Lazybones (and prequelae Sleepyhead and Scaredycat) by Mark Billingham. A gritty mix of police procedural and psychological thriller. The new Rebus.
The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency (and sequelae) by Alexander McCall Smith. Spare, naÔf and completely charming stories of Botswana's first PI, Mma Precious Ramotswe
Sarah Byrne, Crime Factory reviewer and CWAA committee member

Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane
White Dog, Peter Temple
Andres Kabel, Crime Factory reviewer

Cypress Grove by James Sallis.
Elegiac, poetic, sexy and sad. A noir meditation on time and memory. Averages one to two perfect lines per page - the kind you try to memorize because they're just so right.
Charlie Opera by Charlie Stella.
The author's third book has all the traits of a break-out novel. Stella's account of a gone-wrong Vegas vacation has pitch-perfect dialogue, sharplydrawn characters and has already drawn raves from Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist, among many others.
Craig McDonald, American-based contributor to Crime Factory

The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
Non-fiction, but reads like the most spine-tingling of thrillers - really
ratchets up the chill-factor because you know it all really happened.
Wonderful account of a now mostly forgotten about, but nonetheless pivotal event (the Chicago Worlds' Fair of 1893), and the killer who used the Fair as his hunting grounds. Brilliant!
Deadlight by Graham Hurley
...and not just this one but his previous three - TURNSTONE, THE TAKE and ANGELS PASSING - UK police procedurals set in Portsmouth, where wealth and grinding poverty collide head-on. The best cast of heroes, anti-heroes, villains and secondary players around. Firm favourites!
Ron Serdiuk, owner Pulp Fiction, Brisbane

Lost Light, by Michael Connelly.
This is a post-9/11 thriller with Harry Bosch now out of the force investigating a cold case, overshadowed by draconian home security measures.
Small Town, by Lawrence Block
The hunt for a serial killer in NY, again in the shadow of 9/11 but not as successful as Connelly's entry.
Also enjoyed Michael Dibdin's Medusa, with Zen investigating a macabre murder that goes back to post-WW2. Finally, Louise Welsh's The Cutting Room, a dark Scottish mystery with a bleak Glasgow backdrop - plenty of villainy and violence that the Glaswegians are so good at.
JR Carroll, Melbourne crime writer, whose new book Blindside, is to be released January 2004 through Allen & Unwin

Angels Passing, Graham Hurley
The latest in Hurley's police procedurals as they ought to be, sharp, tightly plotted and with a social critique worthy of Dickens at his most indignant.
Blood Redemption, Alex Palmer
New kid on the Oz block won both the Davitt and Best First Crime Novel at the Neds. She takes on the labyrinthine topic of the Sydney police, AND gives herself a headache with the difficult topic of abortion. But manages both with consummate ease.
Lucy Sussex, reviewer, academic and crime historian

Wiley's Lament by Lono Waiwaiole
Psycho by Keith Ablow
Ken Bruen author of The Guards and the White Trilogy

My faves at the moment are not crime but the books behind the forthcoming Russell Crowe film, Master and Commander - re Captain jack Aubrey and the English navy during the Napoleonic Wars by Patrick O'Brien.
These books are ripping yarns replete with minute detail about sailing a man o' war in the early 19th Century most of which I can't understand such as "Piping up the hammocks" and doing things with "mizzens" and yet are completely gripping and best of all there are about 20 books in the series, 19 of them waiting for me to read them.
Liz Gaynor, Crime Factory reviewer

The Delicate Storm, Giles Blunt
Refusal Shoes, Tony Saint
Cypress Grove, James Sallis (available in Australia through No Exit Press)
David Honeybone, editor Crime Factory