Hello, mystery fans. As you know, I read a lot of mysteries: probably close to 100 just this year with about 76 of them reviewed so far for BellaOnline. One thing I look for is a great setting – a vivid location for the book's action.

Of course we readers must always take what we read with a bit of skepticism and a promise to research further until we can be certain of the facts. But with that in mind, it's possible to learn a lot about places in world, both far away and in one's own backyard, by reading well-written fiction. Besides, traveling in your imagination can save you the bother of actually going there in person!

Here are the Top Ten Places that I "visited" this year in mystery fiction:

1. New Orleans, Louisiana. Of course, it was under the absolute worst circumstances as Hurricane Katrina tore up the coast in James Lee Burke's The Tin Roof Blowdown. It still made for an unforgettable read.

2. Vientiane, Laos. In 1977 the city remained under the thumb of the Communist Party, but the locals still seemed to be having a great time in Colin Cotterill's Thirty Three Teeth. Hot weather, though. Damned hot.

3. Reykjavik, Iceland. It didn't seem like an especially fun place, but that might have something to do with having to chip the bodies of murder victims out of the permafrost in Arnaldur Indridason's Silence of the Grave. Where else though would you learn that everyone in Iceland is essentially on a first-name basis because surnames are so rare?

4. Bethlehem, Israel. Talk about a scary place to live, especially if you're the Palestinians in Matt Benyon Rees's The Collaborator of Bethlehem.

5. Miami, Florida. I got to visit this hopping, flamboyant city a couple of time this year: once with Dexter in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and twice with lawyer lovebirds Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord in Paul Levine's Solomon Vs Lord and Trial & Error.

6. Moscow, Russia. The year would not have been complete without checking in with Arkady Renko in Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith. Took a side-trip to Siberia in Stuart Kaminsky's Edgar Award-winning Rostnikov mystery A Cold Red Sunrise.

7. Tokyo, Japan. Hanging around with an ex-CIA assassin seemed a small price to pay for this detailed and fast-paced look at exotic and futuristic Tokyo in Barry Eisler's Rain Fall.

8. Maine. You can see how Stephen King might get inspired when you visit the rain-soaked, haunted, violent terrain of Maine in Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss.

9. California. Not just California, but California in the past when it actually still had orange groves! You will smell the sweet fragrance of Tustin, California in T. Jefferson Parker's near-perfect mystery-saga California Girl.

10. Spokane, Washington. Yes, really. Even though the locals say that its winter climate approximates the temperatures on Pluto at its furthest orbit, it comes alive as a strange little place into which our hero in the Witness Protection Program gets stashed in Citizen Vince by Jess Walter.