5. What Was Lost – Catherine O’Flynn (2007) – Read in October 2014

This debut novel did well in various first novel awards when it was published and I’m not surprised as the writing is of a high standard. It starts out with an absolutely captivating central character, ten year old Kate Meaney who covers up her miserable background with her preoccupations of herself as a girl detective, in search of a crime to solve. It’s the mid 80’s and there’s a very good feel for the period. Kate spends hours in a bleak “modern” shopping centre, where she vanishes under suspicious circumstances. The story moves on twenty years and the improved Green Oaks shopping centre becomes the centre character, throwing up ghosts for those who work there, challenging their mundane existences in what they see as fairly dead-end jobs. I found both strands of the story engrossing. There’s some laugh out loud humour and good plot twists.

    4. 12 Years A Slave – Solomon Northup (1853) – Read in September 2014

The book has had a new lease of life as a result of the Oscar winning film, which I waited to watch until I had finished the book and which very much captures the flavour of this extraordinary memoir. Northup was a free man living in New York. On a trip to Washington he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, ending up at a cotton plantation in the South, by then it has been beaten into him that to reveal his real status would only lead to more thrashing and probable death. He cannot even reveal he can read and write. As a slave it’s relentless work, cruel treatments and thrashings for the next twelve years. I was willing on his plan for escape and bitterly sorry for those left on the Epps plantation. He very effectively conveys the futility of the slave existence and the terror that lived inside them all, knowing each day could be their last. There’s occasional deviations outlining how cotton is produced, how sugar is harvested, which is actually quite fascinating and makes his memoir of interest as a historical document as well as a dramatic story. I am ashamed that I did not know of this book before as I have read much Afro-American writing. Thankfully, the film has brought the book back into prominence and Northup’s words can take their place in the canon of great American writing.

3. Dead Tomorrow – Peter James (2009)- Read in October 2014

I know the similar sounding titles get confusing but this is one of his best I’ve read so far. (I think “Dead Simple” is just slightly ahead).  A couple of teenagers with their organs removed are recovered from the sea which develops into a human trafficking plot with a subplot of a teenage Brighton girl whose liver is on its last legs and whose mother is contemplating desperate measures to keep her daughter alive. It is both tense and thought-provoking stuff. We are tantalised by the ongoing plot strand of DS Grace’s wife’s disappearance and Grace’s sidekick Glenn Branson has his part beefed up a little and shows human failings. This is the fifth book of a very strong crime series.

2 .The Last Town On Earth- Thomas Mullen (2006) -Read in May 2014

This is a thrilling debut. Set in the small American mill-town of Commonwealth, founded by Charles Worthy, a philanthropic mill-owner who wants to offer a fair deal for his workers. All seems to be going well at the tail end of the Great War, with the USA now involved in the combat when a more catastrophic event (in terms of American lives lost) occurs – a Flu epidemic .   Commonwealth decides to go into quarantine and post guards to prevent entry from potentially flu-ridden outsiders. One of the guards is Philip, the Worthy’s adopted teenage son. Whilst on duty he has to make a decision which has a tremendous effect on the town. Mullen has produced a balanced, rich tale with great moral implications and depth, very good characterisation and the plot is engrossing, tense and unpredictable. I loved it. (Just don’t read it when you have the flu!)

1. The Wanderers – Richard Price (1974) -Read in January 2014

I cannot understand how this book has passed me by up to now. If I had read this as a teenager – Wow! Even though my teenage years are long gone this still packs a hell of a punch. Set around 1961-2 in the Bronx, The Wanderers (after the Dion song) are a teen gang obsessed with sex, fighting, staying alive and pop music. In a episodic set of interlinked stories Price so effectively conjures up this group of friends moving towards adulthood. It is shocking, violent, sexy and like many teenagers full of bile for anyone apart from themselves! It does, however, work superbly. It’s unsympathetic, gritty and yet touching. This is certainly one of the best books of the 70’s and my favourite book I read for the first time this year. I loved the characters; Eugene, the stud with a secret; Joey, a victim of his outrageously aggressive father; Perry, home alone with his mother and Buddy whose wrong choices cause him to grow up too fast. (The 1979 film of the same name despite similar themes is unrelated)

So that’s my Top 10 Books of the Year. Okay, nothing in that list was actually published in 2014 but it takes me a while to get round to books. (I did read a couple that did make their first appearance in 2014 but they didn’t make my Top 10 list). Next post will be my favourite re-read of the year. Clue – it’s a non-fiction examination of the two of the biggest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.