My Favorites of 2021--January to June

Earlier this week, Lesa Holstine reminded me it was time to select the favorite reads of the year so far. She has ten in her post that you can read here. Two of her listed books are on my holds list at the local library. A third would be if I did not care about reading a series in order. I do. I am weird like that. So, I am still waiting via my library on the first book for that series based in Greece.

In the meantime, I offer you my four favorite books so far this year. Yes, I am reading slower than years past. What started to happen a few years ago seems to be the way it is these days. Everything I do now is way slower and takes a lot more effort than it seemed to be just a few years ago when I had to juggle so much more as a husband, caregiver, dad, etc.

I am also trying to resume my editing work and have done a couple of projects for clients in the last couple of months. Then there is the fact I am trying to get back to writing my own fiction. There are a couple of anthologies I want to submit to as well as a couple of online sites, so part of my time is being spent noodling on trying to make that happen.

So, today for the first half of the year I offer you four books. Three are from series and one is a super good anthology. While there were other good reads I enjoyed these four were my favorites to date in order of appearance here on the blog.

 

Fatal Divisions: A Sheriff Hank Worth Mystery by Claire Booth opens with the good sheriff still thinking about recent events. It has only been a matter of a couple of weeks or so since the events of A Deadly Turn and Sheriff Hank Worth is shaken to his core. He is trying to fake it by throwing himself into his work and other projects, but his wife, Maggie, and other folks see beyond the façade and know better. Grief and guilt are very hard to deal with though it helps that Sheriff Worth has a lot of people who care and support him. (The rest of my review of this latest installment in a great series is here.)

 

Life has not been kind to John Rust and the latest DWI stop is not going to help matters in The Orphan’s Guilt: A Joe Gunther Novel by Archer Mayor. The arrest brought his lawyer, Scott Jezek, into his latest case. While John Rust is looking at suspension of his driving privileges and jail time, the background of why it happened is important. (The rest of my review can be found here.)

 

Bone Canyon by Lee Goldberg opens a few weeks after Lost Hills and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Detective Eve Ronin is continuing to be back at work and recovering from injuries sustained during that case. She finally has the cast off her wrist and is grudgingly doing the physical therapy needed to gain strength and mobility in the wrist. She has also been finally released from desk duty. That means she can finally get back on the streets doing her job and she is thrilled with that fact. (This is a series that should be read in order and the rest of my review here includes a link to my review of the previous book, Lost Hills.)

 

From the complicated and powerful opening tale to the twist ending in the last one, the twenty stories in Moonlight & Misadventure: 20 Stories of Mystery and Suspense are all good ones. Moonlight as well as misadventure in a variety of ways plays a major role in all of them. So does more than a hint of madness in many of the tales. In some cases, things happened as they always would because of the nature of the folks involved. In others, the plan failed sometimes in surprising ways. (The rest of my review of this very good anthology can be found here.)

 

There you have it. My favorite four. I am pretty sure that if you read this blog, one or more should work for you.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021