and the forces trying to maintain order) with abandon.

However, after beginning with a literal bang, the next chapter is set in some unspecified amount of time in the past where we discover that Sean is living (in sin) with the mother of his months-old baby girl, Emma, and generally bored out of his mind with no murders to solve when a very strange one falls into his lap. (A drug dealer is shot to death with a crossbow, and it's the second time in as many days someone has been shot with such a medieval weapon.)

One feature of the Sean Duffy thrillers is that the plots get unbelievably complicated and they entangle people at highest levels of British and Irish society that one would not think that a local copper in a small suburb of Belfast (Carrickfergus) would have any chance of interacting with, let alone collaring. Another feature is the deployment of mystifying (to American ears and eyes) of Irish slang which gives the series a sense of verisimilitude and exoticism which is both appealing and off-putting (simultaneously!) The amusing titles of the books apparently come from lines from Tom Waits songs.

In Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly the fine line Duffy has been walking as a Catholic member of the occupying British police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) becomes untenable as many mutual enemies (such as the Catholic IRA, the Protestant paramilitaries and the British military establishment) decide the time has come to eliminate their common irritant, our "fenian" [an anti-Catholic slur] hero.

Mckinty pulled off an interesting bit of fore-shadowing by giving the reader a chance to grapple with Duffy's demise in the beginning of the novel before resolving the question of his main character's mortality in a way which is ultimately satisfying. (Yes, I am being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.)

All of the above being said, if this is the final Duffy book I will not be sad or mad as I think McKinty has managed to bring Duffy through very many improbably survivable situations before and I have enjoyed the journey as long as it lasted. It is hard to see how McKinty could (or can) continue to sustain the increasingly high quality of the Duffy series if it were to continue. However, we will just have to wait and see!

Title: Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly
Author: Adrian McKinty.
Paperback: 322 pages.
Publisher: Seventh Street Books.
Date Published: March 7, 2017.
Date Read: April 15, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.

BOOK REVIEW: The Dry by Jane Harper

The Dry is the celebrated debut mystery novel by Jane Harper which won the Gold Dagger Award for best mystery novel of 2016 recently. This puts Harper in territory with other impressive writers in this genre whose work I have enjoyed (Val McDermid, Henning Mankell and Patricia Cornwell). Sadly, other favorites like Tana French, Stuart MacBride, Ian Rankin and Adrian McKinty have not done so (yet!)

I think The Dry is quite good, and somewhat reminiscent of another widely celebrated debut mystery, In The Woods (2010) by Tana French. The writing is similarly sumptuous and the story is bolstered by the strength of the characters and the description of the deep emotional ties that link them and strengthen the impact of the book on the reader.

In The Dry, there are two mysteries at the heart of the plot. Who brutally shot and killed Aaron Falk's former childhood best friend Luke Hadler along with Hadler's wife and son with a shotgun at close range? Does it have to do with the fact that 20-something years ago Luke lied to give his best friend an alibi for the mysterious death of their common friend Ellie Deacon who was at the apex of a complicated teen love triangle involving the two friends? Again this plot is reminiscent of French's debut where the main character is trying to solve a disappearance/murder of a child decades after he survived the murder/abduction of himself and his best friends. In Aaron's case, despite Luke's alibi the suspicion about his involvement in Ellie's death has hung over his head for years, especially since soon afterwards he and his dad were essentially run out of their small town by Ellie's dad, the town's most prominent citizen.

Despite winning the Gold Dagger I disagree that Harper's The Dry, is as devastatingly good a work of fiction as French's In The Woods. This doesn't mean Harper shouldn't have won the Gold Dagger, it is really a complaint that French has not won yet, and that she should have won for her debut as well. 

Anyway one reason I think Harper's debut is inferior to French's is that there are definitely flaws in The Dry. For example, there are several aspects of the story which are easy to figure out, and the revelation of the killer of Luke and his family is presented in an almost matter-of-fact fashion after spending a few hundred pages misdirecting the reader with other clues and red herrings. 

Despite its flaws, the book has very strong features as well. First among these is the sense of place in The Dry. It is set in Kiewarra, a very small town in the middle of nowhere in Australia which has been greatly impacted by a long-running drought. Secondly, the main character of Aaron Falk is interesting, and the back story of his life in Kiewarra and the connections he has to almost all the suspects and residents of the town add a frisson to the work.

Overall, I would agree that The Dry is an impressive debut but I would hesitate to declare this the best mystery I have read this year. However, I will definitely look forward to spending time with Aaron Falk, wherever his next (mis)adventure takes him. The second book, Force of Nature, should be out early in 2018.

Title: The Dry.
Author: Jane Harper.
Paperback: 336 pages.
Publisher: Flatiron Books.
Date Published: January 10, 2017.
Date Read: October 28, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

My Favorite Books Read In 2016 (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery and Thriller)

In 2016 I read 60 books; as usual almost all of these were novels, primarily in the genres of mystery/thriller and fantasy/science fiction. Interestingly, the books that I read the in 2016 were  pretty evenly split between the genres of science fiction (19), fantasy (17), and mystery (19) with a few books falling into both categories or neither. (In 2014 mystery/thriller predominated my reading list while in 2015 more than half the books I read that year were science fiction. In 2016, surprisingly no particular genre dominated.

I was introduced to some new authors in 2016 (Adrian McKinty, Michael J. Sullivan, Deborah Crombie, Ramez Naam, Elizabeth George and Adrian Tchaikovsky) whom I look forward to reading more of their books in the future. In 2016 I read my first book by Stephen King  as an adult and was pleasantly surprised by how good the alternative-history/time-travel book 11/22/63 is. I will definitely try to read more of his non-horror work which falls into my favorite genres in the future.

Happily in 2016 lots of authors whose work has previously been some of my favorite reads released books that I read (Ben Winters, Tana French, Peter Hamilton, Daniel Abraham, Ian Rankin, Brian Staveley, Michael Connelly, Patrick Tomlinson, Peter Robinson and Alastair Reynolds). There's a notable absence from this list: for the first time in 6 years I did not read a book from The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. The sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, was released in December 2016 but I didn't read it until my Hawaii vacation in January 2017. Another favorite author, Brent Weeks published The Black Mirror (Lightbringer, #4) in 2016 but I am sav(or)ing this to be read later in 2017.

I'm always looking for more good books and authors to add to my "To Be Read (TBR)" pile! Feel free to make suggestions of books or authors you think I would like in the comments after seeing what books have resonated with me previously.

Below are my favorite reads for 2016 in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery and Thriller.

Favorite Science Fiction Novel Read In 2016: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Reading Children of Time was one of the most exciting reading  experiences I had in 2016. Part of the emotional impact that the book had on me is that it was so unexpected. Although I had heard of the author's work before, I thought that Tchaikovsky was known for his epic fantasy works. I list space opera as my favorite genre, and usually it ends up being my favorite sub-genre in science fiction (and quite often it is a book by either Peter Hamilton or James S.A. Corey  in 2015 and 2014) but this year Children of Time just stole my heart and blew my mind.  It is an unusual story that combines two classic elements of science fiction: the depiction of the social dynamics of an arkship which presumably contains all that remains of humanity and the development of an alien civilization with quite unique cultural characteristics and social structure. What both of these plots have in common is that the book goes over multiple generations of each, so the passage of time is an important ingredient of the salience of the story's impact. Although I would love to spend more time with the characters and the setting of Children of Time it was also nice to read a completely self-contained story that does not depend on any sequels to advance or complete the story.

Runner-Up in Favorite Science Fiction Novel Read In 2016: Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters.

I have previously discussed how since I love science fiction/fantasy and mystery/thriller that I am always looking for books that combine these two genres. In fact last year, my two favorite mysteries were also science fiction books. The first of these was the Last Policeman trilogy written by Ben Winters. This year Winters is on my list of favorites in the science fiction category even though Underground Airlines is also a police procedural and mystery-thriller. What makes it science fiction is that it is written in an alternate time line where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated soon after his election in 1861 and the enactment of five "compromise" constitutional amendments result in slavery being maintained until the 21st century in a few stubborn states in the Union (Carolinas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama). The setting is so compelling that it was easily the book that I thought about the most long after I finished it. What the premise does is allow the reader to clearly see the horrifying possibility that slavery could have been maintained for another century and a half in our world and how similar to our actual world that warped universe is. This is mordant social commentary with an exciting  plot wrapped around it.

Honorable Mention (Science Fiction):  A Night Without Stars (The Chronicle of the Fallers, #2) by Peter Hamilton.
My favorite science fiction author is Peter Hamilton so it should not be a surprise that his sequel to The Abyss Beyond Dreams, the concluding novel in another exciting duology written in the Commonwealth Universe would be on my list of favorite books read in 2016. A Night Without Stars was not as good as the first book in the series but even midrange Hamilton is a lot better than the vast majority of science fiction out there. Again, although Hamilton is known for his space opera and military science fiction a key aspect of the story in The Chronicle of the Fallers is a detailed depiction of a social revolution against a totalitarian regime where some people have telepathic and telekinetic powers and there are deadly shape-shifting aliens attempting to subsume human civilization. Lots of fun!

Favorite Fantasy Novel Read Novel In 2016: The Last Mortal Bond (The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, #3) by Brian Staveley

In 2015 my favorite read in the category of fantasy was the first book in Brian Staveley's The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, The Emperor's New Blades so I am quite pleased that the concluding work in the same series, The Last Mortal Bond, ended up being my favorite read in the same category in 2016. And this was a tough category to repeat in because I read quite a few fantasy books this year. However Staveley is the real deal and I totally expect him to join the (rather short) list of my favorite fantasy authors: Brent Weeks, Peter Brett, Daniel Abraham and Michael Sullivan. The reason why Staveley is on this list at the top spit is that The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne is simply the best. The story generally revolves around three main characters: Kaden, Adare and Valyn, who are the surviving children of an assassinated emperor. However, as the story develops we see that it is really an existential battle between humanity and god-like, immortal beings. There are giant flying birds, armies of thousands fighting against each other and devotees of various gods and goddesses all fighting for power and control over the Empire. Oh and of course there is some love and betrayal as well, for good measure. And all of it is told at a thrilling pace with humor and wit which is incredibly engaging.

Runner-Up Favorite Fantasy Read in 2016:  Heir of Novron (The Riyria Chronicles, #3) by Michael J. Sullivan 

Speaking of wit and humor immediately brings us to the work of Michael J. Sullivan, who I first read in 2016. He started as a self-published author and although there's nothing wrong with that, I believe that was one of the reasons why I never picked up any of his books. But eventually, the tens of thousands of ratings on Goodreads (with an average well above 4.0 on a 5-point scale) were convincing enough to me that I decided to try the first book, Theft of Swords, in one of his series, The Riyria Chronicles. I was amazed at how funny and thrilling the books are, even if they do have wizards and princesses and swords. They simply are great books, built around two amazing characters Hadrian Blackwater and  Royce Melborn. What is so impressive about what Sullivan does is that even as he is repeating all the classical fantasy tropes he is simultaneously reinventing and disrupting them. (For example, in Heir of Novron there's a quest by a motley collection of travelers who have multiple reasons to betray each other, there's an orphaned waif who becomes the leader of the Empire, and of course there are several sets of star-crossed lovers.)  But the core of the books is the relationship between two (straight) guys who are very different but manage to forge a bond that has them surviving some quite harrowing (and sometimes hilarious) situations. Honestly, it was hard to know which of the books in the Riyria Chronicles to put on this list, but because Heir of Novron also has the added benefit of providing a pay off to thousands of pages of text I selected it to represent the runner-up best fantasy book I read in 2016. Don't make the mistake I made, read the Riyria books by Michael J. Sullivan as soon as you can--you won't regret it!

Honorable Mention (Fantasy): The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin, #5) by Daniel Abrahams
Earlier entries in Daniel Abraham's fantastic series about fanaticism, banking and war, The Dagger and the Coin, have made it into my list of Favorite Fantasy books of the year. (Book 4, The Widow's House, was the runner-up in this category in 2014.)  Of course Abrahams is one-half of the duo who writes The Expanse series as James S.A. Corey so it is incredible that while they were churning out a book a year in that series, Abraham has been churning out a book a year in this series as well. Both of those schedules slipped this year, but The Spider's War was released early enough that I was able to complete it in 2016. Although it is not as consistently a high-quality read as some of the earlier entries in the series, it still manages to stick the landing quite well and resolve all the myriad plot points and various story threads that have developed over the course of five books, and for doing a good job at a hard task, The Spider's War deserves an Honorable Mention.

Favorite Mystery Novel Read In 2016: The Trespasser (Dublin Murder Squad, #6) by Tana French

After a somewhat disappointing fifth entry into her Dublin Murder Squad Series with The Secret Place, Tana French restored her place as my favorite mystery author with The Trespasser. There are books that you look forward to and are willing to wait for at the library, and there are books that you immediately order on Amazon once you know they are available (and there are even books that you pre-order on Amazon once you hear a rumor that they may be coming out soon.) Needless to say, The Trespasser showed up on my doorstep on its day of release and although I denied myself the pleasure of starting to read it right away, it was totally worth the wait. For the first time, French deviates from using her unique method of selecting the detectives who will be protagonists in her latest book from secondary characters from previous entries in the series. The detectives that appeared in The Secret Place, Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway, also appear in The Trespasser. What makes French's mysteries so good is that the questions raised are not only about who did the crime and why did they do it, but they often involve questions about the people trying to solve the crime as well. Conway is the only female member of the Dublin Murder Squad and Moran is the most junior member, and the fact that they are paired together as partners reflect the marginality of both on the squad.  One of the key mysteries in The Trespasser is not only will Conway and Moran find out who killed Aislinn Murray, but also will Conway and Moran continue to be working together as police detectives and will both of them actually be on the police force by the end? The result is that The Trespasser rivals her Broken Harbour as the best of Ms. French's superlative mysteries.

Runner-Up Favorite Mystery Novel Read in 2016: Rain Dogs (Sean Duffy, #5) by Adrian McKinty

One of the key discoveries I made in 2016 were the Inspector Sean Duffy  books by Adrian McKinty. These are a series of police procedurals set in the suburbs of Belfast, Northern Ireland at the height of the "Troubles" in the mid-1980s. I'm already a sucker for police procedurals, having consumed several books of this type written by Ian Rankin (DI John Rebus in Edinburgh), Peter Robinson (DCI Alan Banks in Yorkshire), Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch in Los Angeles), Jo Nesbø (Harry Hole in Oslo, Norway), Jussi Adler-Olsen (Department Q series in Copenhagen), Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad) and Henning Mankell (Kurt Wallander in Ystad, Sweden). McKinty's Sean Duffy series is familiar because it is a police procedural but the setting of an all-consuming, civil war between two religious factions. Of course, Duffy is a nice Catholic boy who is a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer in Carrickfergus, a predominantly Protestant section of Northern Ireland (which also just happens to be the name of the real town that McKinty grew up in.) The Duffy books are complicated by the fact that not only is Duffy trying to solve murders in a time and place when people are getting blown up and killed horribly by faithful adherents from both sides, is that he also somehow gets involved in cases that attract the attention of M.I.5 (the British domestic counter-intelligence agency equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation). The Duffy books are bit more than your everyday police-procedural murder-mystery; they have significant elements of spy thriller components, all embedded in oft-amusing commentary on the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, Rain Dogs is particularly good. I devoured all five of the available entries in the Duffy series in about a month, with each one even more enjoyable (and compelling) than the one before.

Honorable Mention (Mystery):  Even Dogs in the Wild (Inspector John Rebus, #20) by Ian Rankin and In The Dark Places (Chief Inspector Alan Banks, #22) by Peter Robinson.
I realized when I wrote this post that I have never acknowledged the mysteries of Ian Rankin or Peter Robinson as one my year-end favorites, but between the two of them I have read nearly four dozen of their books. They are somewhat similar, in that they are both police procedurals built around male detectives in Great Britain. Rankin's John Rebus is located in Edinburgh and its environs while Robinson's Alan Banks is located in Northern England (Yorkshire). The two have complicated relationships with both their underlings and superior officers. After reading so many of these stories, they are familiar, comforting and highly recommended. (Please note, each of the series gets better as they go along. If you start from Book 1, hang in there because they get really good later on. For Rebus, I would say it is the award-winning Resurresction Men and for Banks is In A Dry Season.)

Favorite Thriller Novel Read In 2016: Apex (Nexus, #3) by Ramez Naam.

I had heard of Ramez Naam's Nexus trilogy for years (at least as long as I had heard of Marcus Sakey's Brilliamce saga). The two are somewhat similar, since they are both techno-thrillers in a sense. Both depict the development of technology which tends to upend the natural balance of our world and then depicts the aftermath by following its effect on the main characters. In the Nexus trilogy, Naam's killer idea is the development of a drug called Nexus which allows one to code the human brain like an operating system, and also eventually connect to (and possibly control) these Nexus-enhanced brains remotely through a network. Naam's work is even more political than Sakey's because he raises a lot of nuanced issues about the nature of technology and the questions that the creator of a paradigm-shifting technology faces. For me, Naam's work resonates even more than Sakey's because his main character is a graduate student who has this amazing idea and dreams of academic success. Naam depicts the protocols, beliefs and cultural touchstones of the academic scientific world in a way that I immediately identified. However, additionally, the Nexus books are also action-packed, as another question that they raise is the time-honored dilemma of when (or if) the ends justify the means of achieving one's aims. The books are set about 25 years in the future, so technically they are science fiction as well as techno-thrillers which could be another reason I liked them so much. I read all three books in the trilogy, Nexus, Crux and Apex in about a week and they were an extremely fun ride, they most exhilarating reads I had in 2016.

Runner-Up Favorite Thriller Read in 2016: Beyond Reach (Grant County, #6)  by Karin Slaughter

I discovered Karin Slaughter last year, and Blindsighted the first book in her Grant County series made an immediate impression on me, grabbing an Honorable Mention for Favorite Thriller Read in 2015. I basically devoured the rest of the six books in the Grant County series in 2016 and am currently working my way through her 9-book Will Trent series in 2017. Slaughter is a crime thriller writer who also combines romantic tension between her main characters. The Grant County series is built around a trio of characters: Sara Linton, Jeffrey Tolliver and Lena Adams. Adams and Tolliver are police officers and Linton is Tolliver's ex-wife and the coroner in a very small South Georgia town. Through intricate plotting and clever deployment of point-of-view chapters, Slaughter weaves a compelling tale where the lives and loves of these main characters are intertwined with each other in increasingly complex ways. This is done while they solve always-heinous crimes (which almost always involve extremely sexualized and brutal violence against women) that often result in one or more of our main characters being placed into extreme peril (thus the thriller aspect). Beyond Reach is the most devastating of the books in this regard, with an ending which is absolutely devastating to the reader.

Honorable Mention (Thriller): World in Fire (Brilliance, #3) by Marcus Sakey.
The Brilliance series by Marcus Sakey is a very fun trilogy of science-fiction thrillers set in the near-future where 1% of the children being born are "special"--they have extraordinary mental and physical powers which could lead them to take over the world if allowed to develop unchecked. Sakey imagines how our world would react to this change and follows the story to a logical conclusion (which he provides in the third book) as time moves forward and the Brilliants and the Normals struggle for power and control. The main attractive feature of the books (besides its exciting, premise, which is admittedly derivative or reminiscent of Marvel's X-men) is Sakey's propulsive writing. The books simply zip along at a breakneck pace. Additionally, he does quite a good job of giving a realistic depiction of how the U.S. government and society would react to the presence of "Brilliants" among us. This sense of verisimilitude and the quality of the writing make the Brilliance saga one of my highlighted reads of the year.