Favourite Euro Crime reads of 2012

You can see my favourite Euro Crime books of 2012 here at Karen’s encyclopaedic resource. 

My discovery of the year was the Norwegian crime writer Anne Holt, and I recently finished the second book  in her Hanne Wilhelmsen series Blessed Are Those Who Thirst and that must be a strong contender for the 2013 International Dagger [review soon]. All the five writers I enjoyed most in 2012 concentrated on their characters, and I think that is the key to any good writing. Brilliant plots and clever twists are all very well, but it is the ability to create interesting characters that are the  basis of a long running crime fiction series and a successful career as a writer.

And of course being able to empathise with your readers, especially if they are retired dentists.

He had been newly qualified as a dentist, at a time when the previously lucrative profession had become less profitable after twenty years of social democratic public dental services. Anne Holt-Blessed Are Those Who Thirst