Links for Mystery Lovers: From the LA Times Magazine: The Best of 2011 and New in 2012

Keep this list handy if you are looking to assemble a stack of books for vacation or summer reading:  Otto Penzler's selection of the best mysteries of last year, and five to check out in 2012, in the LA Times Magazine.

Of the five to watch for in 2012, I am particularly looking forward to reading Steve Hamilton's Die a Stranger.  The book is a continuation of Hamilton's private eye series set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and featuring former Detroit police detective Alex McKnight.  If you haven't read the Alex McKnight series, check it out.  You are in for a treat.  There are eight other books in this entertaining series:

A Cold Day in Paradise (1998)

Winter of the Wolf Moon (2000)

The Hunting Wind (2002)

North of Nowhere (2003)

Blood is the Sky (2004)

Ice Run (2005)

A Stolen Season (2006)

Misery Bay (2011)

The Alex McKnight series is set on the shores of Lake Superior, pictured below,

the greatest of the Great Lakes.