Same as last year. No poll as such just a quick write up about the best fiction, best factual, best rediscovery you’ve read this year. Have also added a new section covering biggest disappointment(s).

FICTION

Vine St – Dominic Malone

An ambitious 600-plus-page Soho-based novel focused on the hunt for a serial killer that spans 60 years. If you love immersive, character-driven crime fiction (think James Ellroy’s LA Quartet) and John Lawton’s Frederick Troy series), you’ll probably love this. Hard to believe VS is only Malone’s third book. Having devoured the title in about a week, I’ve already got his first two fired up and ready to go on the Kindle.

The Passenger – Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz.

Like Irene Nemirovsky (Suite Francais) and Hans Fallada (Alone in Berlin), Boschwitz was one of those European Jewish writers of the 20s and 30s whose lives and/or potential were snuffed out by the Nazis. A nightmarish tale of a Jewish businessman with a suitcase of case caught in a never-ending train journey across an increasingly hostile Germany, The Passenger is finally getting Boschwitz the sort of rave reviews he’s long been denied.

Billy Summers – Stephen King

Almost 50 years » Continue Reading.

Like many people, I first became aware of what a massive talent Brian Cox was when I saw him in 1987’s Manhunter, Michael Mann’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. Although only on screen for about 10 minutes, Cox stole the entire film. While poor distribution means his role in the film is less well-remembered than Anthony Hopkins in Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs four years later, the film paved the way for a hugely successful career as a supporting actor in Hollywood.

Not that success seems to have changed him. Having cut his teeth as a gofer in Dundee Rep in the early-60s and gone on to master not only stage, but also TV and film, Cox is about as far from being a “luvvie” as an actor can get.

He sets out his stall at the very start of the book with a hilarious deconstruction of the grotesquely inflated ego that is Steven Seagal and takes in equally astute dismissals of the likes of Johnny Depp and Quentin Tarantino. His anecdote about friendly rival Michael Gambon’s habit of plastering his dressing rooms with autographed photos of Robert De Niro he’d signed and sent to himself » Continue Reading.