Stephen King gives his choices for the best books of 2009

Although Stephen King admitted to experiencing real problems in finding even one holiday movie he liked, he had no such trouble deciding on his choices for 2009's best books. King's "My Top 10 Books of 2009," as published in Entertainment Weekly, includes four mystery series books. Below are the series titles King has selected and his descriptions of them.

Stephen King (Creative Commons Attribution  licensed
photo by "pinguino")

Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh

Stephen King says, "Only Dream City could produce cops as cool as Flotsam and Jetsam (surfer cops), Nate Weiss (the aspiring-actor cop), and Dana Vaughn (the cynical, fortysomething mom-cop). The best of Wambaugh's Hollywood Station novels."

Joseph Wambaugh has published three Hollywood Station novels – Hollywood Station (2007) Hollywood Crows (2007) and Hollywood Moon (2009) – featuring the officers of LAPD's Hollywood Station. 

Shatter by Michael Robotham

Stephen King says, "Plenty of people saw the naked woman jump to her death, but professor Joe O'Loughlin discovers the lady was afraid of heights. Someone out there has become an architect of suicide, and soon he's got his sights set on O'Loughlin¹s family. The most suspenseful book I read all year."

Shatter is the third volume in Michael Robotham's Joseph O'Loughlin series, featuring O'Loughlin, a clinical psychologist. Series titles include The Suspect (2004), Lost (2005) and Shatter (2008).  A fourth novel, Bleed for Me, will be released in 2010.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

Stephen King says, "If you're not hip to rambling adventurer Jack Reacher, you've missed a mother lode of escapist entertainment. In the wonderfully tense opening, Reacher spots a late-night subway-rider who looks like a suicide bomber. The thrills build from there. Child's writing is lean and wiry."

Lee Child introduced his Jack Reacher series in 1997 with the Killing Floor. Reacher is a former army officer and perpetual drifter. Gone Tomorrow (2009) is the 13th entry in the series. It will be followed in 2010 by 61 Hours.

Rough Country by John Sandford

Stephen King says "Sandford's mystery-suspense novels are rich explorations of what it is to be a plain old American guy. This tale is rich, satisfying, and frequently hilarious."

John Sandford, who has also written the long-running Lucas Davenport series, began his more recent Virgil Flowers series in 2007 with Dark of the Moon, which he followed with Heat Lightning (2008) and Rough Country (2009). Virgil Flowers, who is one of Davenport's investigators, first appeared in the 2007 Lucas Davenport novel Invisible Prey.