By heavens, wasn’t 2005 a wonderful year? It’s hard to understand how these things happen, why some people walk around with a little dark cloud over their heads all the time, while others ceaselessly view the world through rose-colored glasses, to use a tired cliche (“tired cliche” is also a “cliche, as well as a pleonasm, but what the heck).

Look, I know it’s not a perfect world, not as long as we have Al Qaeda, rap music, tofu, and the French, but it’s pretty swell. As I look back at the past year, I need to slap myself silly just to remind myself how fortunate I am. Here, in no particular order, are the most joyously remembered highlights of 2005, entirely personal, relying on your own generosity of spirit to let me get away with this sort of self-indulgence:

My first wedding anniversary to the most lovely, lovable, charming, brilliant, creative, loving, and hilarious woman on the planet, Lisa Michelle Atkinson.

“The Lincoln Lawyer” by Michael Connelly, an impeccably plotted and meticulously written legal thriller by an author who normally specializes in impeccably plotted and meticulously written police novels.

Another full year without a single terrorist event in America, which suggests the Bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and local police forces must be doing something right, in spite of the New York Times’s daily screed to the contrary.

Halloween in TriBeCa – achingly, adorable princesses and pirates trickor-treating in a neighborhood that could have been in Kansas or Alabama, rather than the sophisticated cultural center of New York City.

Thomas H. Cook’s “Red Leaves,” a novel of extraordinary tension and suspense, presented with such poetic beauty that it should be read with Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata playing in the background.

Alas, nothing wonderful about the saddest day of the year, October 15, when I co-hosted the memorial service for my dear friend Evan Hunter/Ed McBain, who finally lost his three-year battle with cancer.

The wild porcini mushroom and black truffle ravioli in a light cream sauce with white truffle oil at Acapella on the corner of Chambers and Hudson.

The multimedia “Swing” by Rupert Holmes, a delightful mystery set in the World War II era, featuring a musician as the hero, and sold with a CD of big band music written and produced by Mr. Holmes.

The Yankees coming from five games behind the Red Sox to win the pennant again, despite an inconsistent pitching staff that suffered more serious injuries than a Tough Man tournament.

The realization that, suddenly, Irish writers are consistently producing truly first-rate noir novels, led by John Connolly, Ken Bruen, and Adrian McKinty.

Renting two crime films that I’d missed when they were released and loving them both for being surprising, well-acted, suspenseful, and literate: “Crash” (which I originally avoided because it sounded like the director’s notion of creativity was car chases gone bad) and “Ripley’s Game,” which was superior to its highly lauded predecessor, “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

Watching my wife sleep and smelling her hair as she slept late on Sunday mornings.

Opening the magazine section of the Sunday New York Times to read the serialized novel “Comfort to the Enemy” by Elmore Leonard, and finding that one of the major characters is an SS major (Sturmbannfuhrer) named Otto Penzler, who served in the North African campaign under Erwin Rommel and is now a POW in Oklahoma.

Waving bye-bye to Dan Rather and Mary Mapes.

“The Forgotten Man” by Robert Crais, whose Elvis Cole novels seem in brief descriptions to be standard private-eye fiction but in fact are explorations of provocative subjects like trust, love, loyalty, friendship, fidelity, and parenting, within the framework of superb suspense.

My wife’s first short story appearing in the December issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, alongside her literary heroine, Joyce Carol Oates. It was submitted and published under her maiden name, our relationship was unknown to the editor and therefore was no help (nor was it an obstruction) to her acceptance.

Being greeted by name at Osteria del Circo by Bruno, the perfect maitre’d at the exquisite Italian restaurant on 55th Street, which serves a Tuscan soup and a wild boar stew that could make angels weep.

Eli Manning of the New York Giants throwing a game-winning touchdown as time ran out against Denver.

Chad Henne of the Michigan Wolverines throwing a game-winning touchdown as time ran out against Penn State. (Go Blue!)

The publication of “Ash & Bone” by John Harvey, the poet-cum-crime writer (compared to Graham Greene by no less than Elmore Leonard) whose previous book, “Flesh & Blood,” was given the Barry Award as the Best British Crime Novel of 2004.

“The Right Madness” by James Crumley, the hard-boiled writer to whom most of the outstanding literary mystery writers quite properly genuflect.

“Wicked” on Broadway, the wittiest book for a musical in the past lustrum.

A young woman walking into my newly relocated bookshop in TriBeCa to buy a gift certificate for her boyfriend. She didn’t read mysteries at all, and neither did he, but she wanted to be supportive of an independent bookshop in their neighborhood.

“The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes” edited by Leslie Klinger, the third and final volume of the definitive edition of the 56 short stories and four novels about the greatest detective who ever lived.

Roast goose on Christmas Day. And the Christmas tree.And presents, given and received. And dressing up in a dinner jacket on New Year’s Eve for champagne, music, and dancing.

By heavens, wasn’t 2005 a wonderful year? I can’t wait to see what 2006 will be like.

openzler@nysun.com