Yesterday I posted Top reads 2005 - 2010, British and Australian crime fiction explaining that these titles had been rated as 5s in my database 0f over 660 titles over that period.
So here are the rest of the world.
What staggered me when I looked at the list was the number of translated books (nearly half this list).
I have marked them with *
The other interesting thing for me to realise was that I give a rating of 5 to about 10% of all I read.
* Karin Alvtegen MISSING 2003
Jan Burke Bloodlines 2005
Harlan Coben THE WOODS 2007
Michael Connelly THE CLOSERS 2005
Michael Connelly THE BRASS VERDICT 2008
Robert Crais The Forgotten Man 2005
Linda Fairstein Entombed 2005
* Karin Fossum Calling Out For You! 2001
* Karin Fossum Don't Look Back 2002
* Karin Fossum BLACK SECONDS 2007
Elizabeth George WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS 2005
* Arnaldur Indridason SILENCE OF THE GRAVE 2002
* Arnaldur Indridason VOICES 2003
* Arnaldur Indridason HYPOTHERMIA 2009
* Natsuo Kirino OUT 1997
Laura Lippman By a Spider's Thread 2004
* Henning Mankell SIDETRACKED 1995
* Henning Mankell THE FIFTH WOMAN - audio 2003
* Henning Mankell THE MAN FROM BEIJING 2008
* Deon Meyer DEVIL's PEAK (audio book) 2007
Richard Montanari PLAY DEAD 2008
* Jo Nesbo NEMESIS 2008
* Jo Nesbo THE SNOWMAN 2010
Louise Penny DEAD COLD 2006
Thomas Perry Dance for the Dead 1996
Thomas Perry Shadow Woman 1997
Lincoln Preston The Cabinet of Curiosities 2002
Lionel Shriver We Need To Talk About Kevin 2005
Michael Stanley A CARRION DEATH 2008
* Johan Theorin THE DARKEST ROOM 2008
* Carlos Ruiz Zafon The Shadow of the Wind 2004
In future posts, I'll look at the "nearly there's", those who were so close, on 4.9
5 comments:
I think the Scandinavians are well represented.
Officially I don´t give stars, but in my own head I do. I am not as generous as you as I give most books 3 stars, a few 4, and very rarely 5 stars. I don´t think it is possible to compare one reader´s system with anyone else´s, because when I give 3 stars it means my overall impression was positive, while 2 stars is for books with more minuses than plusses, and 1 is for books I only finished because I needed it for some purpose.
I think you are right Dorte. In the long run my rating system only lets me rank the books and pick out "best" lists like this one. After all, we are not marking exams. I sometimes worry that I'm not being crtitical enough, but then I know what I like and books I struggle with get a much lower rating.
I am sure our readers know our systems and can look through what we think about the books we read - and that is what matters.
Kerrie - Thanks for this list. I agree with Dorte that we who read and learn from your reviews do get to learn each of your systems. And for me, it's very nice to get slightly (even very) different perspectives on the same book.
We need to get you reading more Kiwi crime fiction Kerrie ;-)
Good list, and some great books - although I am suprised to see a Fairstein book get top marks - I've found her books pretty mediocre in recent years, and even the better ones (and ENTOMBED is one of the better ones) I still only consider as 'very good' rather than 'great', 'outstanding' or 'excellent'.
Different tastes eh? After all, one of my lowest rated books last year, BLOOD RUNS COLD by Alex Barclay, won the first Irish Crime Writing Award ....
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