Highly Recommended Reads for 2005

Here's my list of four-star mysteries for 2005, four being the most I give. They weren't all published last year, that's just when I got around to them. But they're all excellent (at least in my opinion) and it's never too late to discover a great read. By author and in alphabetical order, they are:

• The Narrows by Michael Connelly (2004)
  Connelly dips into two of his series to unite Rachel Walling and Harry Bosch in pursuit of The Poet. A fine writer delivers and surprises.
• Train by Pete Dexter (2003)
  I keep wondering why more people don't seem to know about National Book Award winner Dexter. In this novel, Train is an eighteen-year-old golf prodigy in 1954. He's caught the interest of a gambler he calls "the Mile Away Man," but so has a beautiful woman, brutally victimized by a horrible crime. This is great storytelling by a master.
• Crazy Eights by Elizabeth Gunn (2005)
  Jake Hines is back with his colleagues from the Rutherford, Minnesota police department. A murder suspect is murdered, and Gunn weaves another tale filled with believable characters and complex plot twists. She's had lots of starred reviews, and many have suggested it's time she be nominated for some mystery awards. This novel deserves more than just nominations. 
• Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve Hamilton (2000)
  I'm still catching up after discovering Hamilton last year. Reluctant P.I. Alex McKnight plys his trade on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. A young Ojibwa woman asks for McKnight's help, then disappears from one of his rental cabins. McKnight braves her deadly ex and the Upper Peninsula's equally deadly cold to find her.
• The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton (2001)
  Before McKnight became a P.I., he was a Detroit cop, and before that, a minor league catcher. A former teammate turns up on a quest to find a long-lost love, only it's not quite that simple. Hamilton is a superb storyteller. If you haven't read him, do yourself a favor.
• Alibi by Joseph Kanon (2005)
  It's just after World War II and American war crimes investigator Adam Miller has come home to Venice, city of love. Miller falls in love with a Jewish girl who survived, and who can name a prominent citizen as a war criminal. How far will Miller go to see justice done?  Kanon's latest is a provocative study of good and evil, and how easily one may be confused for the other
• Shotgun Alley by Andrew Klavan (2004)
  The second in the Weiss and Bishop series has Bishop infiltrating a crazed biker gang to rescue a politician's seventeen-year-old daughter. Excellent sub plots involve the confused love life of the story's supposed narrator, and Bishop's partner, Weiss. Weiss has a compulsion to protect women--even from himself. Klavan, always excellent, remains in top form.
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay (2004)
  Okay, the hero is a psychotic killer, but Lindsay's plot is ingenious and Dexter is certainly fascinating. Original, clever, and very well written--not a bad combination.
• Cavalcade by Walter Satterthwait (2005)
  It's 1923 and Pinkerton agents Jane Turner and Phillip Beaumont have been hired by the Nazi Party to discover who just tried to assassinate Adolph Hitler in the Tiergarten in Berlin. But the more they find out about their clients, the less certain Turner and Beaumont are that they want to succeed. Satterthwait brings a delightful sense of humor to the beginning of an obscene place and time. Let's hope the Pinkerton Pair return sooner than the gap since the equally delightful Masquerade (1998).
• The Big Blow Down by George P. Pelecanos (1996)
  I'm still catching up after discovering Pelecanos last year, too. is the story of two buddies who come out of a rough D.C. neighborhood and look for easy money as muscle for a local crime boss after World War II. But one is soft hearted and pays the price--a crippling beating. A few years later, the same mob is widening its protection racket. The old friends meet again when the scam hits the deli where the crippled loser works.  Dark, compelling, and part of the history behind several Pelecanos novels.The Big Blow Down
• Hard Revolution by George P. Pelecanos (2004)
  Derek Strange is a rookie cop in D.C. in 1968. The streets of our capital are angry enough before Strange and his fellow officers are forced to deal with the effects of an assassination in Memphis. Powerful and heart wrenching prose.
• Drama City by George P. Pelecanos (2005)
  Lorenzo Brown and his parole officer Rachel Lopez are just trying to survive the drug infested neighborhoods of D.C. Lorenzo is staying clean and saving himself by saving dogs for the Humane Society. Rachel helps save people like Lorenzo, but can she save herself from an addiction to drugs and sex? Lorenzo is about to need her, because he's going to be stuck in the middle of a street war whose principals know him from the bad old days. Pelecanos reveals the soul of our nation's capital. It's not pretty, but it's worth visiting. Pelecanos should be required reading.

Non-Mysteries

I don't just read mysteries, of course. Here are my other four-star reads. 

• The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashears
• The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashears
• Girls in Pants by Ann Brashears
• Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett
• Invisible by Pete Hautman
• Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Ann Morrow Lindbergh

I thought Roth overreached a little, but it's impressive to see an author take risks. My wife, Barbara, is responsible for the Brashears' books. Her niece recommended them and Barbara was so taken by the series that she persuaded me to give them a try. I was surprised at how well written they were, and at the difficult topics they approached head on. Today's young adult books bear little resemblance to the ones available when I was growing up. Terry Pratchett is just fun, and occasionally, in the midst of wild slapstick, wise. Pete Hautman's young adult books reach even farther than Brashears. Invisible is another remarkable book by last year's National Book Award winner. And Ann Morrow Lindbergh... . Roth's book sent me to our shelves and a couple of her memoirs I hadn't yet read. Not many people have experienced the wild swings between triumph and tragedy that the glorious Lindberghs did.  Ann Morrow Lindbergh was an amazing woman and a remarkable writer.