Criminal Plots III

Welcome to the third annual Criminal Plots reading challenge! If you are a veteran of this challenge, thank you for coming back! If you are new to the challenge, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll enjoy your experience with this challenge.

As with last year's challenge, I hope you take this opportunity to expose yourself to some books and authors in the genre that you may not have experienced before. And if you're using this challenge to try out the genre, welcome! If you need help with recommendations, feel free to email me or throw up questions on this site and ask others to pitch in with suggestions.

This year's Rules of the Road:

You'll be reading six books between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. One book (or in one case two short stories) should be read that fits into each of the following categories:

1. Novel with an animal in the title (examples: Hose Monkey, As the Crow Flies, Ink Flamingos, The Monkey's Raincoat)

2. Two short stories written by two different authors who are new to you - you can take these from magazines, anthologies, ezines. Your choice! If you're not sure where to start try The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. It's a yearly anthology and you'll find plenty to choose from.

3. Book written by more than one person. This can be a book written by a duo, like Tania Carver, Michael Stanley, Charles Todd. Or it can be a collaborate novel like No Rest for the Dead. And for the short story enthusiasts out there, this can be an anthology; however, if you choose to use an anthology for #2, this should be a different anthology.

4. A YA crime novel. This is an area where I've been wanting to read more, so it's a category this year. Several notable adult authors are writing YA these days: Sophie Littlefield, Harlan Coben, John Grisham, Kathy Reichs, but feel free to spread your wings and try out any YA crime/mystery novel.

5. A book from a series optioned for televsion.   This can be a series with a show that already exists: Bones, Rizzoli and Isles, Longmire, or it can be a series that's been optioned but hasn't been made yet: Karin Slaughter's Will Trent series, Louise Penny's Three Pines series, Marcia Clark's Rachel Knight series, Michael Koryta's Lincoln Perry series.

6. A novel that's been nominated for an Edgar® in the last five years. This should be a book you haven't read before. You can use any of the full book categories (fiction or non-fiction): best novel, best paperback original, best first novel, etc. You can check out their database to see what might strike your fancy.

Other Important Details:

• You can read the books in any format you choose: print, audio, e-book, etc.
• You can read books from any sub-genre of crime fiction: hardboiled, P.I., police procedural, cozy, thriller, etc.
• You do not need to have a blog to participate.
• You can use the books for other challenges but one book cannot count for more than one category in THIS challenge.
• Books do not need to be pre-determined. You can choose them at any time throughout the year. And you can read them in whatever order you choose.

To sign up for this challenge, add your blog to the Mr. Linky below. Put your blog name in the top box and your blog's URL in the bottom box. If you do not have a blog, indicate that you are participating in the comments of this post. Also, if you run into any technical problems with Mr. Linky, you can add your blog name and URL to the comments.

This weekend I will add six new posts, one for each of the categories involved. Each post will also have a Mr. Linky. Once you complete one of the categories and write your review, come to the post and add the link to your review. If you don't have a blog, you can use Goodreads or you can put your response to your book in the comments section - be sure to tell us something about the book, don't just leave the title.

I hope you enjoy it. Also, if you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Happy Reading!