So far this year, I've really enjoyed the following authors/series who were new to me (
linkage to my 2014 list* which links to my comments in the What Are We Reading? thread):
- Jo Nesbø's Norwegian crime thrillers, especially several of the books in his Harry Hole series of police procedurals, which can get rather grim so they're an acquired taste, but are often entertaining and well put-together.
#3-6 & #8 were the best of the lot, and so was Headhunters, a standalone thriller of his which got turned into a very entertaining film as well.
Conversely, his standalone crime thriller The Son was one of the more disappointingly "meh" books I read.
- Agatha Christie's books, which I acquired almost the entire lot of due to HarperCollins holding a 99 cent sale on her works in Canada, having only previously read only a handful of her novels and seen a couple of TV adaptations.
Best of the lot so far were Ordeal by Innocence, Endless Night, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peril at End House, Murder on the Orient Express, and Cards on the Table.
However, her quality was rather uneven for the ones that I read, and there were some that I would not consider worth the Gentle Reader's time unless they were Christie-reading completionists.
- Ian Hamilton's Ava Lee series of non-murder investigative mysteries, starring a Chinese-Canadian Catholic lesbian forensic accountant who tracks down and retrieves stolen money was almost-pure delight (there were some particular violent scenes and character-traumatizing developments I could have lived without).
- James R. Benn's Billy Boyle series of WWII action adventure mysteries starring a Boston cop-turned-lieutenant who investigates crimes and goes on undercover missions for his "Uncle Ike" Eisenhower is technically not new, since I got the 1st book as a freebie years ago and read and liked it then.
But I didn't get around to reading the rest of them until now and enjoyed them enough to mainline the entire series right up to the latest, and will be buying the ones I missed when they go on deep-discount sale. They're a bit like the Foyle's War TV series, if those happened mainly on the war-front and had a more international cast.
- The AmazonCrossing imprint's translated Nordic literature works (I have this inordinate fondness for books involving cultures which produce dragon boats, hence my
for the Ava Lee series above, as well) which I've been buying as they drop to sale prices:
Leena Lehtolainen's Maria Kallio series of Finnish police procedurals were interesting and are on my wishlist for further installments.
Martin Jensen's The King's Hounds series of Danish-occupied England-set medieval murder mysteries is quite entertaining so far.
Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson's Reykjavik police detective series was also enjoyable, moreso in the 2nd book than the 1st.
Arni Thorarinsson's standalone northern Iceland-set mystery was also interesting, and I wouldn't mind seeing another book with the reporter character who was the amateur sleuth.
- Danny Peary's Cult Cinema series of informative and entertaining film essays, the 1st of which is still a freebie which I enjoyed enough to scoop up the other currently-available low-priced volumes with coupons.
I also caught up with new installments in favourite existing series, such as
Charles Stross' The Laundry Files of Lovecraftian bureaucracy-filled urban fantasy, and
Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series starring an ex-slave surgeon-turned-musician set in antebellum New Orleans, which were both good-quality additions to the overall story, as well as
Ruth Downie's Gaius Ruso series of British Roman Empire medical murder mysteries, which were also decent continuations I liked seeing more of the characters in (even if the storylines were a little flawed for my tastes).
And I read a new
Peter David standalone Arthurian comedy which was very light and silly, but fun and appealed to the making-fun-of-Arthuriana instincts I've acquired after years of more conventional fantasy reading.
* At some point I'll get around to putting in my usual numerical ratings but for now the ticks and hearts are up for stuff I really liked and/or recommend, which are not necessarily the same thing.