August was a busy month for me, the newly crowned 69^th best official puzzler in the world – probably a bit late to write the promised post on the World Puzzle Championships, but maybe I will next week sometime. Anyway, that took a fair chunk of my reading time, but, as it was the school holidays, I still managed to get through eight books – not bad.

But it’s the end of the month, so it’s time for me to pick the best of them – and provide one lucky author with a free advert via my wallpaper for the next month. Who will gain this literally priceless opportunity?

The books in question were:

• Some Lie And Some Die by Ruth Rendell
• Sleeping With The Crawfish by D J Donaldson
• Strangled Prose by Joan Hess
• The Boy-Bishop’s Glovemaker by Michael Jecks
• Mr Monk On Patrol by Lee Goldberg
• The Queen Of The Night by Paul Doherty
• The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
• The Skin Collector by Jeffery Deaver

Tricky one this – might have to do it by elimination, although that only wipes out one, really. Surprisingly, it’s the Ruth Rendell one, with it’s extraordinarily bizarre behaviour from a number of characters to make the plot work. I’ll knock out Sleeping With The Crawfish as it’s a good read but not much of a whodunit and The Queen Of The Night as Paul Doherty’s won the Puzzly enough times and this wasn’t close to his best. No to The Cuckoo’s Calling as well, due to the plot point that is STILL annoying me. And despite the poop jokes (which I’m still laughing at), no to Mr Monk On Patrol, for reusing (sort of) a plot from the TV show.

Five down, three to go. Getting a bit difficult now… No to Michael Jecks (sorry, Michael) as despite this being a great book, he’s won it 2 1/3 times already. Despite really enjoying Strangled Prose, The Skin Collector wins due to the fact that I was literally carrying it around, reading bits and pieces wherever possible. And despite being a thriller, most of the twists are fairly clued.

So that’s the Puzzly sorted out for another month. Off to order another book from Joan Hess and to get on with the Ross Macdonald book that Sergio recommended.