Crime Fiction Pick of the Month (January of 2013)

For at least January I am joining Kerrie Smith’s meme, Crime Fiction Pick of the Month. You can find lists from several blogs at her blog, Mysteries in Paradise. I am not sure if I will be a participant every month as I do not read several mysteries every month.

January of 2013 turned out to be a good month of mysteries for me. I completed 7 books in January with 5 of them being mysteries.

The books were:

1.) Healthy, Wealthy & Dead (1994) by Suzanne North;

2.) The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau;

3.) The Bone is Pointed (1938) by Arthur Upfield;

4.) River in a Dry Land by Trevor Herriot;

5.) Slip & Fall by Nick Santora;

6.) The Racketeer by John Grisham; and,

7.) Redefining Success - Still Making Mistakes by W. Brent Wilson.

River in a Dry Land and Redefining Success - Still Making Mistakes were non-fiction books. One was set in Saskatchewan and the second is connected to this province.

I have also been reading the massive third volume in William Manchester’s biography of Winston Spencer Churchill. Manchester died before completing the book and the task has been completed by Paul Reid. While very interesting it is very long. I am 747 pages into the book, one of my Christmas gifts, and still have over 300 pages to go to finish the book.

Out of the mysteries I completed during the month The Bone is Pointed (1938) is my favourite. As noted in my review it is the best of Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte series I have read. It is far more complex than the average mystery with Upfield delving into aborigine / white issues and the psychology of Bony being a half caste in his words.

Unfortunately, the TBR pile increased by 8 during the month with the 6 mysteries I purchased on my trip to Minneapolis and a pair of books sent to me by Simon Schuster – Pierced by Thomas Enger and The Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. I was going to resolve not to buy any books in February but with a vacation planned for 2 weeks of the month I fear such a resolution would be futile.