(Titles in bold were my favourites, and I highly recommend them.)

• London Fields, by Martin Amis
  This is the first time I've read a Martin Amis. Something made me think they'd all be macho alpha-male posturing, but this showed me I was wrong. It's more about taking the piss out of macho male posturing.
  
  This was creative, witty and zingy. So well written. I'll definitely read more of his.
  
• Patriot Games, by Tom Clancy
  This was mostly some rather silly American fan-fiction about the British royal family. The hero, Jack Ryan, gets hurt foiling a terrorist attack on Charles and Di in 80s London. While he's recovering, the Queen invites his wife and daughter to hang out in Buck Pal where they chat over meals about life and men. It builds up to a Royal visit to the US in which Prince Charlie jumps into a Navy speedboat to go chasing after the terrorists and see them brought to justice. Hmmm.
  
  I love a thriller with global action and a plot on a grand scale — and am perfectly willing to suspend a lot of disbelief to get immersed — but suspending disbelief in this case needed a crane too big to fit down my road.
  
• Sphere, by Michael Crichton
  It's fair to say this is a bit of a copy/paste/edit of the plot, characters and vibe of 'The Andromeda Strain', but it was entertaining, well constructed and well written.
  One of those books where right from the first few pages you know exactly what kind of book you're in for, and that you're in good hands.
  
• Moon Palace, by Paul Auster
  I love a good epic family saga across generations and this ticked all the boxes for me. Deliberately pushes you to the limit of, or even beyond, what is believable — as part of serving its theme — but does it so well that you're fully on board.
  
  It's funny, it's sad, it's an adventure.
  
  In terms of the writing, it's a masterclass. The characterisation, the dialogue, the development and echoing of the themes and motifs.
  
  I read one or two of the author's other novels years back, and this reminds me I must read more of his.
  
• Stonemouth, by Iain Banks
  I love Banks' novels, and am going to gradually re-read them over the next few years as a treat. This isn't one I'd place in his top 5, but was still a really enjoyable read.
  
• Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell
  In the first half, this didn't seem to be a book that needed to be by David Mitchell. It had the feeling of trying to be something in the way of a Nick Hornby book. Then, it gradually evolves into something that can only be a Mitchell book, really comes alive — and gets strange. I think I'll be thinking about this for a while.
  
  The writing is superb, as you'd expect — except for various celebrity cameos in which the dialogue and action reads more like fan fiction.
  
  More enjoyable are the various connections and echoes from Mitchell's other work, both in terms of simply spotting them, and then how that is part of building up the main theme.
  
• The Beat Goes On, by Ian Rankin
  
• Rivers of London / Whispers Underground / Moon Over Soho / Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch
  I am really not into fantasy or magical realism. This series of books has been strongly recommended to me before, I read the blurbs and thought "I'm sure it's good, but not really my thing." Eventually I dipped into the first one and was immediately hooked, reading four of the series in quick succession.
  
  If Tom Clancy failed to get me to suspend disbelief in Patriot Games with a hero's family staying in Buckingham Palace and Prince Charles joining in a boat chase after terrorists (see above) — which is all completely possible scientifically speaking — then how on earth does Ben Aaronovitch get me to believe in a secret branch of the Met Police in modern London staffed by wizards who are responsible for policing the various competing branches of the magical world, using spells discovered by Isaac Newton?
  
  Aside from being hugely enjoyable — brilliant main character, strong concept, deftly deployed wit and such good writing — these books provide a writers masterclass in carrying the reader along with you into a different world.
  
• Extraordinary People, by Peter May
  This reads like the author finished The Da Vinci Code, thought "Pah! I can do better than that!" and bashed out a thriller. It's fine, but it's a bit painting by numbers. The hero is a Scottish former forensic scientist who moved into French academia to be with the love of his life.
  
  He takes on a bet to solve one of France's biggest unsolved murders. This involves uncovering various caskets in which there are body parts and a series of clues.
  
  Solving the clues basically involves a lot of Googling, which leads to gripping prose like "He typed 'Paris football clubs' into the search engine and pressed return. A page of results was displayed, the first of which were about recent game results. At the bottom of the page was a selector to choose other pages of results. He selected page 2 and the next search results were displayed. Halfway down the page he spotted what he was looking for, a link to an article about the history of all the clubs in the French capital city. He moved the pointer using the mouse and clicked to follow the link to the full article." (I'm making that up but it's representative of actual passages). Is there a better way to write about using computers in a thriller? Does each keyboard press need to be reported, or could we have assumed things like the return key and mouse click?
  
• Down Cemetery Road, by Mick Herron
  I didn't click with this as well as I have with Herron's espionage novels. It's the first of his Zoë Boehm private investigator series, and, well, she's the most interesting character and supposedly the star — but is hardly in it?!
  
• Transcription, by Kate Atkinson
  A spy story that spans much of the lifetime of the main character. As required by the literary end of the genre, it's as much about the secrets and lies of those involved in the spying, as the ones they seek to discover about enemies. It's brilliantly told, and also quite playfully. It feels like the author is having some fun with the genre.
  
• Three, by Valerie Perrin
  I asked around for some recommendations of French authors to read and Valerie Perrin was high on the list. This is a dual timeline story of a trio of friends teenagers, and when grown up. It's a big story taking in three eventful lives, but it's handled brilliantly. I really enjoy this kind of novel.
  
• The Glass Hotel, by Emily St John Mandel
  Another novel that spans multiple troubled lives in different timelines. I love St John Mandel's writing, and this was a treat to slip back into her universe. What made this more of a treat were the connections with some of her other novels. It doesn't matter what order you read them in though. It's just that they exist in the same universe and have some characters or events in common, though not always the same. As a writer I really like the playfulness of that idea, creating a universe and dipping in and out at will, without necessarily creating canon because you determinedly mix things up.