My Top 5 favourite reads of 2011

Crime-wise I still read about 98% translated so it's no surprise my top five favourite crime novels that I read this year, are all translated crime novels though I'm more surprised that they are all Scandinavian. The pie charts I posted recently show that the translated crime scene is dominated by Swedish authors at the moment.

Top 5

Jussi Adler-Olsen - Mercy (apa The Keeper of Lost Causes) tr. Lisa Hartford (2011)
Anne Holt - Fear Not tr. Marlaine Delargy (2011)
Asa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath be Past tr. Laurie Thompson (2011)
Jo Nesbo - The Leopard tr. Don Bartlett (2011)
Roslund-Hellstrom - Three Seconds tr. Kari Dickson (2010)

Runner-up

Sergios Gakas - Ashes tr. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife (2011)

There were some other books that I enjoyed very much and for which I have devised new awards:

The "mad as a box of frogs" award goes to...

Donato Carrisi for The Whisperer tr. Shaun Whiteside (2010)
A compulsive read, quite gory with a great twisty ending but goes deep into woo-woo territory near the end.

The "Keyser Soze" award - for an ending you'll never guess goes to the non-Euro Crime...

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino tr. Alexander O Smith & Elye J Alexander (2011)

and lastly,

The "David Attenborough" award for the most scientific information you can shoehorn into a crime novel goes to...

Sissel-Jo Gazan for The Dinosaur Feather, tr. Charlotte Barslund

Despite my flippant categories, I enjoyed and do recommend these last 3 books for something a bit different!