Publishers Weekly named its best books of the year this week. In the Fiction category, they included six thrillers, The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke, The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey, Body of Lies by David Ignatius, What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman, Surveillance by Jonathan Raban, and Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter.
PW's best mysteries included the following (you can find the entire listing of "bests" on the PW site):
Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas
The Cloud of Unknowing by Thomas Cook
American Detective: An Amos Walker Mystery by Loren D. Estleman
The Commission by Michael Norman
The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Benyon Rees
The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell
The Snow Empress by Laura Joh Rowland
Person of Interest by Theresa Schwegel
Kept by D.J. Taylor
Also, a sad note from PW: another book store is closing. Ten years after opening its doors in the port town of Superior, Wisconsin, J.W. Beecroft Books & Coffee is closing for business at the end of December. Beecroft's closing will leave Superior, which happens to be the largest city in northern Wisconsin, without a bookstore, although neighboring Duluth, Minnesota, boasts two independents and one Barnes & Noble. Co-owner Janet Murphy said that the store will begin selling books at a 50% discount on November 5, and continue to do so through the holiday. Although sales have been steady this year, Murphy and her husband want to explore other possibilities and travel. They decided not to sell their 5,400-square-foot store to any of their 14 employees, or to somebody who may not "run it in the manner they did."
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