In 2011 I read 64 novels, 23 novellas, and 225 short stories. Instead of limiting my lists of favourites to ten or fifteen titles each, I’m putting down everything I liked. So here are my favourites, in no particular order. (As usual, not all of these were published in 2011.)
Favourite Novels
Glitz — Elmore Leonard
Djibouti — Elmore Leonard
People Live Still in Cashtown Corners — Tony Burgess
Quarry’s Deal — Max Allan Collins
The Doomsters — Ross Macdonald
The Zebra-Striped Hearse — Ross Macdonald
Pastime — Robert B. Parker
The Devil You Know — Mike Carey
Vicious Circle — Mike Carey
Sarah Court — Craig Davidson
The Tomb — F. Paul Wilson
The Killing Kind — John Connolly
Trunk Music — Michael Connelly
Soul Kitchen — Poppy Z. Brite
Mona Lisa Overdrive — William Gibson
Zero History — William Gibson
Low Red Moon — Caitlin R. Kiernan
The Outfit — Richard Stark
Mystic River — Dennis Lehane
The Terror — Dan Simmons
Devil Red — Joe R. Lansdale
Pretty Little Dead Things — Gary McMahon
Revenants — Daniel Mills
The Warhol Gang — Peter Darbyshire
11/22/63 — Stephen King
Enter, Night — Michael Rowe
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — Stieg Larsson
Favourite Long Fiction / Novellas
The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon — Elizabeth Hand
D*U*C*K — Poppy Z. Brite
The Redfield Girls — Laird Barron
Mad Dog Summer — Joe R. Lansdale
Hyenas — Joe R. Lansdale
Every Shallow Cut — Tom Piccirilli
Chasing the Dragon — Nicholas Kaufmann
The Big Knockover — Dashiell Hammett
$106,000 Blood Money — Dashiell Hammett
Tenkiller — Elmore Leonard
The Bones of the Old Ones — Jeffrey Thomas
Vanishing Hope — Tobin Elliott
Favourite Short Stories
“Are You Trying to Tell Me This is Heaven?” — Sarah Langan
“The Possessed” — Jeffrey Thomas
“King Him” — Richard Gavin
“The Boy Who Became Invisible” — Joe R. Lansdale
“The Deafening Sound of Slumber” — Simon Strantzas
“Foxford” — Sandra Kasturi
“The Shrine” — Gemma Files
“The Weight of Stone” — Tia V. Travis
“The Melusine (1898) — Caitlin R. Kiernan
“The Four Hundred Thousand” — Livia Llewellyn
“Rapture of the Deep” — Amy Hempel
“Trail to Pie Town” — Louis L’Amour
“Harold the Spider Man” — Paul G. Tremblay
