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2007 REVIEWER PICKS
Recently we asked our reviewers to provide us with a list of some of their favorite books from 2007. Included is a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, all published this year. Take a moment to read these varied lists of titles, and see if you agree with their selections! Please note that due to personal and professional commitments, some reviewers were not able to participate in this feature.
Tom Callahan
- NORTH RIVER by Pete Hamill
Hamill has long been one of America's greatest journalists and word craftsmen. Here he produces a heartbreakingly romantic historical novel set in New York City during the Great Depression. The book is further testimony to the author's lifelong love affair with the city of his birth. The descriptive writing is incredible, but Hamill has also created characters who will live on with you long after you put down the book. This is book of hope and rebirth in a hard world teetering on the brink of destruction.
- THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST by Norman Mailer
This is the last novel by one of the greatest American writers of all time. And the book illustrates why there never will be another Mailer. Mailer wrote big, complicated, often difficult books. They were a throwback to a time when serious fiction mattered in American culture. Mailer wrote fearlessly to the end about the big issues of life: good vs. evil, God vs. Satan. In CASTLE, he imagines the origins of Adolf Hitler. And the results are fascinating and sometimes disturbing to read. Mailer made readers think. He will be missed.
- SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas
Hands down, the best mystery novel of the year. It might be the best mystery written in America in years. Aleas is the pen name of Charles Ardai, founder of Hard Case Crime, the paperback publishing house created to keep hard-boiled, noir fiction alive. And this book does exactly that and packs a punch that left me breathlessly turning the pages. A brave and genre-shattering mystery. Aleas has channeled here the noir spirit of Jim Thompson.
- SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
Another Hard Case Crime novel makes my list this year, which shows the impact this publishing house is having after only a few years in existence. The Irish writer Bruen and the American writer Starr teamed up in 2006 to write BUST. Now they return with some of the main characters of the first book and a series is born. We hope. And in the character of Angela, they have created a fiery Irishwoman who may be one of the best female antiheros ever. Think Barbara Stanwyck meets Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction, except much, much tougher. Keep collaborating, gentlemen.
- UP IN HONEY'S ROOM by Elmore Leonard
Some good news this year. After an absence of a year, the great Elmore Leonard returned with a new mystery. People have been trying to copy Leonard's distinctive writing style for decades, but nobody does it better than the master himself. And speaking of great female characters, Leonard introduces us here to Honey Deal, who hopefully we will meet again in a future book. And the typical Leonard plot takes us on a wild ride with Nazi spies, a Himmler look-alike and a U.S. Marshall. The ride is so much fun that we don't want it to end.
- THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN by James Lee Burke
This is a sad and angry look at the murder of an American city by a storm called Katrina. For those who don't think fiction, especially mystery fiction, can't have anything to say about current events, Burke proves them wrong. Burke has long written elegies to the South Louisiana of his youth. This might be his best. BLOWDOWN is especially harrowing because we know the scenes he described really did happen in August 2005. The winds may have died down and the water receded, but the nation has moved on and largely forgotten, which may be the greatest tragedy of all. This is a powerful book that both entertains and keeps memory alive.
Sarah Rachel Egelman
Harvey Freedenberg
Maggie Harding
Joe Hartlaub, Senior Writer
Once again, this year has brought us an embarrassment of riches. And 2008 looks like it will do the same.
I was asked to pick 10 books that were my favorites of the year and gave up after paring the list --- with great difficulty --- down to 30. I literally picked the following 10 titles out of a hat from my final list. That should neither lessen the quality of the books listed nor imply defects in those I haven't mentioned. Again, it was a wonderful year to be a reader, and we should give a prayer of thanks for the authors, editors and publishers who get these works out there.
- PRIEST by Ken Bruen
A brutally poetic work, by turns hilarious and sorrowful (often in the same sentence) from the first page to the very last, wherein Bruen sends Jack Taylor on a stiff-legged 50-mile march through sobriety as he reluctantly searches for the murderer of a child-molesting priest.
- HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill
A debut novel with an absolutely wretched premise --- semi-retired guitar god buys a ghost over the Internet --- was so riveting in its execution that I was compelled to read it in one sitting. If Hill chooses to publish his shopping list, I will reserve a copy.
- BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (VERY, VERY, VERY) BAD DAY by Toni McGee Causey
This genre-bending novel has been described (by me) as "Die Hard In A Swamp," but it is so much more than that --- a thriller, a mystery, a romance informed by the subtle message that even among the least of us there are worthy heroes who do quiet good works day by day.
- THE LAST JEW STANDING by Michael Simon
In the short course of three novels Simon has demonstrated that he deserves a slot near the top of the short list of one of our best contemporary authors of crime fiction. THE LAST JEW STANDING is angry and poetic, so well done that you will read (or re-read) Simon's backlist immediately.
- THE FOLLOWER by Jason Starr
Writing as if he is channeling a heavenly collaboration involving James M. Cain, John Cheever and Lawrence Durrell, Starr explores a "relationship" involving an erstwhile suitor obsessed with a woman who barely regards him as a friend, examining vignettes from the viewpoints of each while infusing every page with a subtle but growing creepiness.
- FIELD OF FIRE by James O. Born
A somewhat different book for the always reliable Born brings his FDLE experiences to bear in a novel loaded with dark edges, black humor and compelling storytelling. His best novel to date.
- HEARTSICK by Chelsea Cain
This debut, the first installment of a planned trilogy, explores the relationship between a brilliant, unforgettable and oddly sympathetic female serial killer and a newspaper reporter on several levels while maintaining a pacing matched by few authors and even fewer novels.
- PROTECT AND DEFEND by Vince Flynn and THE FIRST COMMANDMENT by Brad Thor
I cannot pick up a Flynn or a Thor novel without sitting and reading either, immediately, cover to cover. Flynn's Mitch Rapp and Thor's Scot Harvath are heroes for our time, the new American icons. PROTECT AND DEFEND and THE FIRST COMMANDMENT are the latest, and greatest, examples from each of why.
- POWER PLAY by Joseph Finder
Not content with writing one of the best books of the year, at Thrillerfest 2007 Finder also gave one of the best acceptance speeches (for 2006's KILLER INSTINCT as best novel) that it has been my privilege to hear from a recipient of any award, literary or otherwise. POWER PLAY, which combines international banking practices with terrorism and makes it work, demonstrates once again that Finder writes even better than he speaks.
Erin Hennicke
Ron Kaplan
Jennifer McCord
- MAD DASH by Patricia Gaffney
The author's trademark humor is exemplary in this novel. Her ability to write opposing points of view over the same relationship creates empathy for both characters and is brilliantly executed. This novel that could fall into cliché for a mid-life crisis is insightful and entertaining.
- AT SOME DISPUTED BARRICADE and WE SHALL NOT SLEEP by Anne Perry
Anne Perry has honored this time in history by her series. The struggles portrayed by the characters --- both those of impeccable character and those who are flawed --- are memorable. The overall series mystery of the Peacemaker's identity keeps readers on the edge of their chairs all the way to the end. The underlying tensions of a world at war bring the reader to an awareness of the costs of war, government decisions during chaotic times and the toll on humankind. This book (and the entire series) is one to stay on this reviewer's shelf, and is definitely worthy of a yearly read.
Ray Palen
Norah Piehl
Carole Turner
Two of my favorite books published in 2007 are works of nonfiction that I reviewed on this website. The first is STEALING BUDDHA'S DINNER by Bich Minh Nguyen, which deals with a family of Vietnamese refugees who flee Saigon as it falls and resettle in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their story is, by turns, sad, funny and heartwarming. The book gives a realistic glimpse into the struggles of immigrants as they begin new lives in a new land.
The other book is THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE by Diane Ackerman. During World War II the zookeeper of the Warsaw Zoo and his wife participated in many courageous and dangerous actions that saved the lives of countless Jews and resistance movement workers. The heartbreaking realism of a world at war comes to life in the pages of this remarkable story.
Kathy Weissman
- RUN by Ann Patchett
This complex, breathtaking novel from the author of BEL CANTO gives us the Doyles, a Boston family whose members --- blood-related or adopted, official or covert --- embody, in the least didactic way possible, the most urgent issues of race, class and politics.
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