It’s been quite a week, so I thought maybe we could talk about our favorite mysteries. I’ll let Masterpiece Mystery get us started, with what they say are the 7 best Mysteries to Read Right now.
Masterpiece Mystery
We turned to the creator and writers of Grantchester, along with a selection of mystery insiders to get their suggestions for what you should be reading next. From hidden gems, time-tested classics, to new mysteries, indulge in some favorite mystery books as selected by our insiders.
The intricate plot, nuanced relationships, and beautifully evoked Paris setting make this a real standout in Penny’s wildly popular series. The dignified, cerebral Gamache is a detective for the ages, a good man in an often-impossible job whose greatest skill may be his insight into the human heart.
The story is narrated by a father who tracks down the person he holds responsible for killing his young son in a hit and run accident. The story spirals into several twists and turns, and displays a psychological insight into the grieving process, vengeance, vanity, and how thoughts are so different from words spoken.
Set in the down and dirty underworld of London’s East End. It’s 1880 and dancing girls are going missing from ‘Paradise’ the criminal manor run by the ferocious Lady Ginger. Our eponymous heroine must make her way up from lowly maid to take on Lady Ginger and save her friends.
The story of a man on trial for murdering his wife. He refuses to defend himself and his young daughter, having just lost her mother, cannot understand why her loving father remains silent. As the trial progresses, the man learns things about his wife that he’d never known and falls in love with her all over again. As beautiful and romantic a crime novel as I’ve ever read.
It’s a kind of buddy-cop series about two second/third-generation immigrant police officers working for a hate-crimes unit in Peterborough, which is in the same part of the world as Grantchester, but the complete opposite of the bucolic idyll.
She writes complex characters, has a real fascination for and understanding of psychology, and tells a great story in beautiful, unfussy prose. Her books are real page-turners, usually with a great twist at the end. Because she’s laid the groundwork so well, the twist never feels forced—it was hidden in plain sight all along. Genius.
It’s the first of four comedic mysteries by world-renown Staffordshire antiques dealer and critic Anthony Oliver. Starting from the first murder (“She didn’t mean to do it, but somehow Doreen Corder’s foot went out just as her detested husband reached the top of the stairs”), this book will keep you entertained and educated in the world of Staffordshire figures and village shenanigans.
Do any of these sound good to you?
What mysteries would you recommend?
zhena gogolia
We enjoyed two by Anthony Horowitz: The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death.
For re-reading, Ruth Rendell and Colin Dexter never disappoint.
WaterGirl
Also, since we’re talking Masterpiece, would love to hear thoughts on Endeavour, last episode of the season is tonight.
NeenerNeener
The Penny book isn’t out until the end of this month. I’m on wait lists at 4 OverDrive ebook libraries for it. I’ve loved all the Gamache books except “The Long Way Home”.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
For the first time since the series began, we didn’t watch last week and aren’t planning to this week. We just didn’t enjoy the first episode of the series at all and had no interest in continuing. I don’t want to find out what the cat subplot is all about.
zhena gogolia
On the other hand, episodes of Jonathan Creek from 1997-98 are entertaining us royally.
Falling Diphthong
A classic: Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Her usual detective is in hospital recovering from a broken leg and becomes curious about the murders attributed to Richard III.
For fans of the cozy genre, two series by Donna Andrews:
The Meg Langslow mysteries, starting with Murder with Peacocks (in which our heroine is a bridesmaid in 3(!!!) weddings over the course of 2 weeks). A large and wacky cast of engaging characters.
The Turning Hopper series, in which the detective is an AI. Truly unique. You’ve Got Murder is the first.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I have the Penny book on preorder. I love that series.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: wow, you really didn’t like it. Curious… did it offend you, or just not interested?
NotMax
If police detective procedurals are your thing, have already gone through the usual suspects and looking for something to fill the void, New Tricks on Prime (British, 5 seasons) is an okay enough second tier outing to pass idle time, although not something I’d rate bingeworthy.
pamelabrown53
@NeenerNeener:
I, too, am an avid reader of the Inspector Gamache series. Am so anticipating his crime solving in Paris while visiting his family.
I love the psychological complexity and the quirky character/friends in Three Pines (outside Montreal). Still, maybe Gamache’s time in Paris may breath new life into the series!
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I’ll try to answer without spoilers.
The music is terrible. I never understood how important Barrington Pheloung was to Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour, until he died and Endeavour hired someone who has no sense of how to create atmosphere. Or let’s say he creates only an atmosphere of dread and depression with no relief.
Thursday’s character development makes absolutely no sense. Why is he suddenly a bumbling old fool?
They keep teasing something having to do with tortured cats and cats in cages and rats running rampant, and I’m not looking forward to what it is.
The plot of the first episode was incoherent and uninvolving.
Is that enough for a start?
Marcia Murchio Hannigan
Anything by Ian Rankin. Scots murder mysteries. Tanya French is excellent, too.
Scuffletuffle
@WaterGirl: I have enjoyed Endeavor right from the get go, in spite of some seemingly wayward plotlines. Am a fan of the original Morse and of John Thaw, and I think Shaun Evans does a remarkable job bringing the younger Morse to life.
Kent
I like mysteries set in different places or times. Two of my favorite series are:
The Tony Hillerman mysteries. He’s written a huge number about the Navajo Tribal Police. This is the first: https://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Leaphorn-Chee-Novel-Book-ebook/dp/B000FC10VQ/
The Maisie Dobbs mysteries. About a 1920s female detective in London who is a nurse returned from the WW1 battlefields to open her own detective agency. Wonderful character. She’s like the Lisbeth Salander of 1920s London. https://www.amazon.com/Maisie-Dobbs-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B004J4XA6E
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: yes, super helpful! For Thursday, I see it as him having a crisis of confidence, but he is going to be right about the two separate cases being connected, and then he will regain his footing.
I knew they had lost their music guy, hopefully they can get on track with someone better for next season.
RSA
Louise Penny’s novels were recommended to me when I visted Montreal last year–when I travel outside my usual circles I try to find a writer from the area I’m visiting for local flavor. I didn’t find an English-language novel of hers while I was there, but she’s on my list.
I’m currently enjoying the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, by Caroline and Charles Todd. It’s set in 1920s England, with Rutledge having returned from the Great War with shell shock, including a voice in his head. It leans toward the cozy mystery genre.
I’ve also liked David Baldacci’s Memory Man series (not great writing, but good story-telling) and I check out Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Pendergast series whenever a new one comes out (better writing and interesting characters).
WereBear
Thank you for highlighting Margaret Millar. Her stuff is so darn good, and she’s been overshadowed by her husband, the “literary one.”
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: You watched six seasons of the show and one episode was enough to cause you to abandon the whole thing?
Mousebumples
I like historical fiction, and I’d recommend the Justin de Quincy series by Sharon Kay Penman – https://www.goodreads.com/series/41222-justin-de-quincy
Set during the time of Eleanor of Antiquaine. Each novel has a self contained mystery, though there are story threads from novel to novel too.
James Kakalios
Not in the usual mystery wheelhouse, but Ian Tregillis’ SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT, is a hard boiled detective story, straight from Raymond Chandler, set in Heaven. Someone bumped off the archangel Gabriel, and Bayless is tasked to figure out who and why, no matter whose toes get stepped on.
Auntie Anne
@RSA: Love the Ian Rutledge series! Have you branched out to any of the Bess Crawford mysteries yet? They are good as well.
Barbara
Latest Denise Mina was really disappointing. I watched all three episodes of Endeavor, and let’s just say there is life yet left in the old man. I thought they were as good as some of the older ones.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mousebumples: I think there are six of those. I’ve read them all. Quick reads, clever, and fun.
Auntie Anne
I’ve been reading my way through Anne Perry’s books. I enjoyed both the William Monk series and the Pitt series, although the Pitt series requires a little more suspense of disbelief – those characters wind up in the middle of everything!
JMG
They aren’t mysteries exactly, but spy and poli-sci thrillers. I heartily recommend the novels of Ross Thomas. He died in 1994 and many are out of print, but they are fantastic. Best of the lot “Chinaman’s Chance,” with a 70s cast of characters who’ll stick in your mind and also a solution to the JFK assassination as an afterthought to the main plot.
piratedan
for mysteries that have been forgotten, I always enjoyed Lawrence Sanders’ stuff, while he did some series works, his standalones were very nifty reading imho…
On the more conventional side, I’ve enjoyed the Jussi Adler-Olsen Department Q books are pretty well done, showing that for a good part of solving mysteries is the scut work of making connections
If you’re a fan of location, location, location, The Donna Leon Brunetti books set in Venice do a great job of using location as its own character (imho)
RSA
@Auntie Anne:
I have not! Thanks for the recommendation.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Speaking of relatives, I had not idea until I read this on the Masterpiece site.
WaterGirl
@James Kakalios: What a creative plot line!
Craig
I’ve been reading Laird Barron’s Isaiah Coleridge mysteries. Former mob enforcer from Alaska and Chicago moves to Upstate NY and stumbles in detective work.
KirkwoodATL
I’ve always enjoyed Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series. I also enjoy Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy which all take place on a remote island in Scotland – The Isle of Lewis. I also like Kate Atkinson’s books featuring Jackson Brodie.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve been trying to do what I can to support my favorite indie bookstores. Bethany Books in Bethany Beach, DE, has a book-a-month club where you get a staff pick. So I never know what’s coming. I’ve had 3 so far: “One Day You’ll Burn” by Joseph Schneider, “Safe House” by Jo Jakeman, and “The House on Fripp Island” by Rebecca Kauffman. I think they’re all first novels.
I didn’t finish “Safe House”, it’s a stalker story, and even though you know it will be all right at the end, there wasn’t really any enjoyment for me along the way. The Schneider story was pretty good, and a very interesting main character, failed academic become homicide detective. I think he’s planning a series. I’m in the middle of the Kauffman book and enjoying it so far.
I love finding new authors I would not otherwise have read. I’ve often found that “Staff picks” in indie bookstores are a really good bet.
Orange is the New Red
I am a huge Michael Gilbert fan. Love his stories about Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens. Another fun author is Emma Lathen, although I prefer her political mysteries as RB Dominic.
Torrey
Sarah Caudwell, author of four novels in which mysteries are solved by a group of young barristers under the mentorship of a professor, Hillary Tamar. Unfortunately, she died in 2000, so there are only the four novels, but her characters are interesting, the novels are witty, and the mysteries are solid. They are Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Shortest Way to Hades, The Sirens Sang of Murder, and The Sibyl in Her Grave.
billcinsd
I quite like Phoebe Atwood Taylor and her mysteries set in the Depression and WW2. Decent mysteries, generally humorous. I especially like her Leonidas Witherall Mysteries (she wrote these under the name Alice Tilton). I just got a first edition of The Left Leg. Getting reacquainted with the Scarlett Wimpernel, Lieutenant Hazeltine and Cannae, and Witherall, the man who looks like Shakespeare has been good for me
billcinsd
@Torrey: I also quite liked the Sarah Caudwell books
Barbara
@WaterGirl: Daniel Day Lewis is the son of Cecil Day Lewis. Maybe it’s his stepdad?
RSA
On the to-avoid side, I’ve sometimes enjoyed a movie or TV series, looked up the book or series on which it was based, and been underwhelmed. Examples: Midsomer Murders; VI Warshawski; Inspector Morse; Kolchak: The Night Stalker. It’s funny how actors and screenwriters and sets can combine into something I think is much better than the original source material. This is a matter of taste, of course.
Bex
The Sam Wyndam-“Surrender-Not” Bannerjee police detective series set in 1920s Calcutta. Death In The East is the current one in the series, the fourth of four.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
What cat subplot?!
tom
I’ve been enjoying English author Reginald Hill. “On Beulah Height” is a particular favorite.
NotMax
@Barbara
“No offense, Da, and you too Mum, thanks for not naming me Cecil.”
:)
WaterGirl
@Barbara: Well, they talked about the apple not falling far from the tree, or something like that, so I hope not because that would be bring-worthy for them to have made that mistake.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanks for asking that. I apparently missed it, too.
Yutsano
Biden/Harris interview time! Well in a couple minutes but still.
Auntie Anne
@Orange is the New Red: Oh, John Putnam Thatcher (of the Sloan) is one of my favorites! I didn’t know about the political series but will look for them.
Steeplejack (phone)
@NotMax:
New Tricks—more like 12 seasons (perhaps not all available to stream). Solid, workmanlike series that flags a little toward the end.
randy khan
We’ve been working through a variety of series via PBS Passport. The latest is Professor T, from Belgium, with a lead character who has mental health issues, including what, when the show was shot, seems like a terribly irrational germ phobia. But we’ve also watched Modus (from Sweden), one season of which features Kim Cattrall as the first female President of the U.S., Inspector Banks (UK) and The Tunnel (UK/France), which focuses on crimes that occur in and around the English Channel and across the UK/French border.
Bex
Forgot to say that the author of Death In The East is Abir Mukherjee.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
I have seen nothing of that in the first two episodes.
arrieve
@Barbara: Nicholas Blake was C. Day Lewis’s pen name for writing mysteries.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s partly because of stuff going on in our lives. We can’t take anything depressing right now.
zhena gogolia
@Torrey:
I met her at a book signing in New Haven. She was very cool, smoking a pipe. Those books are amusing.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo expat)
If anyone likes cozy mysteries, I’ve been listening through Audible to Rhys Bowen’s Constable Evan’s series set in Wales. The narrator does an entertaining job of bringing the voices of the village of Llanfair to life. There’s plenty to chuckle at but the mysteries are well crafted.
Another author whose books I enjoy listening to in the same genre is H.Y. Hanna. She has several series going. I’m listening to her English Cottage Garden Mysteries set in Oxford. Those who love gardening, a big cat with ‘tude, and humor mixed into their mysteries should like it. I listened to the latest mystery “Trowels and Trouble” on my walk home from aikido class. It hit a scene that had me snorting through my mask. Fortunately no one was in front or behind me to hear, or I’m sure people would have been giving me an even wider berth than social distancing calls for!
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
@WaterGirl:
The girl with the ESP keeps having visions of rats, birds, and a cat in cages. The reporter lady (John Thaw’s daughter) says to Morse something about cats being found mutilated all over Oxford. Rats keep popping up in strange places. This was not resolved or explained in the first episode, so I assumed it would be a running thread that would get resolved somehow, and I didn’t want to know how.
TS (the original)
I’ve always been able to re-read P.D. James. Had the “real” books which went with the downsizing. Now I’m buying them again for kindle.
@WaterGirl – thanks for the books up top – I tend to read mainly British mystery – so these are mostly unknown to me.
Obvious Russian Troll
I would second Tana French. She has a new one coming out soon.
Abir Mukherjee has a series of novels set in colonial India. I’ve enjoyed the first two and have the next two queued up.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
Strange says something about a rat, Mrs. Thursday has to beat off a rat with her broom, and there was another rat appearance somewhere, I can’t remember.
JPL
Beast in View was $4.99 for my nook.. That’s the first one I downloaded.
Steeplejack (phone)
@randy khan:
Professor T. is very good. I take him to be “on the spectrum,” but it’s handled in a non-gimmicky way.
Also Baptiste. (I think it’s on Passport.)
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, now that you mention it, I did catch the cat references, but took them to be an indication of a serial killer, which was no surprise with a murderer on the loose.
I guess I took the the icky stuff in the visions to be the personification of danger/evil, as opposed to taking them literally.
If you are correct, a bunch of stuff went right over my head. We’ll find out tonight. At least some of us! :-)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
On my shelf waiting for me to read, is a collection of Chief Inspector Maigret stories, which I guess you would call police procedurals, in the Parisian police.
I’ve read a few Maigret novels in English, but the collection is in French which takes me a little time and energy to read, so I have to kind of work up some momentum.
5x5
@JMG: I need to second this. I need to read him again (it’s been years.) Ross Thomas should be better known. His books are a lot of fun – great characters.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Didn’t get an edit button for some reason.
The Maigret stories are by Belgian author Georges Simenon if anyone is interested. They’re supposed to be extremely popular in the French-speaking world.
BQuimby
Read the GAMACHE books in order. It IS crticical to the character development and the references in the stories.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
I didn’t realize that I had not watched Masterpiece in a while. Did they start requiring separate subscriptions to the series?
The first episode showed under PBS on YouTube TV, but not later episodes.
FelonyGovt
Two Los Angeles area writers, first Michael Connelly. I’m reading his latest, Fair Warning, about a reporter.
And then just for fun, Sue Ann Jaffarian’s books about an overweight paralegal in Orange County named Odelia Grey, who keeps getting mixed up in murders.
Ken
Favorite traditional mystery: Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers
Favorite science-fiction mystery: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
Favorite fantasy mystery: The Rook, Daniel O’Malley
Favorite spy mystery: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John le Carre
Favorite western mystery: Carpenter and Quincannon (series), Bill Pronzini and Marcia Mueller
JMG
Another long out of print oddity which is I hope available in the Internet era. In the early ’50s, Gore Vidal, blacklisted not as a Red but for being gay and writing about it, wrote a series of mysteries under the name Edgar Box. Very light stuff, but of course super well written. I believe the title “Death in the Fifth Position” about murder at a ballet, starts the series.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If you like Maigret, the French series with Bruno Cremer (1991-2005) is very good. Bit of an acquired taste, perhaps. Available on MHz.
The (short) British series with Rowan Atkinson is pretty good too.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Brachiator:
It’s on broadcast PBS every Sunday night.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JMG: I googled it and found it listed at Penguin-Random House. So I guess it’s back in print.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
I burst into laughter whenever I see him, so that sounds a little iffy.
We just watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the 1000th time.
Scuffletuffle
@tom: Love the whole Dalziel and Pascoe series. My favorite is Pictures of Perfection for being laugh out loud funny.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I love Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series, set in Belfast during the Troubles. The first one is The Cold, Cold Ground. Also I second Tana French.
Gretchen
I love the audiobooks of the In Death series by J D Robb. The central character is a homicide detective in New York, 50 years in the future after the Urban Wars. She’s a prickly person who comes to trust. The narrator is amazingly. She has distinct voices for about 15 different characters.
J R in WV
I also love the Tony Hillerman Navajo Nation mysteries, many of which involve Navajo mythology and religious beliefs.
Nero Wolfe, old series which runs mostly in NYC of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, Wolfe is an European intellectual, quite effete, with a hard-boiled assistant in charge of going out into the gritty city. Rex Stout lived in Sarasota FL for many years, which never shows in his novels.
Dorothy Sayers, whose name I could spell correctly because one of her novels is lying on the floor next to me in the library.
J. A. Jance wrote a lot of mysteries based in Cochise county AZ, with lots of local color. She has also written plenty based in other places, but having built a small home for a winter camp in Cochise county, her work naturally appealed to me.
Wiki tells me “She writes at least three series of novels, centering on retired Seattle Police Department Detective J. P. Beaumont, Arizona County Sheriff Joanna Brady, and former Los Angeles news anchor turned mystery solver Ali Reynolds.” I don’t think I’ve read any about the news anchor, but her stuff is mostly pretty interesting, esp. the desert scenes.
John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, as well as his many novels that don’t include McGee as the protagonist. Based in Florida as well. Having lived down there in Key West of 1970-72, I enjoy reading about old Florida, before it was bought and owned by real estate developers.
Stephen King … I don’t like all his stuff, but his “Duma Key” — set in Sarasota’s art scene, and involving a non-existent barrier island just south of Casey Key with mysterious old houses and strange people and baroque history, really hit a sweet spot for me. I used to bike up and down Casey Key, a tropical wonderland back in the 1980s and ’90s… plus mom was an artist in the Sarasota art scene, so really close to home.
I’ll probably take a lot of these suggestions up… I’m more into SF and Fantasy right now, the farther from reality the better, but I do like a good mystery. Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
Emma from FL
The Miss Silver mysteries.
The Phryne Fisher mysteries (books NOT tv shows!)
Sloane Ranger
I have a weakness for historical mysteries I would recommend the Amory Ames series by Ashley Weaver. Amory is part of the 1920s London society party set with an impossibly handsome husband who constantly stumbles upon murders which she has to solve.
Also, the Sergeant Cribb series by Peter Lovesley Cribb is a Victorian working class detective who needs to get to the truth, regardless of the social status of the suspects. My favourites are Wobble to Death, set in the world of competative walking and The Detective Wore Silk Drawers, involving illegal bare knuckle fighting
Looking back to the Golden Age of Detective fiction, Margary Allingham’s Albert Campion novels are great romps and well worth a read He gets more serious as the series progresses but the early novels, Look to the Lady and Mystery Mile are fun reads.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
Presume you mean Rowan Atkinson, not Bruno Cremer. // He is very good as a serious Maigret. The series is just a distant second to the Cremer one.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yeah, I have no idea who Bruno Cremer is. But “Lydia John Hibbert” . . . lol
Ken
Not that Nero or Archie ever aged or changed. There’s likely an SF pastiche lurking in that fact. Vampires? The brownstone was a TARDIS?
Loren Estleman wrote some mildly funny, if sometimes labored, Nero Wolfe parodies – his detective was Claudius Lyon. Some of the stories are just excuses for bad puns, but most have a genuine mystery.
Emma from FL
Anything by Ngaio Marsh.
Anything by Patricia Highsmith.
Sherlock Holmes. Original and some pastiches.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
OK, I goofed up, Rex Stout never lived in Sarasota, that was John D MacDonald. Don’t know how that cross-threaded, but there it is. When my folks located in Sarasota for winters, MacDonald was still well known in the area.
I may have just missed him in a couple of wonderful restaurants he favored. Dad loved to take the family out to eat! Both are great authors, tho!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia:
I think it’s more burnt-out than a bumbling old fool, but it does come too hard and too fast in this new season. But at this point I’m such a sucker for Thursday and Roger Allam (sp?) that I’m a poor judge
I’ll third the rec for Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series– the TV version is pretty good, but not nearly as good as the books, as usual. I thought they did a decent job of combining the first two, at least it wasn’t banjaxed. But was anyone else incredibly disappointed in The Wych Elm? I didn’t even finish it
Boussinesque
Not sure if it’s quite in the right category, but I recently finished a suspense/mystery visual novel called “Raging Loop” this week (visual novels are games that are mostly presented as novels, but may include branching story choices and occasionally other types of gameplay interspersed).
Story involves the main character getting lost in the mountains on his motorcycle, stumbling into a rural Japanese village, and getting involved in what seems on the surface to be almost a real-life game of “Werewolf”. He then proceeds to die horribly, only to wake up to find that he’s trapped in a Groundhog Day style loop now. The game requires working your way through several significantly different routes through the events, utilizing information obtained down the dead-end branches to unlock different choices so you can uncover the truth behind what’s going on.
Torrey
Roman noir-ish (with humor) set in the time of the Emperor Vespasian (to start with). The detective is Marcus Didius Falco, a plebeian. Author is Lindsey Davis. Many references to actual events and archeological specifics (The Iron Hand of Mars, fourth in the series, works in a set of real letters sent from the Roman encampment in which much of the story takes place–and the people who sent and received them).
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I get PBS as part of my cable package, and I don’t know much more than that.
WaterGirl
@Ken: I love your categories!
WaterGirl
@Ken:
I read multiple books where they collaborated, but I don’t know if I read that one.
frosty
I recommend a series of novels about a Scotland Yard detective named Frederick Troy, set in London during and after WW2.Written by John Lawton. Sort of a combination of police procedural and espionage, since his cases drift into that realm.
Falling Diphthong
Thanks for this thread; I’ve put in several requests to my library, which is now doing outdoor pickup/dropoff.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
There was a nice series adaptation of Nero Wolfe starring Maury Chaykin as Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie. I found it fun that they did kind of a repertory-company approach, with the same actors appearing multiple times in the series in the other parts.
I’m sure it’s streaming somewhere.
@Ken: Robert Goldsborough continued the series for a while after Rex Stout died, and they were pretty true to the original. They really are timeless.
Suzanne
I have read five (I think) of Tana French’s books and always enjoy them, especially the Dublin Murder Squad books.
Wolvesvalley
@Ken: Murder Must Advertise was the first Dorothy Sayers mystery I stumbled across. It made me a fan of hers for life.
I don’t remember who recommended Suspect and The Promise by Robert Crais back in January, but I read both and enjoyed them very much. So whoever you were, thanks!
Falling Diphthong
Two Holmes retellings:
Mycroft series by Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. Jabbar is a serious Holmesian and I quite enjoyed this perspective of a young Mycroft and his good friend Cyrus Douglas, a Trinidadian businessman.
Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler series, starting with Goodnight Mr. Holmes. Told by her good friend Penelope Huxleigh, with Huxleigh in Watson’s role and Adler in Holmes’.
These avoid some of my pet peeves in Holmes retellings–adding in sexism and racism and then claiming “Oh, the author was Victorian, so I’m just nodding to that.” And writing a sequel in which Holmes outwits Irene and she was wrong to marry her barrister, because apparently Adler isn’t interesting if she isn’t being an admiring handmaid to Holmes.
Torrey
@J R in WV: Rex Stout is my hands-down favorite, especially for a time like the present. What I like about it is precisely the sense of stability. Wolfe has a carefully planned and inviolable schedule. The Brownstone is a self-contained world in which, aside from Wolfe’s irascability, is a well-organized and predictable environment. Wolfe explains the specifics of the mystery in each case. (I’ve read one too many books in which, just as the amateur detective figures out who the murderer is, said murderer proceeds to show up with intent to kill the amateur detective while explaining the how and why as murderer chases amateur detective across the rooftops or through the alleys.)
By the way, since science fiction mysteries have been introduced, one of the better pastiches of Nero Wolfe is Randall Garrett’s Too Many Magicians, an alternate universe novel in which the detective, Lord Darcy, solves a mystery with the help of the Marquis of London, a gentleman of impressive girth, and his aide, Lord Bontriomphe.
Michael Kurland wrote a couple of Lord Darcy mysteries, as well as (since we’re sitting here in August of 2020) The Whenabouts of Burr. A couple of investigators have to find the real copy of the Constitution that used to be in the National Archives. Seems the one that is there now was signed by Aaron Burr. They get some help from a time- and timeline- traveling Alexander Hamilton. Also by Kurland, Death by Gaslight (Professor Moriarty is the hero, Sherlock Holmes a reluctant ally). Mystery-plus-scifi. (But I’d skip his The Last President. It’s about an alternate version of Watergate. So, maybe not for right now.)
Anotherlurker
@Torrey: Davis’ Marcus Diddis Falco series are terrific. I have read them all and enjoyed each one.
I urge you to try Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series. Setting is 1830s New Orleans, in the Free Colored/Creole community. Benjamin January is a free man of color who received his education in music and medicine from the man who was his mother’s protector. She was his Placee’. He purchased her along with Benjamin and his sister, Olympia and according the the contract, he freed her and the kids.
Hambly provides excellent historical and cultural context to all her novels. This series is well worth you time to read.
Ken
@WaterGirl: There are eight or nine Carpenter and Quincannon books. Pronzini and Mueller collaborated on the first five, but Pronzini’s done the rest solo. Some of the books are compilations of three or four short stories, with framing material added.
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
I binge-read all the Nero Wolfe novels in paperback in the ’70s because a girlfriend’s father had them all.Very good series, and an interesting speeded-up time-lapse view of (a certain fictional) New York from the ’30s to the early ’70s. Some were formulaic, of course, but some were real gems. The last one, A Family Affair (1975), has an oblique meditation on Watergate, and the identity of the murderer is devastating.
I think I’m about to reread the Travis McGee novels. Agree with you about their picture of a certain period in Florida history. Pale Gray for Guilt (1968) was particularly good, with corrupt developers figuring prominently.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
An obscure one I just remembered. A. A. Milne (of Winnie The Pooh fame) wrote a locked-room mystery called The Red House Mystery. It was his only mystery. The Pooh books came later. If you like very English locked-room mysteries, this is a good example of the genre.
Did anyone mention Ngaio Marsh? I enjoy her novels a lot. I’ve only read three or four I think, but would happily read many more.
opiejeanne
Anything by Louise Penny. Her whole Gamache series is very good.
And we have to wait until September 1st for “All The Devils Are Here”. I’d buy it tonight if I could, but I think I will buy the Kitty Peck book and the last one, “The Pew Group”. I feel like I need a laugh tonight.
(I’m very depressed tonight because mortality is weighing heavily on me, everyone’s as well as my own.)
opiejeanne
I would recommend the Bosch series, by Michael Connelly, and the DCI Banks series by Peter Robinson.
A few years ago I read a series that were so harrowing that I didn’t recommend them to my husband, but they were very good. I think “Birdman” is the first, by Mo Hader.
Ken
@Falling Diphthong: My current favorite Holmes retellings are C.S. Denning’s Warlock Holmes series – A Study in Brimstone, The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles, a couple of others. Each book is a collection of stories, each loosely based on one of the original Holmes stories.
They are humorous fantasy, with Holmes a warlock and each case involving some magical being or artifact. The humor may be a bit much for some tastes.
brantl
To anyone not old enough to have read at least some of them when they came out, I recommend all of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books. They are phenomenal. Classic whodunits, very well written, very well plotted.
frosty
@Steeplejack: Agree on McGee. Pale Gray was my absolute favorite. So many cons going on!
Red Cedar
Ausma Zehanat Khan is a Canadian mystery writer whose Rachel Getty/Esa Khattak series is just marvelous. First one is The Unquiet Dead, which ends up being about the Bosnian war/Srebenica genocide—or at least its aftermath among Canadian immigrants. The whole “how are Muslims integrating into Canadian society” aspect of things is fascinating, at least to me, and especially as a comparison to how things are going in the US. Overall, Khan reminds me of Louise Penny in terms of character development, moral/political commitments, and an ultimate grounding in hope/goodness.
Denali
@Zhena,
What is the matter with you? Just watched Endeavor. The music was beautiful. Vivaldi, opera, Beethoven. Okay, the plot was dark, and it was sad watching the two partners go through such a rough patch. But still.
Steeplejack
I need to create a little database, or at least an aide-mémoire document, about the crime novels I read. I always think this when these threads come up. (Also at other times.) I grasp for authors’ names, titles, etc. It’s especially bad for authors or series out of the mainstream, which are less likely to be mentioned or jogged into memory by something else.
Right now I’m blanking on a trilogy of novels set in Britain right before and during World War II, but written in the ’80s or ’90s. Police procedurals, linked together (I think) by an ongoing serial killer or one of those “Did we get the right guy last time?” situations. Something like that. Very well done, sort of like if Foyle’s War went way to the dark side.
The other situation that trips me up is when I stop reading (usually binge-reading) a series because I’m temporarily satiated, and then when I come back to it a year or several years later I have no idea where I left off. Looking at you, Robert Crais (detectives Elvis Cole and Joe Pike) and (especially) James Lee Burke (detective Dave Robicheaux). Also some other series, but you get the idea. It’s hard to see where to pick up again, especially when, let’s face it, they can blur together in memory. Robicheaux’s little Louisiana town has a higher body count than Midsomer Murders!
I have read all of or parts of many of the series mentioned above, and when I see one that I’d like to get into again it’s frustrating not to know where I left off. Even just a list of titles—“I read this; I read that”—would be invaluable.
brantl
@brantl: Amazing how many people beat me to this. Also, has anyone read Isaac Asimov’s Tales of the Black Widowers. They are after-the-fact, dining-room misteries.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
One thing that has helped me is that my Kindle, and before that my Nook, keeps a record of the books I’ve bought, so at least I can refer to them for stuff purchased in the last ten years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Denali: I liked this season as well, but is there really a need to phrase it as an attack? It’s not as though she confessed to a fondness for mayonnaise, clowns, or the music of Nickelback.
ltelf
@opiejeanne: Yes, Anthony Oliver’s books are a complete delight. I was so sad that his early death kept him from writing more in the series.
Another Scott
@opiejeanne: Hang in there. Better days are coming.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sandia Blanca
For those who (like me) love Louise Penny, you might also enjoy the series by Julia Spencer-Fleming, whose protagonists are Clare Fergusson, a female Episcopalian priest who was a helicopter pilot in the military, and Russ Van Alstyne, the small-town police chief who also has a military background. The titles are all taken from hymn lyrics, the first one being “In the Bleak Midwinter.” The setting is upstate New York, in the Adirondacks, and her characters are as richly developed as those in the Penny books.
Torrey
@Anotherlurker: Thank you! I’ve heard good things about Hambly, but never quite gotten around to reading her work. It seems a good time for this mystery series. It is hereby prioritized.
Ivan X
@NotMax: Please share what you consider to be first tier, as well!
Heidi Mom
I just finished, and really liked, The Missing American by Kwei Quartey. It’s a fascinating look at present-day Ghana as seen through the eyes of a young female detective and other characters from all walks of life.
billcinsd
@Torrey: The Lord Darcy short stories are also very good. The Kurland Darcy books are takeoffs of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes
hells littlest angel
Spoiler alert re: <em>The Beast Must Die</em> — <spoiler>the story is told by way of the protagonist’s diary, in which he describes the theft of said diary, which he never recovers despite continuing to tell the story through this diary’s entries. </spoiler>
Oddly, this story has been described as one of the greatest mysteries of all time, but this glaring logical impossibility ruined it for me because I expected it to be resolved in the solution.
hells littlest angel
I think Endeavour is one of the very best shows on TV, although this season is not as good as previous. I suspect that Season 8 will be the last, which will be too bad. Oh well. Brenda Blethyn is still looking hale and hearty.
James Kakalios
@Torrey: and to @Ceci: There was a pilot for a Nero Wolfe series made in 1957 or so. You can find it on Youtube. Can’t recall who played Wolfe right now, but William Shatner, pre-Star Trek, was an excellent Archie. Only 30 min., and well worth checking out.
James Kakalios
@brantl: THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN is one of my top ten books of all time. Not mysteries – just books. I’ve actually learned life lessons from them, such as “when someone announces startling news, don’t watch the speaker, watch the audience.”
Betty
@zhena gogolia: It wasn’t until the very end that they explained the cats, rats and caged birds. The whole season seemed a little too convoluted with some bits I never did see wrapped up. The thing with Thursday seemed to be to create tension with Morse.