Last Post of the Year

Lists, Giveaways, Books, Films...

There’s a giveaway on Goodreads for an advance copy of A Lonesome Place for Dying. If you live in the US, you can get your hands on a copy early by entering.

(I don’t check Goodreads often, but there are already quite a few positive reviews from advance readers, which is nice.)

It never hurts to pre-order a good novel…

Sunset and Jericho is one of the Toronto Star’s five best crime novels of the year. Very nice to see! “Wiebe delivers in a high-octane thriller that may stand as the best Wakeland novel yet.”

The book has also recently appeared back on the BC bestseller lists, which is gratifying.

You may have heard me on the CBC discussing my own best of list, which includes Chris Offutt’s Code of the Hills, Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen, Double Eagle by Thomas King, and Deus X by Stephen Mack Jones. All of which I stand by.

To those I’d add Brent Butt’s Huge, Robyn Harding’s The Drowning Woman, Jane Chang’s Porcelain Moon, The Grimmer by Naben Ruthnum, The Marigold by Andrew F Sullivan, Pebble & Dove by Amy Jones, Orphan Road by Andrew Nette, Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent, the latest SA Cosby, and The Fraud by Zadie Smith (which I’ve only read a part of, but is great so far).

But I should also mention Phillippe Squarzoni’s adaptation of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon, which captures the tone of the book while adding its own grim visual lustre. Very cool.

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I haven’t seen half the movies on most year’s best lists, but mine would include Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Godzilla Minus One, and Equalizer 3, which was seemingly the only action film under three hours this year, and the closest in feel to a spaghetti western.

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Before I end off I should mention two great anthologies I’m a part of:

The One Percent: Tales of the Super Wealthy and Depraved, put out by Rock and a Hard Place Press, and featuring C.W. Blackwell, Scott Von Doviak, Esther Mubawa, James D.F. Hannah, AD Schweiss, Thomas Trang, Meirav Devash, Eddie McNamarra, Andrew Rucker Jones, and Curtis Ippolito, among others…

and Mickey Finn 4: 21st Century Noir, an anthology of hardboiled crime fiction edited by Michael Bracken, and featuring Stacy Woodson, Bev Vincent, Alan Orloff, and more.

Thank you for reading, and see you next year…