It’s time to look back on the year and take stock. I reviewed dozens of titles, and read even more. Here were my favorite reads in 2022.
The Shadows of Men
Abir Mukherjee has created an amazing set of characters and stories. In this fifth installment of Wyndham and Banerjee mysteries, the pair must unravel a political conspiracy and clear Surendranath’s name.
Defenestrate
Nick and his twin Marta (also the narrator) are convinced their family history carries a curse — their people die from falling. Ever since a Victorian era Czech ancestor pushed a stonemason off of a scaffold, his progeny suffered the consequences.
Observations by Gaslight
There are only a handful of authors that I trust implicitly. There are even fewer that I trust working within the world of Sherlock Holmes. Lyndsay Faye is the only writer I can think of who checks both boxes.
The Cat Who Saved Books
Rintaro is a rather shy high school student. He spends his free time working in his secondhand bookstore, which he has inherited after his grandfather died. One evening the bell over the door jingles and in walks a cat.
In the Houses of Their Dead
Like most American families in the 1840s and 50s, the Lincolns and the Booths practiced a religion that also embraced aspects of Spiritualism. By using this framework for the biographical history, Alford explores the societal turmoil that allowed Lincoln to become president and John Wilkes Booth to become an assassin.
Sister Novelists
Before Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, or the historical novels of Walter Scott, there were the Porter Sisters. Devoney Looser traces the fascinating, if difficult, lives of the influential authors that have been largely overlooked.
The Premonitions Bureau
from the publisher: In 1966, John Barker, a dynamic psychiatrist working in an outdated British mental hospital, established the Premonitions Bureau to investigate these questions. He would find a network of hundreds of correspondents, from bank clerks to ballet teachers. Among them were two unnervingly gifted “percipients”. The Premonitions Bureau is an enthralling true story, of madness and wonder, science and the supernatural — a journey to the most powerful and unsettling reaches of the human mind.
I borrowed this title from the library.
The Bullet That Missed
from the publisher: It is an ordinary Thursday, and things should finally be returning to normal. Except trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A local news legend is on the hunt for a sensational headline, and soon the gang are hot on the trail of two murders, ten years apart.
I read this one for fun, but you can read my review of the first book in the series.
What were your favorite books from the 2022?