My Year in Reading - 2015

I read 119 books in 2015, my lowest since 2010 and also the first time I've dropped below 150 (since 2010). The drop-off is largely attributed to time - simply not having enough to indulge in my favorite pastime and, wading through a higher than usual number of books that just didn't work for me. 

On the plus side I read a bunch of very entertaining books by some new and familiar authors. 

2015 also saw a change in my preferred reading medium with a pleasant return to physical books. In the past couple of years my reading has been a 50/50 split between physical and ebooks whereas this year around 80% of my reads were physical. There's just something about having a book in hand... 

I also dabbled in audiobooks for the first time earlier this year but found they didn't really 'do it' for me. 

Here are some of my top reads of 2015, as usual it's an eclectic mix (click on the link to read my review):

    

PERFIDIA by James Ellroy

THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

CANARY by Duane Swierczynski

    

THE RING OF IKRIBU by David C. Smith (Red Sonja)

THE FAT MEXICAN by Alex Cane

ALL THE LITTLE PIECES by Jilliane Hoffman

    

ZER0ES by Chuck Wendig

BROTHER by Ania Ahlborn

BAT OUT OF HELL by Alan Gold

Happy reading! 

Review: ALL THE LITTLE PIECES by Jillian Hoffman

Very rarely do I read mainstream crime fiction that I simply don't want to end. ALL THE LITTLE PIECES by Jillian Hoffman is one such rarity. 

Faith Saunders is a mother and wife, trying to put the shattered pieces of her life together following her husbands infidelity and the troubles the couple is having with their young daughter Maggie - both at school and home, when all sense of normalcy is destroyed by a chance encounter with a pair of serial killers and a victim who managed to escape. 

Escape, only to find a locked car door and a reluctant Faith determined to keep the outside night terrors at bay from her semi drunk self and sleeping daughter in the back seat of their parked car. The middle of the night small town stop off to rest her head following a heated argument with her sister wasn't meant to be the thing that would threaten everything she'd ever known - that was meant to be done with, the cheating husband outed, the broken marriage sticky-tapped together. This one event, the pleading in the young woman's eyes, the harshness of the man who snatched her away - the fear of repercussion and endangerment too much to bare. Two weeks later her actions are out in the open for all to judge, and for the killers to remedy their mistake of letting a witness live. Of letting two witnesses live.

ALL THE LITTLE PIECES switches gears from family drama to police procedural to family drama and back again without missing a beat. The murder police and the Saunders family don't battle for page time with each character type complimentary to the plot. This book has a real human feel to it which adds layers of depth and emotional characterization that accurately portrays three sides of a criminal investigation; the suspected, the witness, and the law, not to mention victims and public backlash Faith experiences. The story just feels well-rounded and real. 

I couldn't help but think ALL THE LITTLE PIECES is beginning of a new series - fingers crossed on that one. 

ALL THE LITTLE PIECES was published this month by Harper Collins and is a book I strongly recommend for readers of crime fiction and legal dramas.