Top Reads of 2023
I read 120 books in 2023 (37,543 pages), my highest total since I started logging books back in 2001, and probably the most ever since I was a toddler and ready "Run, Spot, Run" and books of that ilk. It helps that I am only working part-time with 4-day weekends every week! The first book I read last year was Deep Work by Cal Newport (3 stars) and the last I read in 2023 was Digital Liturgies by Samual James (4 stars). The oldest book I read was published in 1990 (Devil in a Blue Dress) and the newest will be published in 2024 (Twisted Lives). I rated 37 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/time travel, a genre I have started reading again.
Ascension by Nicholas Binge (2023) Harold Tunmore, doctor, physicist and now adventuter, i
s contacted by a representative from a shadowy organization and asked to help investigate a mystery. But he is not told what, where or why. But his interest is piqued and he is in. It turns out to be an enormous, larger than Everest sized mountain that has suddenly appeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As he and the other scientists on the team scale higher on the mountain, their memories start to morph, and paranoia sets in. With echoes of the classic 2001, this blends mystery with sci-fi in a deeply satisfying read.
Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister (2023) One of two books by McAllister on this list, this is her latest and is pure crime/mystery. When 22-year olf Olivia goes missing, Julia is the detective assigned to the case. Olivia was seen on CCTV going into a dead-end alley and never coming out. Is it murder? The family wants answers, but the perpetrator has a different plan. His weapon is a secret: Julia's worst, dark secret. And she must frame someone for the murder or be exposed. What will she do to protect her secret? What would we do? This book kept me guessing till the twist in the final pages.
Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle (2022) In the future murderers are no longer sent to prison; they are sent to the past, the distant past, 200 million years prior. And crime is down, way down. Dr. Sam Anderson is the inventor of the
time travel machine that authorities use. But one day he is arrested and accused, with his daughter, of murdering the woman he loves. Iron-clad evidence ensures his guilt and he is sentenced to life in prehistoric times. When he is gone, his daughter devotes her life to proving his innocence. But there are layers upon layers in this mystery and ultimately there are secrets that come out that make this one of the most intriguing time travel books of recent times.
Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado (2023)
This is the English translation of the first book in the Spanish trilogy that came out at the end of the last decade. It features Antonio Scott, a genius detective who has the Holmesian ability to reconstruct crime scenes and solve insoluble mysteries. Her sidekick and chaperone is Jon Gutierrerz, a disgraced Bilbaon police detective who must partner her to avoid facing criminal charges. As members of a secret organization, they are assigned to solve the case of a macabre murder where the body of a teen from a wealthy family is left without a drop of blood. And then another child of a rich executive is kidnapped and faces a similar end. Red Queen is a fast-paced thriller with a fantastic new female protagonist.
She's Not Sorry by Mary Kubica (2024)
This psychological thriller centers on an ICU nurse, Meghan Michaels, and a coma patient, Caitlyn. Caitlyn has jumped from a bridge and fallen 20 feet onto train tracks and arrives at the Chicago Hospital where Meghan works with barely a 50:50 chance of living. And Meghan becomes her nurse. Then we find out Caitlyn may havebeen pushed, and Meghan becomes emotionally involved with Caitlyn's care. In parallel with this, there is a man preying on woman which keeps Meghan and her teenage daughter worried. There seems to be two or three stories going on at the same time, all related to these two central females. But who is the heroine and who is the villain? It is only when the stories collide at the end of part 1, that a huge ball drops. With plot twists spiralling on plot twists, this is a really clever thriller that sucked me in and kept me reading. I was not sorry to have read this book! Look for it when it is published in April 2024.
The Ferryman by Justin Cronin(2023)
In a future where the outside world is deteriorating, the island utopia of Prospera lies hidden. Here, children arrive as developed teenagers while those citizens whose health monitor scores fall below 10% are ferried to the Nursery where their bodies are renewed and memories wiped. Life begins afresh. But Proctor Bennett, the ferryman who shepherds people through the "retirement" process, starts dreaming, which is impossible. And then the "support staff", who are the laborers making Pros
pera work, start to question the place in the social order. There is more than meets the eye in this futuristic sci-fi novel.
The Last Word by Taylor Adams (2023) The premise is simple here -- Emma Carpenter reads a cheap horror e-book and leaves its first rating on Amazon: 1-star. It is the worst book she's ever read. The author, surprisingly, replies asking her to remove the review. She doesn't, and he sets out to kill her. As she is house-sitting in a beach-front place in a secluded Washington State community, it becomes easy to cut her off from her others. And the scene is set. Heroine trapped alone without help, with a homicidal serial killer outside ready to break in and satisfy his sick urges. But there are secrets, slowly revealed throughout. And the twists and turns are so sudden and sharp I'm sure I got whiplash reading this book. Its fast-paced plot makes it a real page-turner. And just when you think you have it figured out, Adams throws another curve ball. You simply have to keep reading to the last word.
The Six Conversations by Heather Hollerman (2022)
The digital age has led to an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Conversation has gotten harder. Hollerman seeks to counter this by giving us tools to connect with people in community. Focusing on the social, emotional, physical, cognitive, volitional, and spiritual conversations, the book shows us mindsets to embrace and pitfalls to avoid as we rediscover the treasure of a conversation. Perhaps the biggest value in this book are the lists of 20 great questions you can use in each of the six conversations.
Twisted Lives by Tim Tigner (2024)
When catastrophe happens, your life can change dramatically in an instant. One simple choice can impact your future forever. If that happened to you, what would you do to get your job back? To get your kids back? To get your freedom back? This is what Federal Air Marshall Felix Sparks faces when he makes a choice on the job. Seeing a passenger in the first class cabin sexually attacking a crew member, Sparks has a instant decision to make. His intervention saves the airline attendant but ultimately costs him his job. But things spiral out of control from there, and he finds himself a wanted man. The story moves from California to China in a fast paced tale of revenge and murder. There are twists a-plenty. And at least twice when I thought the story was done, there was a sudden plot twist that turned everything on its head. Look for this book when it is published in 2024.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (2022)
Halloween night, after midnight Jen sees her 18-year old son, Todd return home and then stab a stranger to death. Murder outside her front door. Todd is arrested and Jen's world is shattered...until she wakes up the next day to find it is the day before Halloween! Can she stop the murder before it happens? With each night she goes to bed, she wakes earlier and earlier in time, with a quest to uncover the truth behind the murder. This is a kind of Groundhog Day murder mystery and is a really fun take on the crime novel.
