Sunday, December 08, 2013

Ten Favorite Crime Novels of 2013


(in no particular order)

-Ask Not by Max Allan Collins (Forge)

-Under the Eye of God by Jerome Charyn (Mysterious Press)

-Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze (reissue, Stark House)

-Snitch World by Jim Nisbet (PM/The Green Arcade)

-Others of My Kind by James Sallis (No Exit)

-The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell (Sceptre)

-Three Steps to Hell by Arnold Hano (reissue, Stark House)

-Dead Lions by Mick Herron (Soho Press)

-Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, anthology, ed. Sarah Weinman (Penguin)

--Laidlaw by William McIlvanney (reissue, Cannongate)


Bubbling Under:

-Grind Joint by Dana King (Stark House)

-Hammett Unwritten by Owen Fitzstephen/Gordon McAlpine (Seventh Street)

-Dark Times In the City by Gene Kerrigan (Europa)

-The Red Road by Denise Mina (Orion)

-Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney (reissue, Canongate)

-Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney (reissue, Canongate)


For a full annotated version of the above list, see my article at the L.A. Review of Books.



5 comments:

Max Allan Collins said...

Thanks for this honor. I am especially pleased to be on a list with one of my favorite crime novels, BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL. I tried to get that back into print years ago at Black Lizard.

Woody Haut said...

And thank you, Max Allan Collins for dropping me a note, and for your books. Those last three JFK titles are real favourites of mine, and I'm looking forward to the next one. Then I've got all those other Nathan Heller titles to read as well. So many books, so little time. I heard, probably from Barry Gifford, that Black Wings was about to be a Black Lizard title. Too bad it didn't surface at the time, if only because it would have found a wider readership. But I suppose Stark House and others like them are taking up where the original Black Lizard left off.

Max Allan Collins said...

It came very close to being published. I wrote an introduction to the book that was never used anywhere.

Ed Gorman was active in trying to get BLACK WINGS out there, too. I know for a while Chaze himself blocked it, wanting a bigger advance than Black Lizard was able to offer. Anyway, that's my memory, such as it is.

Thanks for your generous assessment of my work.

Gary Phillips said...

Glad to see Arnold get some luv, thanks, Woody.

Woody Haut said...

Cheers, Gary. And liked your intro as well.