There's not much consensus when it comes to the best books of the year. Only one work of fiction-Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson - appears on as many as three of four critics' lists detailed here. Curiously, while The New York Times enshrined the Vietnam novel as one of its five best fiction reads of 2007, the Los Angeles Times did not rank it among its more than 20 selections. Go figure. Better yet, go read and decide for yourself.

BOSTON GLOBE

Fiction

The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies. A careful, deceptively simple novel of war and moral consequence: 17-year-old barmaid and daughter of a shepherd befriends a German prisoner of war.

Falling Man by Don DeLillo. Few other writers could dare to capture the shadowy cataclysm of 9/11 and pull it off with such masterful precision.

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. This sprawling, acid-mad Vietnam novel is Denis Johnson at his visionary best: muscle-bound prose.