I read 91 books in 2022, my highest total since I started logging books back in 2001. The oldest book I read was published in 2001 (Totally Bonsai) and the newest will be published in 2023 (What Have We Done). I rated 22 a 5/5, including the following books. These are the top ten books I read, in alphabetical order. Not surprisingly, most are crime/thriller but surprisingly three are science fiction, a genre I read as a teen but have moved away from until last year.
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (2003)
Not the sort of book I would have thought I would be reading in 2022, I came across this book in a Goodreads list of sci-fi murder mysteries. And this did not disappoint. Blending science fiction with crime noir, this is a unique crime thriller. Set centuries in the future when humanity can store our consciousness in a cortical stack at the base of the brain, the rich can set
up clones of themselves to use with their cortical stack and essentially live forever. When one of these Meths (Methuselahs) is found dead in his mansion, it is ruled as suicide. But his new clone hires an imprisoned detective, Takeshi Kovacs (this is the first of three books featuring this character), to be needlecast back to Earth and sleeved in a temporary body to solve this "crime". Was it suicide or murder? Nothing is as it seems in this tale.
Play Dead by Ted Dekker (2021)
Part thriller, part science fiction, the latest adult novel by Dekker centers on virtual gaming. When two teenagers are found ritualistically mutilated in an Austin park they appear to be linked to the mysterious game called Play Dead. The evidence seems clear, as an autistic young man is arrested as the killer. But a journalist, Angie Channing, who specializes in true-crime and dabbles in immersive video gaming herself, is not convinced he is the killer. As her obsession with the truth plays out, what she uncovers is too dangerous to be exposed. Dekker's book provides a warning against the possible dangers of virtual gaming and virtual reality.
Redemption Point by Candace Fox (2019)
When I read this, I didn't realize it was the second book in the Crimson Lake Trilogy. It is indeed the direct sequel to Crimson Lake, in which police detective Ted Conkaffrey is arrested and accused of abducting and murdering a young girl. Now released from prison not proven guilty but with the stigma of guilt all over him, Ted has moved to Crimson Lake, a woe-begotten town in the depths of Queensland. In this town two young bartenders are killed and Ted is dragged into the investigation by Amanda Pharrell, an ex-con murdered-turned detective. Throw in the father of the abducted girl from book one who now wants revenge on Ted, and you have the setting for a compulsive slow-burn crime novel.
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci (2022)
Baldacci has produced so many great characters and great series, and seems to move on to a new one at the just right time. This is his latest and features a new hero, Travis Devine, a former soldier turned financial analyst living in the suburbs outside New York. Every day he commutes on the 6:20am train into Manhattan where he is an entry-level analyst. But one day, a former girlfriend and co-worker, Sara Ewes, is found hanging in a storage work at this work. An obvious suicide, yet Devine gets a text about her death before the police. And he is visited by a military intelligence officer who coerces Devine into conducting a clandestine investigation into the killing. In this high-stakes conspiracy thriller, Devine finds himself run
ning out of time while being in the bulls-eye of the unknown killer. Baldaci has a sure-fire new series success on his hands.
The Handler by M.P. Woodward (2022)
Here's a CIA thriller with a twist: the CIA operative is disgraced and no longer working for the government. When a CIA mole in the Iranian uranium enrichment programs wants out, the only person he will trust to get him out is John Dale, the disgraced spy. And the only person who the CIA wants to handle John is Meredith Morris-Dale, Dale's ex-wife. Relationships, Russian interference and rogue spies intertwine in this complex thriller.
The Last Party by Claire Mackintosh (2022)
One of the last books I read last year, partly because it was only published in November, Welsh writer Mackintosh sets her murder mystery by a lake that spans the borders of Wales and England. Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests on New Year's Eve and then turns up dead in the lake the next day. With so many people at the party, both from the Welsh village and the handful of expensive vacation cottages at The Shore, Lloyd's development, who is the killer. Mackintosh interweaves chapters from before New Year's Eve with chapters afterward as Welsh Police Detective Ffion Morgan working with English Detective Leo Brady strive to solve the case. What complicates the matter is that almost everyone had a reason for wanting Rhys dead. There are many twists and turns all the way to the very end. I can't wait for book 2 in the DC Morgan series.
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark (2022)
When con-woman Meg Williams returns home after ten years, Kat Roberts is waiting. Meg Williams has spent the last decade morphing into verious guises, Maggie Littleton, Melody Wilde, etc., all with one aim: to ease herself into someone's life and walk away with that person's money. But ten years' ago a phone call from her ruined Kat's life. Now she will do what sh
e must, to get close to Meg. With both women telling lies and playing a game of cat and mouse, this domestic thriller slowly reveals what lies behind Meg's cons. Who is being conned by whom? And why? Who is seeking justice and who is being played? There is s much going on in this twisted tale.
The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen (2012)
This has a great premise: four students graduate college and then realize the job market is so grim they cannot earn enough to pay back their student debt. But they come up with an alternative: kidnap to survive. By careful targeting and low ransom demands, and moving state to state, they stay off the FBI map. That is, until they target the wrong man with mob connections. With the kidnap gone wrong, they devolve into murder bringing in FBI Agent Carla Windermere who becomes unwittingly partnered with Minnesota State Investigator Kirk Stevens. This is the first book in the Stevens and Windermere series, and is still one of its best. If you like crime thrillers, check out this book and then the rest in the series.
Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (2022)
This was the first Pavone book I read and it wasn't the last in 2022. A woman in Lisbon in a hotel wakes to an empty bed. Her husband missing, no note and he is not answering his phone. With the police not taking his disappearance seriously, and neither the American Embassy, Ariel Pryce has investigate for herself. But she realizes she doesn't really know what her husband is doing in Lisbon or why he brought her along. With time running out, Ariel must turn to the only person who can help, the person she has been running from. This is a great international thriller, taut with tension, a real page-turner.
Upgrade by Blake Crouch (2022)
Perhaps the best book I read in 2022, this sci-fi thriller focuses on gene splicing, DNA manipulation. The protagonist, Logan Ramsey, finds himself thinking sharper, reading better, seeing better. At first he explains it away, but finally he cannot deny it: his genome has been hacked and he has been upgraded. But what has happened to him is part of a much larger plan, and he cannot escape. His only choice is to fight fire with fire. Balancing a thriller with ethical discussion about gene engineering, Crouch posits the future evolution of the human race.
The very last book I read in 2022, finished yesterday on New Year's Eve, was another science fiction book that I rated a 5/5. And I'm adding it as a bonus, as it feels like a great fit to this list.
Lock In by John Scalzi (2014)
Another murder/suicide sci-fi mystery, this one set in the not too distant future after a global viral pandemic (sound familiar?). This virus left millions dead, but also millions that survived had their brains changed to be locked in, unable to move or communicate with the physical world. These victims were known as Haydens after the syndrome. Others, Inegrators, survived with their brains changed in ways that allowed them to host these Haydens and allow them to temporarily take control of a physical body and experience the world again (or for the first time). When a man is found dead in a hotel room alongside a blood-soaked Integrator, the FBI is called into investigate. What seems cut and dried at first, unravels into a complicated conspiracy with the virtual world of the locked at stake.
