The British online bookselling site has come up with the following recommendations.

THE TWYFORD CODE, Janice Hallett
MEANTIME, Frankie Boyle
THE PARIS APARTMENT, Lucy Foley
MURDER BEFORE EVENSONG, Reverend Richard
THE ISLAND, Adrian McKinty
THE PARTISAN, Patrick Worrall
THE FOOT SOLDIERS, Gerald Seymour
REPUTATION, Sarah Vaughan
THE BERLIN EXCHANGE, Joseph Kanon
DEAR LITTLE CORPSES, Nicola Upson
THE RECRUIT, Alan Drew
THE SECOND CUT, Louise Welsh
DARK MUSIC, David Lagercrantz
ALIA EMMA, Ava Glass
CONFIDENCE, Denise Mina
ONE LAST SECRET, Adele Parks
YESTERDAY’S SPY, Tom Bradby
SPARRING PARTNERS, John Grisham
BAD ACTORS, Mick Herron
BLOOD SISTERS, Cate Quinn

Editor’s Comments. All of these types of lists are intriguing to me. I’m introduced to some titles that I’m not familiar with and my own opinion about certain books is validated to a minor extent. I fully concur with the choices of ALIAS EMMA by Ava Glass and BAD ACTORS by Mick Herron. Where I find some fault with a list such as this is in the absence of some of the best books of the year as chosen by DP contributors. Examples of omissions would be Javier Cercas’ EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT, Deon Meyer’s THE DARK FLOOD, Chris Offutt’s SHIFTY’S BOYS, Don Winslow’s CITY ON FIRE and Sascha Rothchild’s BLOOD SUGAR, to mention just a few.

I’m reading THE PARTISAN by Patrick Worrall and YESTERDAY’S SPY by Tom Bradby and expect them to be on my favorites’ list as well. I did not care for Denise Mina’s CONFIDENCE — not up to her usual high standards in my opinion.

Larry Gandle liked THE PARIS APARTMENT by Lucy Foley and THE ISLAND by Adrian McKinty.

I seem to recall that Steele Curry and Jeff Popple didn’t care for THE BERLIN EXCHANGE by Joseph Kanon or perhaps it just was his last couple of works.

I was unfamiliar with the titles by Frankie Boyle, Reverend Richard, Sarah Vaughan, Louise Welch, Adele Parks and Cate Quinn. I’ll check those out.