Recommended Reading

For folks pondering Anthony Award nominations, I wanted to share some of my favorite eligible titles. If you’re not doing nominations, please consider this a list of books I’d recommend you read.

They’re in no particular order. Some of these are books I was lucky enough to work on, and all are ones I loved reading. I’m quite certain I will forget to include some books I should and I still have 2015 releases in my TBR stack, so please feel free to point these out!

Where books are eligible in multiple categories, I’ve listed those in parentheses.

BEST NOVEL

The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes by Lawrence Block (Paperback Original and Audiobook)
Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger (Audiobook)
Time of Death by Mark Billingham (Audiobook)
Young Americans by Josh Stallings (Paperback Original and Audiobook)
Come to Harm by Catriona McPherson (Paperback Original)
The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson
The Mercy of the Night by David Corbett (Paperback Original and Audiobook)
Behind Closed Doors by Elizabeth Haynes (Paperback Original)
Trust No One by Paul Cleave (Audiobook)
Monday’s Lie by Jamie Mason (Audiobook)
Brush Back by Sara Paretsky (Audiobook)
Fear the Darkness by Becky Masterman (Audiobook)
Life or Death by Michael Robotham (Audiobook)
Canary by Duane Swierczynski (Audiobook)
A Song of Shadows by John Connolly (Audiobook)
Blood Foam by Brendan DuBois
What You See by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Audiobook)
Follow You Home by Mark Edwards (Paperback Original and Audiobook)
Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins by Reed Farrel Coleman (Audiobook)
A Killing at the Creek by Nancy Allen (Paperback Original)
Taking Pity by David Mark (Audiobook)
The Life I Left Behind by Colette McBeth (Audiobook)
No Other Darkness by Sarah Hilary (Paperback Original)

BEST FIRST NOVEL

(I didn’t read many of these released in 2015!)

Yellow Death by Alex Lettau (Novel and Paperback Original)
Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich (Novel)
Concrete Angel by Patricia Abbott (Paperback Original and Audiobook)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

See above

BEST SHORT STORY

I told myself that I really should mention that the story I wrote, Old Hands, that’s in “Dark City Lights” is eligible in this category. After much debate, I’ve listened to myself. So there you go.

The Little Men by Megan Abbott, “Bibliomysteries”
The Lady Upstairs by Jill D. Block, “Dark City Lights”
The Safest Form of Conveyance by Jim Fusilli, “Dark City Lights”
The Big Snip by Thomas Pluck, “Dark City Lights”
Holmes On the Range by John Connolly, “Night Music”
The Travelling Companion by Ian Rankin, “Bibliomysteries”

BEST CRITICAL OR NONFICTION WORK

The Crime of our Lives by Lawrence Block

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Dark City Lights, edited by Lawrence Block

BEST AUDIOBOOK