It was a tough choice but here are Pile by the Bed’s top 5 books of 2021 and five honourable mentions.

Pile by the Bed reviews Lemon by Kwon Yeo-Sun a Korean crime novel that touches on a range of Korean social issues.

Pile by the Bed reviews Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland – an Australian procedural, set in rural Victoria but with links back to the Northern Territory.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Russian Wife, the fourteenth in Australian crime writer Barry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series.

Pile by the Bed reviews Kill your Brother – a breathless, tense and violent but compulsive thriller from Jack Heath.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Last Woman in the World by Inga Simpson a post-apocalyptic tale that takes the recent experiences of the bushfires and pandemic in Australia as inspiration.

Pile by the Bed reviews Wild Place by Christian White – a dark, twisty descent into the suburbs when a teenager goes missing in the late 1980s.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Safe Place by LA Larkin – a page-turning thriller involving domestic violence, gaslighting and a serial arsonist with the tension fuelled by an encoaching megafire

Pile by the Bed reviews The Way It Is Now, the new stand alone novel by Australian master crime writer Garry Disher.

Pile byt the Bed reviews A Good Winter by Gigi Fenster – “a derk descent into a troubled mind” and winner of the 2020 Michael Gifkins Prize.

Pile by the Bed reviews Two Sisters Detective Agency, the latest collaboration between James Paterson and Candice Fox and likely start to a new series.

Pile by the Bed reviews Five Minds a debut high concept crime novel by Guy Morpuss

Pile by the Bed reviews The Judge’s List by John Grisham, sequel to his 2016 novel The Whistler featuring investigator Lacy Stoltz

Pile by the Bed reviews A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry, the third book in the Raven and Fisher historical crime series based around a medical practice in Edinburgh in the 19th Century

Pile by the Bed reviews Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea a thriller that uses the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 as its jumping off point.

Pile by the Bed reviews and recommends Velvet was the Night a historical thriller by Silvia Moreno-Garcia which takes the 1971 student riots in Mexico City as a jumping off point.

Pile by the Bed reviews Treasure and Dirt, the new crime novel by Chris Hammer focusing on new main characters and set in a remote opal mining town.

Pile by the Bed reviews I Know What I Saw, a unique crime story by Imran Mahmood that deals with issues of homelessness and trauma.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Curlew’s Eye by Karen Manton an Australian gothic tale set in the Northern Territory.

Pile by the Bed reviews The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz a twisty thriller within a thriller based around a morality tale