Best Books I Read in 2015:

This year I read 68 books.  These are what I consider the best of the list (in the order I read the books).

     1.      Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (2009) William Morrow

Richard Mayhew has a good heart and a harpy for a girlfriend.  He is almost hit by a girl who collapses, bleeding on the sidewalk.  He stops to help her and slips through reality into a world he can’t imagine existed.  He lands in Neverwhere, home to the girl, Door, who he helped. She turns out to be a noblewoman who is dedicated to finding whomever it was who killed her family, no matter the cost.  A wild and wonderful ride through a land only Gaiman could imagine.

     2.      All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (1992) Alfred A. Knopf

A beautifully written post-modern western about a young Texan and his friends decide to make a tour of northern Mexico, before having to settle down to ranch life.

     3.      The Round House by Louise Erdrich  (2012) Harper

The wife of a tribal judge is raped on the reservation.  Her son discovers that it happened at the round house.  He and his friends pursue the mystery, but the solution costs more than anyone expected.  Won the National Book Award

     4.      The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger (2010) Harry N. Abrams

A woman encounters a bookmobile one night that contains every book she has ever read.  The bookmobile disappears and she starts a search for the bookmobile. That turns into an obsession, as she for her memories.

   5.     Another Life by Andrew Vachss (2008) Pantheon 

In the final Burke novel, the man for hire that strikes terror in the hearts and minds of pedophiles, must find the two-year-old son of a Saudi Prince, and return him to his family.  The payoff is the medicine necessary to save the Prof and a clean slate for Burke’s current family.  What the kidnappers don’t know is that Burke can channel Wesley, the killer that saved Burke more than once.  They don’t stand a chance.

    6.     Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (2008) Grand Central Publishing 

In Stalin’s Soviet Union, the loss of a child is no crime.  But Leo Demidov is not convinced the child was not murdered.

A war hero with a beautiful wife, he lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents.  His only ambition has been to serve his country.  For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated.  He is demoted and denounced by enemies he didn’t know he had.

In a country where officially they live in paradise, it is a crime against the Soviet state to suggest that a serial killer is in their midst.

7.  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood  (1998) Knopf 

Speculative fiction at its scariest best.  After a second American Civil War caused by environmental disasters and a declining birthrate, a breakaway Republic of Gilead enforces a totalitarian theocracy enforcing rigid social roles and enslaves fertile women. Those in the elite levels are allowed to have handmaids to bear children to perpetuate their families.  This is the story of how one such handmaid, Offred, refuses to forget her husband, her child or even her name.

8.  Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane (1996) William Morrow 

Boston can be dark, especially if the Irish mob is after you.  Kenzie and Gennaro try to protect a prominent psychiatrist.  But there is more darkness hidden in secrets than they can possibly expect.

9.  Waiting by Ha Jin (1999) Pantheon Books

The human condition in modern China.  Every year, a doctor in the Chinese Army visits the village wh3ere he was born, hoping to end his arranged marriage.  Each year he returns to the nurse he loves, having to postpone his engagement once again.  They have been waiting eighteen years.  This won the National Book Award.

10. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (1996) Alfred A. Knopf

Lyra, a girl whose uncle, Asriel is magical, follows kidnappers who have taken her friend Roger and gone north.  Where there are clans of witches and armored bears who rule the snowy lands.  Lyra is fierce and persistent and will not stop looking for her friend, not even when she finds him in her evil stepmother’s clutches.  This makes her the perfect champion to fulfill Asriel’s scheme to build a bridge to a parallel world.

Non-Fiction: Ten Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard, illustrated by Joe Ciardiello

An unforgettable and hilarious list of rules for writers.