Two favourites that haven't been mentioned:
The Past Is Another Country -- Giovanni Carafiglio
A noir tale of complicity and misguided friendship. The emotions and behaviour of the characters ring true -- especially the darker compulsions. Hardback was out last year but PB is due out in 08/09.
The Dead All Have The Same Skin - Boris Vian
Written in the 40's but translated and published recently by Tam Tam Books.
Here is a review by James Sallis:
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/books/la-bk-sallis4-2008may04,0,7707022.story
He says it better than I could.
Oh and, though it's been mentioned a lot -- Small Crimes gets my nod.
Sean Shapiro
________________________________
From: Jack Quick <jquick5342@yahoo.com>
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 6, 2008 12:35:29 PM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Favorite 2008 Books?
--- In rara-avis-l@ yahoogroups. com, "Mark D. Nevins" <nevins_mark@ ...>
wrote:
>
> Thanks for the great mini-reviews, Jack.
>
> Quick question: Is HIT AND RUN a novel or a collection?
>
HIT AND RUN is a novel. Here is the full writeup I did for
www.bookbitch. com
HIT AND RUN by Lawrence Block: Keller is like most of us. He has a
job that he works at in order to pay his bills, feed his hobby (stamp
collecting) and hopefully prepare for his eventual retirement. The
major difference is Keller's a hit man. After all these years and
many successful assignments he is now ready to begin that retirement,
but there is just one more job. Keller really doesn't want to go to
Des Moines for the job but it has been paid for so what else can he
do? After all, there are no refunds in this business. While he is in
Des Moines looking at additions to his stamp collection, someone kills
the charismatic governor of Ohio. Normally this would have little
impact on Keller – except the police have released a picture of the
alleged killer. Guess who? Now Keller is stranded in Des Moines, cut
off from his associate Dot in White Plains, New York, every cop in
America's just seen his picture, his ID and credit cards are no longer
good, and he just spent almost all of his cash on the stamps. The
best Keller yet.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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