New To Me Authors, October - December 2013

Today I am joining in on the meme for the best new-to-me crime fiction authors at Mysteries in Paradise. This meme runs at the end of each quarter. Check out other posts for this quarter.

Between October 1st and December 31st in 2013, I read eight books by authors that I had never read before.

1. Frantic by Katherine Howell
2. Dead Before Dying by Deon Meyer
3. The Last Clinic  by Gary Gusick
4. The Hanging Judge by Michael Ponsor
5. Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis 
6. The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R. K. Narayan
7. Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
8. The Holiday Murders by Robert Gott

I liked all of these authors for different reasons, and it is very hard to make a choice of best new crime fiction author (for me). But that is the name of this game, so I will narrow it down to ... Katherine Howell, an Australian author.

Frantic (2007) by Katherine Howell is the first in a series of thrillers set in Sydney, Australia. There are two main characters per book (roughly, as I understand it from reviews). The detective, Ella Marconi, is a constant throughout the series. The second character in each book is a paramedic, and that character changes from book to book. I think this is a very clever strategy, because it allows for variety and spices up the mix of characters. But, most of all I liked the pace of the book. It just did not let up. The excitement level in the story kept me reading and I did not want to put the book down.

I think I first heard of this author at Margot's blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist... This In the Spotlight features a later book in the series.

I was also very impressed with both of the non-crime fiction authors I read in this time period: R. K Narayan and Oscar Hijuelos. I plan to read more books by both of them, so I am taking small steps toward broadening my reading choices.