I’ll start with one of my favorites: Crocodile on a Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters, (c) 1975. The Amelia Peabody mysteries. They’re a hoot.
And just to give you the idea that they don’t have to be totally period: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith. Precious Rambotswe is the detective. It’s also a very good HBO series.
oooh, another books topic! woohoo! already ordered Falco 1 Silver Pigs, thank you, Tulrose!
I love Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy Sayers’s detective and have read all those, many times, and of course, Cadfael, Peter Ellis’s monk detective, and C J Sansom’s tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake dectective series starting with Dissolution … I see there is a new one coming out in September in fact … and I love Precious Ramotswe … however, I have to admit to a weakness, I have never read Sansom or Alexander McCall Smith in print, I have them as audiobooks, to entertain me while driving or making pots!
I could add to this list Strega by Andrew H. Vachss, set in the seedy underworld of NY, private eye Burke whose self-appointed mission is to make the world unsafe for child molesters. so quite grim, but entertaining. and the bad guys always get sorted out, of course!
YESS! We like Wallander a lot. Looking in the library for them.
I am about to start Stieg Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy, Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and following two. Hope I like the translations.
All of the above, plus:
Edmund Crispin
Arthur Upfield, whose detective is an Australian aborigine
Mary Stewart’s mysteries
Dick Francis – love the horses!
Delano Ames
Amanda Cross
Emma Lathem
Ngaio Marsh
Dorothy Dunnett (yes, she wrote murder mysteries also!)
Christopher Brookmyre
Josephine Tey
Love these book threads: 6 new authors for me to try already!
Dorothy L. Sayers is great, Gaudy night is my favourite; and the new books co-authored by Jill Paton Walsh like Thrones, dominations are very good too.
Josephine Tey: Brat Farrar is my favourite; some of her other detectives have to rely rather heavily on luck & chance to be solved though the characterizations are good.
Elizabeth Peters: The Amelia Peabody series is the best, but she’s written a lot more mostly combining mystery and romance that are worth a read as well, though not in my top-10 (e.g. standalone Summer of the dragon, Vicky Bliss-series Borrower of the night).
I love the Dick Francis horse-flavored mysteries: Break in is one of my favourites but they’re nearly all good. The newer books by his son Felix have a more thriller-like feel to me – a lot less personal knowledge of horses and more nasty violence -, so I don’t like those as well.
Robert B. Parker & his tough PI detective Spencer have been mentioned already: Early autumn is my favourite. The same goes for Ellis Peters: the Brother Cadfael books, like A rare Benedictine.
Randall Garrett: Lord Darcy is a puzzle-detective in a fantasy-world; Isaac Asimov wrote mystery stories as well as SF: The black widowers are pure puzzle-stories, while The caves of steel and it’s sequels are a real mixture of both genres.
More puzzle-detectives: Rex Stout‘s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin books are very good. From the same period but more formulaic are Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr. I do like the books about lawyer Perry Mason by Erle Stanley Gardner.
I inherited all grandpa’s old detectives so most writers I know are a bit older. Generally I prefer those old puzzle-detectives as I don’t like a lot of violence and gore in my books.
Another of grandpa’s: Leslie Charteris, the Saint books are lighter crime-stories rather than detectives (and the old ones are less formulaic than the modern TV-stories).
And a really old one (c.1920) in the same sort of crime stories (but a bit less polished): Wyndham Martyn – I’d expect him on Gutenberg but couldn’t find any.
A good writer who occasionally wrote mysteries: Paul Gallico, e.g. Too many ghosts, The hand of Mary Constable, and the crime story The zoo gang are good, though The man who was magic (not a detective) has long been my favourite of his books.
Jeffrey Archer: Not a penny more, not a penny less (lighter), Shall we tell the president? (more suspense), and Honour among thieves are more contemporary detective/crime stories (after 3 rereads I’m still hesitating between 2 names for who the spy-villain of the last-mentioned book is – Archer doesn’t explicitly name him!).
For the cat-lovers some lighter detectives: the series by Rita May Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown are a bit more solid than the series The cat who.. by Lilian Jackson Braun. Even lighter fare: Dorothy Gilman, best known for het Mrs.Pollifax spy-books, but I prefer a few of her standalone books, like The clairvoyant countess.
Robert van Gulik‘s Judge Dee books have been mentioned, but I prefer Bertus Aafjes books about Judge Ooka: also a historical judge, from Japan instead of China. Aafjes’ books are a bit lighter, also suitable for younger people (no too horrifying punishments etc.), but I can’t find an English translation on the web. Instead, I found a mention of several English books of Judge Ooka stories on http://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com/2004/06/29/108852798237769818/
Some more older English detectives: G.K. Chesterton, best known for his Father Brown mysteries, wrote a lot of other mysteries and fantasies as well.
Michael Innes: the inspector Appleby mysteries, Candlemass and others.
And another good English detective TV-series: The Inspector Morse books by Colin Dexter.
And I really like Mary Stewart‘s what I call ‘damsel in distress’-books, a mixture of mild romance and adventure/mystery: This rough magic, Airs above the ground, My brother Michael, The moon-spinners, Nine coaches waiting, Madam, will you talk, Thunder on the right, Touch not the cat. The last two books she wrote are the mildest, very little mystery but mostly a gentle romance, so they don’t belong in this thread: Thornyhold and Stormy petrel.
And finally, another favourite a bit in the same line but more suspense and maybe a bit less romance, often with a cold war spy-story element: Helen MacInnes, The hidden target and Cloak of darkness go together, but mostly they’re standalone books, for instance North from Rome, Decision at Delphi, Neither five nor three, Message from Malaga, Snare of the hunter, and Double image. Several are spy-stories set in occupied Europe during WWII, like Horizon, Above suspicion and Assignment in Brittany. Two of hers that I know are mostly romance, so don’t belong in this thread: Rest and be thankful and Friends and lovers.
I like Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep is an amazing book, and his others are great too.
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon is one of the best, along with The Thin Man, Red Harvest, etc., all very good.
I also like Dick Francis, Straight, Hot Money, Dead Cert (and many others).
This reminds me, I’ve got some Dorothy Sayers books on my Kindle that I haven’t read yet. Guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks.
Russ
Ah, I guess the selections others mention shows what a lowbrow I am. I like Dashiell Hammett, have not read any of Raymond Chandler, have read every one of the Holmes cases, not the pastiches (with the exception of The Seven Percent Solution), absolutely raved over Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Holmes, which I consider much better than Basil Rathbone. Let’s not forget the forerunner of modern mystery writing, one Edgar Allan Poe.
So I like hard-hitting drama in a mystery, I also like Conan, Bran mak Morn, and Cormac mac Art by Robert E. Howard, which has nothing to do with mystery, but everything to do with action.
and, even better, I just discovered the BBC’s dramatisation of the Falco series, with guess what, my all time favourite actor for audio books, Anton Lesser. He reads the CJ Sansom books too … I first discovered him as the reader of Iain M Banks’ the Algebraist, which is made hugely sympathetic by his reading (also some of the worst bits are cut out of it – I have read the books a few times as well but this is off topic as Iain M Banks is space opera – though you could also call it a mystery type book)
No one’s mentioned Anne Perry? Mostly she does Victorian Era murder mysteries, but they double as good historical fiction.
She has two main series; one featuring Thomas Pitt, a police inspector turned counter-terrorism investigator, assisted by his wife Charlotte. The Cater Street Hangman starts that series.
The other, set about twenty years earlier, features William Monk. This one starts with The Face of a Stranger.
She has a shorter, four-volume series set in World War I, this one begins with No Graves as Yet.
I grew up on The Happy Hollisters and Nancy Drew.
As an adult I enjoyed Elizbeth Peters (and her alter ego Barbara Michaels), Mary Stewart, Dick Francis, Emma Lathem, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Leslie Charteris (loved the Saint), Helen MacInnes, Elizabeth George and Tony Hillerman all previously mentioned. I also loved some of the less famous writers like Alexandra Roudybush, Charlotte MacLeod, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Phyllis A. Whitney, Elizabeth Linington and all her nom de plumes, Charlotte Armstrong, Lange Lewis (though I’ve only read The Birthday Murder), Lee Martin (her detective is married with a houseful of kids juggling marriage, motherhood and being a cop) and Dorothy Gilman who wrote the Mrs Pollifax series. Now decades later I’m a bit burned out and, as so many of my favorite authors have passed on, I’m currently reading very few authors like J.A. Jance, Marcia Muller, Margaret Maron and Sue Grafton.
Would like to add Mary Roberts Rinehart, Susan Conant who mysteries revolve around the dog world, Richard Powell who is probably best known for The Philadelphian but also wrote fun mysteries.
Dorothy Dunnett’s Dolly series have different American titles so if anyone goes looking be careful.
A.E Maxwell, a good series starting with “Just Another Day In Paradise”. This is a husband/wife team. (The wife has written Science Fiction/Fantasy as Ann Maxwell. In addition to other stand alone titles she has a series starting with “Fire Dancer” which she never finished but I still enjoy. Also writes as Elizabeth Lowell).
Thank you for mentioning Ann Maxwell. I bought her Fire Dancer series some time ago, and suspect it will end up being one of those orphaned series that will never reappear, so I’m hanging onto my paperbacks for dear life. I will have to look up her other work now; I didn’t realize (for shame!) she wrote as Elizabeth Lowell.
I forgot to ask for help in coming up with a title/author of an older book that starts before WWII. British Intelligence receives a morse code message in an old code. They keep getting messages from someone with connections to Hitler’s group but have no idea who it is. I cannot find my copy and want to replace it. It has been years since I read it but remember enjoying it.
The author is Manning Coles, the authors’ surnames. I believe that book was titled “A Toast to Tomorrow” and was a semi-sequel to “A Drink to Yesterday” where the main protagonist was killed for revenge. The series resumes with Tommy Hambledon recovering from amnesia and resuming contact as an agent in place suing his WWI contact frequency & protocols. The whole series is great fun, well written, and Highly Recommended.
Dorothy Sayers’s Peter Wimsey – yes, must agree with Empty Nest. Also, the only novels I’ve ever purchased the radio plays for.
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Even purchased annotated mega-pedia versions. 😉
Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody books, although I’ve thinned my collection down to the first 3.
Laura Joh Rowland’s Sano Ichiro novels. The setting is Shogunate Japan.
I love many of the same authors that were previously mentioned, so I won’t list them all again (though I only own the complete works of two authors, CJ Cherryh and Dick Francis). Two authors that I have not noticed on this thread:
Dell Shannon. Pen name for Elizabeth Linington. Mostly out of print, though a few get re-issued every so often, allowing me to add them to my collection. 20+ books written from 1960 through the late 70’s, featuring Lt. Luis Mendoza. Classic LA police procedurals. I found one on my mother’s bookshelf as a teenager and have loved them ever since.
Jamie Harrison. She wrote a set of 4 books featuring a sheriff in small town Montana; the first is called Edge of the Crazies. I would have loved more books in this series, but at the same time, respect an author who doesn’t force a series past its peak.
I do enjoy the cat-related mysteries, although I prefer the Sneaky Pie Brown ones by Rita Mae Brown over the Cat Who… mysteries by Braun.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned anything by Tony Hillerman. I enjoyed the little asides about Navajo culture as much as the stories themselves.
Another author I like is Laurie R. King. Her Sherlock Holmes pastiches are fun, but she also writes other series with other characters that are even more engrossing. I particularly enjoyed Folly, about a woman who is trying to recover from a nervous breakdown. Rae is a woodworker by trade, and when she inherits an island with a burnt down summer house, or folly, she decides to let work be her therapist and rebuild the house by herself. Several intertwined mysteries develop, including a possible recurrence of her mental illness… or is she being gaslighted? And why? I loved her descriptions of the process of constructing a house, and the setting itself in the San Juan Islands.
The older Matt Scudder novels by Lawrence Block. “Eight Million Ways to Die” is a good start. The newer Scudder novels kind of run out of steam, and I was never really a fan of the “burgler and “Hit Man” series. But the earlier books where Scudder is drinking, and then trying to stay sober are priceless. Very Highly Recommended.
Also another plug for Tony Hillerman. Not only are they excellent, they are also a great short course in Four Corners (Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and other) Native American cultures.
Terry Pratchett‘s Diskworld books about the Night Watch are detectives as well. He’s a real favourite, but I forgot to list him because I’ve got him mentally classified under F/SF and comedy. There’s a great deal of growth and development in the storytelling and the characters if you follow the sequence from the early Men at arms to Nightwatch.
Now I think about it, there’s been quite a lot of crossover between detectives/mysteries and SF/F since Asimov’s Caves of steel started it. A few that just came to mind are James White‘s Sector General medical mysteries/puzzles in a hospital filled with aliens (Hospital station, Ambulance ship, Major Operation) and Mercedes Lackey‘s Sacred ground, a modern-day detective story with indian spirits.
In fact, lots and lots and LOTS of fantasy and science fiction contains an element of mystery, in the shape of ‘needing to find out who the villains are’ or ‘searching for clues to solve the problem’ – huh, I never realised that so clearly before.
But perhaps that blurs the boundaries of this thread too much.
Oh, and about Agatha Christie: everybody knows Poirot and Miss Marple, but the ‘Tommy and Tuppence’ stories are a nice diversion as well; they are a bit more ordinary people doing the sleuthing.
Here’s an interesting web page. Put in the author’s full name and it will find authors you may like. http://www.literature-map.com.
I enjoy many of the books listed above. I especially enjoy first person mystery stories – such as the Archie Goodwin stories.
A grab-bag of observations:
Historical / mystery crossovers: the Falco series and the Brother Cadfael series. Both seem to be well researched on the historical aspects.
The Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie has been reasonably described as steampunk SF rather than historical. If you want a really entertaining re-imagining of Sherlock, see the recent BBC series with Sherlock and Watson in 2010 London – Dr Watson being, as in the original, recently returned from the Afghan wars – Moriarty texting his challenges to Sherlock.
Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone “alphabet” series is arguably historical, being all set in the 1980s. S is for Silence is one of the best stories I’ve ever read in any genre.
PD James, of course, and also for her one SF novel Children of Men, particularly in the Alfonso Cuaran movie version.
Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, lots of those already named …….
PS: the prolific LE Modesitt has a couple of good future-set detective mysteries in the mix, notably Archform: Beauty, and Flash