Books, 2019

The year in books, or the ones worth mentioning. Fewer than last year, because of the promotion and the letters, and more of them read on the bus than I'd like to admit. In the order I read them:

• The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins. A diamond goes missing from a country house, and half the household takes a turn telling you what happened. I read it during the snow days, which is the right weather for a book this long.
• The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler. The reread I wrote about in March. Still the one.
• In the Woods, Tana French. Her first, which I'd managed to skip. Three children go into a wood outside Dublin and only one comes out, and twenty years later he's a detective working a new murder in the same place. I'm still annoyed about the ending, which I suspect is the point.
• 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff. Twenty years of letters between a New York writer and a London bookshop. I'd somehow never read it. My mother was appalled and sent me her copy by return mail, with a note telling me to send it back.
• Case Histories, Kate Atkinson. After Transcription last year I went back for her detective. Three old cases in Cambridge and a private investigator who can't leave any of them alone. Funnier than it has any right to be, and then not funny at all.
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson. An old minister writes a long letter to his young son, to be read after he's gone. I read it in July, during the letters, and it was too much and exactly enough.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith. I spent the whole book wanting him to get caught and the whole book hoping he wouldn't. Highsmith knew precisely what she was doing to me.
• The Chill, Ross Macdonald. Recommended by a reader after the summer, with a note that said "trust me." I did. A missing bride, and a past that won't stay buried. The plot is a watch with too many gears, and every one of them turns.
• The Dutch House, Ann Patchett. A brother and sister turned out of the house they grew up in, who spend decades parking outside it. Not a mystery, though it's built like one, around a house and what happened in it.
• The Sentence Is Death, Anthony Horowitz. The author puts himself in the book as the sidekick to a detective he can't stand. A pleasure from start to finish, and a lesson in how to hide a clue in plain sight.

If I had to pick one, it's The Chill, and I owe somebody a thank-you letter for it.

What was the best thing you read this year?