Summary: in no particular order, the best books I’ve read this year (each linked to longer reviews):

1. Anatomy of a Killing, by Ian Cobain

2. The Slough House series, by Mick Herron (Slow Horses; Dead Lions; Real Tigers; London Rules; Spook Street; Joe Country; Slough House)

3. Caste: the lies that divide us, by Isabel Wilkerson

4. Do Not Disturb: The story of a political murder and an African regime gone bad, by Michela Wrong

5. The Power of Geography: 10 maps that reveal the future of our world, by Tim Marshall

6. What a Bloody Awful Country: Northern Ireland’s Century of Division, by Kevin Meagher

7. The Afghanistan Papers, by Craig Whitlock; and Freedom, by Sebastian Junger

8. Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro

9. Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

10. Playing the Enemy, by John Carlin