Favorite Sons of 2011

As I do every year I want to share with you my favorite PI-stuff of the year.

BEST PI NOVEL: 13 Million Dollar Pop by David Levien
BEST DEBUT: Pocket-47 by Jude Hardin
BEST NEW PI: Conway Sax (in Purgatory Chasm) by Steve Ulfelder
BEST ACTION SCENES: Kiss Her Goodbye by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

Honorable mentions go to Timothy Hallinan whose first novel featuring Junior Bender, Crashed, was my favorite book I read this year. It came out in 2010, so it didn't really belong on this list.

13 Million Dollar Pop (Frank Behr) by David Levien

David Levien's work gets stronger every novel. PI Frank Behr is back, working for a private security company, having decided to get more steady work because his girlfriend is pregnant. On a executive protection job Frank is fired upon, motivating him to find out who took a shot at him and the man he was hired to protect.
Gunning for them is a Welsh hitman, a great character that would have made this book a worthy read on his own. But we get more... There's sidekick Decker, a metal-loving cop and ex-Marine who's as tough as Behr but considerably younger, giving a very modern feeling to the ''classic'' hardboiled story.
The best part of the novel is the writing though. The style could be compared to Michael Connelly's almost journalistic prose but even more hardboiled.
A definite contender for Sons of Spade's favorite PI novel of 2011.