In no particular order, here's ten of the most outstanding walks on the wild side that I took in this year.  I spent a lot of '10 in the bunker that is writing for a network teevee show, so I'm not drawing from as deep a pool as I'd like, but I still have some strong recommendations for fellow crime-fiction/film/whatever lovers.

10.  Sons of Anarchy, "NS"

Kurt Sutter and Co. pulled out all the stops for the season-three finale, filling it with twists, turns, bloody violence and a final few minutes that redefine the struggle between characters that makes up the character's hearts.  I'm looking forward to what season four holds.

9. Winter's Bone 

When I first got to Hollywood I had dreams of adapting Daniel Woodrell's most cinema-friendly novel, Winter's Bone.  A young girl in the Ozarks must walk among the hardest of her people in an attempt to find her father's body and save the homestead.  In the business we call that a logline, and that's a juicy logline right there.  I was bummed to learn the movie was already in production when I went after the rights, but it's hard to argue with the results.  Watch it.

8.  Lethal Injection by Jim Nesbitt

I've been thinking about distancing myself from the word "noir" recently.  It's becoming just a little overused, and a little non-descript.  Let's not forget about "pulp," let's not forget about "hardboiled," or even finding new labels for the rough stuff.  But Lethal Injection is pure noir, "midnight noir" as Jed Ayres called it recently.  Reprinted this year to much huzzahs, this story of a death-row doctor investigating the crimes of a man he put the needle to is as dark a tale as you'll read, and maybe the best novel I read this year.

7.  Breaking Bad Season Four

Leaving little doubt that it's the best show on teevee (don't you mention Mad Men to me), Breaking Bad overcame a bit of a slow start to tell the story of two men who've signed a death pact with each other for reasons they don't seem to fully understand, much less articulate.  The show also deserves recognition for dealing with the most important crime story of our era, the Mexican border wars, at a time when Hollywood seems convinced that there aren't enough white people in Mexico to make the story worth telling.

6.  True Grit

Proving that middle-of-the-road Coen Bros. movies are better than 99% of the movies out there, True Grit can be paired with Winter's Bone in a stellar year for strong teenage girl protagonists (and I'm sure that the novel True Grit was on Woodrell's mind when he penned Winter's Bone).  The movie does suffer from the same thing as the novel, namely a bit of a sloppy third act, but the performances and cinematography (get down with your bad self, Roger Deakins) is the stellar stuff we've come to expect from the Coens.

5.  Grinderman 2

Not literally about crime, but this sloppy chunk of gutbucket rock should be the soundtrack to every meth-fueled Bonnie and Clyde crime spree of the next few years.  Go to the website and watch the video for "Heathen Child" and tell me I'm wrong (not safe for work, yo).

4.  Pike by Benjamin Whitmer

See, this is what I mean.  Is it right to call Pike noir?  I'd say no.  It's dark pulp, too explosive and lurid to make it as noir.  But that's no slight; Pike is brutal good fun, with more interest in the beauty of hard language than any other recent crime fiction that I've read.  Pick it up.

3.  Gutter Books

I'm glad to see one of my favorite print rags expanding into the book publishing biz.  The future of fiction may be on Kindles and the Internet, but the now of making a living means wood pulp turned to paper.  Gutter Books first anthology, which yes, I am in, and yes, therefore this is all tainted and corrupt, is as fine a sampler of depravity as you can find in modern day meatspace.

2.  The Death of ThugLit

Am I really cheering the death of one of the most influencial and highest quality crime fiction zines of the last decade?  The zine that gave me my start and published me more than anyone else?  The zine that is more responsible for my current place in life than just about anything?  You bet I am.  Because I'm friends with and a fan of Todd Robinson, and I know just how much sweat and blood he put into ThugLit, and I'm estatic that he's now freed up much-needed time to get us a novel or two by the end of '11 (you hear that, Todd?).  We'll always have the great anthologies (order them!), now it's time for the future.

1.  Harlan County U.S.A. (on Netflix Streaming)

Okay, the movie's as old as I am, and Criterion re-released it in '06, not '10.  So why's it make my top 10 list: A). The documentary is available on Netflix streaming, which is one of the best things to hit its stride in '10 and B). because I'd never seen it before and it's the best movie I saw this year.  The battles, both legal and illegal, between Kentucky coal miners and the bosses are as raw and compelling as anything I've seen this year, and the sight of an old woman telling a crowded union hall that "they'll never shoot the union out of me" while pulling a gun out of her bra is an image of America at its best.  An incredible movie; watch it now.