The Good Stuff: Books of 2010

No top ten this year. Instead here’s a pick six, the half-dozen crime novels I commend to you unreservedly, listed in the order read. Click through to the original posts for more.

Print the Legend, by Craig McDonald. Yes, technically I read it in 2009. But I remembered it.

Do They Know I’m Running?, by David Corbett. Yes, Corbett is a friend. But leaving his brilliant heartbreaker off the list wouldn’t have been fair to you. And aren’t we friends, too?

Memory, by Donald E. Westlake. Yes, it was written almost 5 decades ago. But it wasn’t published until this year. And it gave me nightmares, so it makes the cut.

Infamous, by Ace Atkins. The best of the three Atkins novels I read this year.

The Big Bang, by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. Started by the first, finished by the second and the most fun you’ll have between two covers.

Savages, by Don Winslow. A game-changer for the author and my favorite of the year.

The non-crime fiction jury prize goes to Rut by Scott Phillips. For ingenuity in content and in distribution.

2010 was also the year I finally caved and bought an e-reader, and I haven’t looked back. That purchase is directly responsible for my favorite novels that were new to me: Solomon’s Vineyard, Jonathan Latimer (1941), Fast One, Paul Cain (1932) and especially I Should Have Stayed Home, Horace McCoy (1938).