Reading List

Too Many Books, Too Little Time

There are too many crime books to read. Amazon lists “over 60,000” results on their website for crime, thriller and mystery books. The UK bookseller Waterstones stock “10,000+” on their site (paper only, no eBooks). Allowing for a little duplication and without leaving the comfort of my armchair, I can lay my hands on at least 5,200 different titles. (Probably a lot more but 5,200 makes my maths easy.) At a book a week it would take me 100 years to read them all. I’m unlikely to last that long, and even if I do, some helpful soul will publish something to add to the pile in the intervening period.

Life is too short to read a bad book. I need a recommendation or two, so I try not to read anything that hasn’t won at least one award. Even then, there are more awards every year than you can shake a stick at, so which awards (and books) are worth picking up?

The Best of the Best:

In 2005 the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) celebrated its 50th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion they awarded a “Dagger of Daggers” to the best crime novel written since their inception. They considered all of the books that they had ever awarded “The Gold Dagger” — best crime novel of the year — when making their decision.

Their shortlist was seven novels long. (See the list here)

An International Perspective:

Every national crime fiction association has awards for its native writers. It is a small world and there is a danger that the awards become a little partisan. In countries like Iceland (with a population of a third of a million people) it is hard not to present the award to your neighbour.

More interesting are the awards for international and translated novels. If somebody has gone to the effort of translating a novel from one language into another they must have thought it was good. If somebody else has awarded it a prize it should be doubly so. That is my logic. Plus, if it has been translated once there is a reasonable chance there is an English language version as well.

If you’d like to try some foreign crime books to read, then a good place to start is the CWA’s cleverly named “Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger”. Personally, I’d have called it “The Stiletto” but I’m not in charge of marketing.

If you are feeling adventurous, you could also try the equivalent “Crime Fiction in Translation” lists awarded by the French, German and Swedish critics.

• Crime Writers Association (Great Britain) — Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger
• Svenska Deckarakademin (Sweden) — Bästa Översatta Kriminalroman
• Grand Prix de Littérature Policière (France) — Romans Étrangers
• Deutscher Krimipreis (Germany) — Kategorie International

There is a risk that a foreign, foreign novel is a domestic one (in the same way that a double negative is positive). But if you want to broaden your mind this is a gamble you have to take.

(See the lists here)

The Last Laugh:

Black Comedy has been with us since the ancient Greeks. It is in our nature to laugh at adversity, so it is no surprise that the Crime Writers Association awarded “The Last Laugh” from 1988 until 1996. Presumably, at that point, they lost their sense of humour.

Fortunately, CrimeFest found it in 2008 (both the award and the sense of humour) and have been busy fraudulently passing it off as their own ever since.

The “Last Laugh” comes in two flavours:

• The CWA Last Laugh
• CrimeFest Last Laugh

If you don’t mind laughing out loud on the train, this might be the award for you.

(See the lists here)