All The Colours Of The Dark by Chris Whitaker

Straight into my top 5 all-time favourite reads. Absolutely astonishing book which, I’m more than happy to admit, made me cry at the end.

2026 update…this baby is my 2025 Portland Award winner.

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

My all-time favourite book. Read it more times than I can remember and it’s an absolute fucking monstrous ride through America’s shittest period every time I read it. Follow it up with The Cold Six Thousand and Blood’s A Rover and you have the finest body of non-fiction fiction ever written. Totally masterful and, for me, something everyone should read if you want to understand even a little more of the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and the utter corruption of the United States. This may be fiction, but it’s likely right on the money.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Weirdly (or not…I don’t know) I’ve not read All The Light We Cannot See and went straight to this as I liked the sound of it. Man, Anthony Doerr can write. Got absolutely lost in this and that’s exactly why I read. Fantastic book.