Ah, April. T.S. Eliot said that it was the cruellest month – not for me, because I got a pile of mystery novels for my birthday. It might end up being so for you, dear reader, because some of them have those rather punny titles that send shivers down some of your spines… Lost and Fondue, anyone? Well, brace yourself, the review will be along soon.

It’s also the cruellest month for all but one of the authors that I read this month. Despite there being a slew of top quality mystery reads this month, there was one book that when I read it, I knew it would walk off with the Puzzly for April 2013. But which book was it?

A week’s holiday in the middle of the month meant a whole slew of books – fifteen this month.  They were:

• The Problem Of The Wire Cage by John Dickson Carr
• The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames
• Murder On Waverly Place by Victoria Thompson
• The Tainted Relic by The Medieval Murderers
• Original Skin by David Mark
• The Good Knight by Sarah Woodbury
• The One Thing More by Anne Perry
• The Death Of A King by Paul Doherty
• Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
• Falconer’s Crusade by Ian Morson
• Countdown City by Ben H Winters
• A Murder At Rosamund’s Gate by Susanna Calkins
• Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
• As If By Magic by Kerry Wilkinson
• Saintly Murders by C L Grace aka Paul Doherty

This month saw the start of the Medieval Miscreants thread, with five medieval mysteries. Most of these were good reads, with Ian Morson’s Falconer’s Crusade being a great start to a series that I’ll be following. The Death Of A King was a fascinating exploration of a historical theory, the Medieval Murderers has convinced me to give Susanna Gregory another chance and Saintly Murders was everything I’d expect from Paul Doherty.

Two books stood out – Original Skin is a fantastic follow-up to Dark Winter by David Mark, but it had the misfortune to be read in the same month as the outstanding Countdown City by Ben H Winters. It’ll be a couple of months before you get a chance to read it – in the meantime, go and hunt up a copy of The Last Policeman so you’ve caught up on the story so far. To be honest, it was the easiest Puzzly to award so far. Congratulations.

As ever, this is part of the Mysteries In Paradise Book Of The Month meme. Do pop over there to see what other bloggers enjoyed this month.