Best Books Read in the Second Half of 2023

 I was hoping to make it to 200 books for the year, but not quite. After I began to get my energy back, I was spending more time doing other things. Still, I made it to 171. 92 reads were what I call purposeful- they weren't simply an escape. These might be fiction, but I read them for a specific reason- maybe to analyze the plot. 79 were just for escape, for the sheer enjoyment of the story. Heavily into mystery and thriller, but that's usually true of me.

And, I'm sharing this great pic from the hike again. Peace and Victory to you in 2024 from the universe.


Here are the ten books I have selected as the best reads of the second half of 2023, in alphabetical order.

Title	Author	Genre
Brief Review
The China Governess	Margery Allingham	mystery
Several of the Albert Campion books are making this list. Allingham is a classic mystery writer, considered one of the Grand Dames of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. I've really enjoyed her books since the plots are always unique, not formulaic at all.     One of Allingham's standard sources of tension is the difference between the way the world was perceived by an older generation and the way young people want to live. In the stories set near or duing World War II, the older generation wants the class system and the Victorian formality to contine with ramifications of every action rippling down through decades, while the unsettled world of the young made them want to live life in the moment because the whole country might be blown up the next day.     In this story, the young adults are the babies born to that generation who seized the present. In fact, the bones of this plot are based on the fact that many babies born in the early days of the bombings in Britain had no papers, or the wrong papers. Some of them were lucky to be alive and to have been cared for by any decent family. And yet, that stodgy British protection of family decency still lingers and haunts.     Basically, a young man who wants to marry his underage love is shocked that her father will not give permission until he can prove who he is genetically, not just the adopted son of the prestigious family who has raised him. However, that family has more skeletons in the closet than just the young man's credentials.
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass	Gary Paulson	country life
Paulson weaves the seasons of the year on a farm in the first half of the twentieth century into pure prose poetry. If you remember farm life, or even if you wish you did, this is a great read.
Death of a Peer	Ngaio Marsh	mystery
Marsh just excelled in filling a house with a large collection of wildly varying characters, and she's done it again. A girl who was friends in New Zealand with a family whose head was the younger son of a British peer tells the story. The family is always short on money and keeps asking the older son to bail them out.     The family moves back to England, and the girl comes to visit. When the elder son comes to their large apartment to tell them he will not lend or give them any more money, he is murdered in the elevator.     Hanky panky everywhere, and a set of twins who have been playing twin pranks since they were toddlers confuse the issues even more.
False Witness	Dorothy Uhnak	mystery
Uhnak was a popular writer from about 1960-1980. Her books are primarily police procedurals, based on her own experience as a policewoman. I've now read several others by her, and some of them are dated, but this one is flat-out riveting. There are two main suspects for a violent attack on a woman who lives, and gives a good description of the assailant, but the liklihood of guilt bounces between the two men, over and over.
I Am the Cheese	Robert Cormia	psycological novel
This may be the best book of these six months, but I can't really compare fiction to history or whatever. However, I was looking for novels that use the trope of the protagonist having amnesia. This is supposedly a young adult book, but it's pretty dark. A young boy is determined to ride his bike to a distant city to find his father.
The Innocent Man	John Grisham	true crime
You know I love true crime, and Grisham takes one of his detours from fiction to tell the story of a man in Oklahoma who was charged and convicted of a murder in 1982. There is literally NO actual evidence against him, but because of the brutality of the crime, he is sent to death row where he spent 17 years until DNA testing became a valid form of evidence.
13 1/2	Nevada Barr	thriller
This was the first Nevada Barr book I've read that wasn't part of the Anna Pigeon National Parks series. I guess she has moved on to writing much grittier thrillers. This is certainly in that category. A young woman who has pulled herself up from a childhood of poverty and mistreatment distrusts men.     In a parallel story, two brothers survive the emotional trauma of one killing their parents and the other caring for him after he is released from prison.     Then their lives intersect.
Tiger in the Smoke	Margery Allingham	mystery
I've been working on reading all of Allingham's mysteries featuring Albert Campion. This is usually considered her best work, and for once I agree with this assessment.     Meg, a young cousin of Albert, a WWII war widow, is engaged to marry a man who is very much in love with her, and she with him. Then, suddenly, she begins receiving notes that report sightings of first husband. His body had not been found, but he had been listed as missing in action. She is dismayed. Her fiance does not know quite how to react, but discovers that he is intensly jealous.     Then grainy photographs are sent with the notes. They look very much like her husband. The police decide to trap this man and discover if he is an impersonator. But this is all in the very beginning of the book. What is going on?     Adding to the mystery is a two-day London fog that covers everything with a gray and yellow pall. The descriptions are perfect. A band of disabled veterans who live on the streets and care for each other provide a grotesque but realistic element of suspense.
Traitor's Purse	Margery Allingham	mystery
Set in war time, this book involves espionage and national crimes. Other than that, I don't want to say too much because even telling the very beginning gives away some of the suspense.     It is a very unusual trope for a mystery. In fact, I had not encountered a book quite like this before. I tried to look it up, and may have found a few other titles with a similar technique employed.     One thing I can say is that if you are a lover of books with passages in caves under mountains, you will like this book.
Two Little Girls in Blue	Mary Higgins Clark	psychological thriller
Clark is usually "right on" with her creepy trillers, and this is no exception. The main characters are young twin girls, one of whom is kidnapped and presumed dead. But the remaining twin continues to "talk" to her sister.

I spent most of the day packing for my trip. Tomorrow, I hit the road!

See Best Books of the First Half of 2023