Wildly inaccurate Pick of the Year (part 1)
It's the time of the year when everyone looks back and selects their highlights.

Books of the Year. I've read a huge amount this year and there have been some fantastic surprises. Here are my favourites...

5). My Mothership Wreck - Claudia Zabrinski.
Cracking reworking of the mother/daughter/father/pony dilemma minefield. A wild goose/witch hunt from the foothills of Uruguay to the mean backstreets of downtown Bexhill-On-Sea.
The prose may be shocking but the muse hasn't left home. Ignore the critics who called it "grim, dour and boring" Zabrinskis work is masterful or should that be mistressful ?

4). Cruise Control - Barnes Thimbleton.
Renegade maverick MI9 Hyper Plod, Cruise Ducannon is back and twice as sarcastic. This latest adventure finds our hero teamed up with a rookie ex-supermodel heiress for a partner. One thing leads to another and before too long Cruise finds himself up before an industrial tribunal. Out on his ear, his journey back is both moving and thought-provoking though ultimately futile and pathetic.

3). FuturePastWorldImperfect. - Buzz Cliff Smithy.
Sci-Fi epic follows a family of rocket builders through 7 generations of war, travel and fucking. But mostly fucking. Rarely has the genre produced as believable worlds and character as those of the Zxyvual family. Class.

2). Never the Bridesmaid - Carlo Anderton.
Surely in any normal year this would have been top of the pile. Carlo' s invention Gus the Healing Dog is likely to remain ingrained in the soul long after the bedside light fades. I quite literally couldn't put it down, I had to throw it forcefully into the corner just missing the cat.

1). The Brothers Dimm - Quentin T Quinn.
Incredible first novel from the man tipped to be the next Gribble. You can practically taste the tension as brothers Jim and D'artagnan Dimm seek the avenge the killing of their guardians without the use of force or brains. The ultimate confrontation between the brothers and their legal team is shocking and starchy.