best books of the year

Amity Gaige, Schroder

Bear is Broken, by Lachlan Smith
The Shanghai Factor, by Charles McCarrey
The Midnight Promise, by Zane Lovitt
Inside Straight, by Ray Banks
Nicholas Royle, First Novel
Stuart Nadler, Wise Men
Elizabeth Kelly, The Last Summer of Camperdowns
Want Not, by Jonathan Miles (review coming soon)
Mark Slouka, Brewster
Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract
James McBride, The Good Lord Bird
Evie Wyld, All the Birds, Singing

best reads-2012

I included in this list those books that were published before 2012 but were read by me this year. In no particular order:

The Best American Noir of the Century, ed. by Penzler and Ellroy

A Single Shot, Matthew F. Jones

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

The Dispatcher, by Ryan David Jahn

Savages, by Don Winslow

Act of Fear, by Michael Collins

Benny Muscles In, by Peter Rabe

Million Dollar Baby, by F.X. Toole

Brown's Requiem, by James Ellroy

Dead Money, by Ray Banks

Killy, by Donald Westlake

The Hunter, by Richard Stark

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Interface, Joe Gores

High Priest of California, by Charles Willeford

Wild Wives, by Charles Willeford

The Cold War Swap, by Ross Thomas

Psychosomatic, by Anthony Neil Smith

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, by Horace Mccoy

best non-fiction of the year

The Locked Ward, by Dennis O'Donnell
Zona, by Geoff Dyer
American Hardcore, by Steven Blush
Homicide, by David Simon
Killing Season, by Miles Corwin
my son, my son, by Douglas Galbraith