It’s that time of the year when we’re making our lists and checking them twice for gift giving.

Forget the perfect gift; most of us just want to find a gift that won’t be returned.

And finding a gift drives us to the mall, the bookstores (YES!) and, of course, the most traditional of all – TV’s shopping networks. 

I’m not ashamed to admit that I love TV’s shopping networks. I have bought many a thing from QVC and HSN (huggable hangers will change your life) and often have one of these channels on in the background for white noise. 

So I am a bit dismayed that I missed the reference to mystery authors Alafair Burke and Lisa Gardner, and had to hear about it on Facebook, which is just like the shopping networks as it can just draw you in for hours.

QVC featured the U.S. launch of the ebook reader The COOL-ER. Many of the books available for this e-reader were mentioned, including Alafair Burke’s Angel’s Tip and one of Lisa Gardner’s thrillers. (By the way, this is an endorsement only for the authors.)

That’s what I call shopping power.

BEST MYSTERIES OF 2009

 This also is the time when critics are making their lists and should be checking them twice and thrice.

Because we do need these lists to be perfect.

Here’s a couple of best mystery lists from three of my favorite book critic colleagues – Sarah Weinman and Dick Adler.  David J. Montgomery took a different route and listed his picks for best debuts.

 And that, dear readers, brings me to my picks for my favorite mysteries of the year. The short list is published in the Sun Sentinel; but a few newspapers have picked up my extended list.

 Anytime it’s hard for me to narrow down my list to just 20, I know it has been a very good year for mysteries. And this list was exceptionally hard as 2009 was quite a good year for mysteries.

 So many wonderful mysteries made the list, but so many books also didn’t make my final cut.

 And this year’s debuts also were exceptional  — Attica Locke, Harry Dolan, Stuart Neville, Bryan Gruley , Sophie Littlefield, Brad Parks, Alan Bradley.  And again, too many had to be left out.

 I always time my list to run before Christmas and, sometimes, before Hannukah.

 Because books do make the perfect gift.

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