Crime Fiction Recommendations - Page 10

SensualPoet · 11-05-2010, 10:57 PM

Thanks for your list, Larry qrpfan99! I have Jeffrey Deaver on my "must sample" list. I adore Robert B Parker's Spenser (there's another thread lurking about him). And, yah, you ought to treat yourself and re-reader Chandler. A true joy to read.

And the reminder of both Patricia Highsmith and George Pelecanos is excellent. Any specific volumes you might recommend?

SensualPoet · 11-05-2010, 11:24 PM

This week I turned to Graham Thomas's first novel in the Erksine Powell series, Murder in the Highlands. It's pretty breezy -- with a welter of Scots idioms -- not too encumbered with deep character development and leaning heaviliy on dialogue and ample description of a fishing retreat in the Scottish highlands. Although Detective Chief Superintendent Erkine Powell of New Scotland Yard is 50-something and wondering if life has landed him quite where he wants to be, there is nothing of the darkly brooding character of Ian Rankin's Edinburgh-based Inspector Rebus. Thomas lays down short-hand markers ... and then gets on with is tale.

Powell, feeling somewhat burnt out, has taken an annual holiday -- away from the wife and two teenage boys -- trying his luck (again) at salmon fishing and meeting up with a colleague, Inspector Alex Barrett and an old friend, Pinky Warburton. Charles Murray, a Canadian mining promoter in the throes of retirement, has bought the local castle which controls the river rights of Powell's favourite hotel retreat. Before he's had a chance to get out his rod, the mining magnate turns up quite dead in the waters. With two police inspectors off duty but onsite, and a well-known Canadian dead on foreign soil, Powell's vacation comes to a screeching halt. We get to know the hotel staff, the castle staff, Murray's daughter and some of the ins-and-outs of penny stock mining business. (Canadians might recognise Murray Pezim in the murdered magnate ... I'm just saying ....) As with any good mystery, there are a couple of handful of characters who might have done it and, slowly, Powell eliminates one after another until, staring him in the face, is the one clue he refused to accept from early on.

I loved the atmosphere, and very much enjoyed the Scots idioms peppering the tale. Powell himself is pleasant enough that I'm intrigued to read the next in the series, although I can't say the character is drawn in nearly as compelling a way as Spenser, Rebus or Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. But entertaining? Oh, yes.

A reasonably cheap e-book read at both Amazon and Fictionwise; around $6.

GA Russell · 11-05-2010, 11:48 PM

I remember when Murray Pezim ("the Pez") signed Doug Flutie to play for the BC Lions! And Mark Gastineau too!

dmacmart · 11-06-2010, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

I really can't recommend Louise Penny's 2004 debut novel Still Life, the first of six Chief Inspector Armand Gamache tales, set in the village of Three Pines, Quebec, more highly.

Heh heh - You have to read that WHOLE sentence to understand it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Edit to add: How ironic. I can't get it in Canada!

benham · 11-06-2010, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qprfan99

Hi guys

I'm a huge fan of this genre. No preferences as to nationalities or era or PI v. Cop.

Favourites
American
Michael Connelly - Not just Harry Bosch
Robert Crais - Great easy reads
Robert B Parker - The Spenser series - the easiest reaads out there & funny with it.
Jeffery Deaver
James Ellroy - a bit harder to read.
Elmore Leonards - great fun
Lee Child (though a Brit) - Reacher series - very very easy reads
James Patterson - love Alex Cross
The 2 Kellermans - can't choose between them
Harlan Coben - Myron Bolitar
James Lee Burke - possibly the best writer of them all?
Lawrence Block & his superb Scudder series
John Lescroart - Dismas Hardy a lawyer is his main character
Sara Paretsky's VI Warshawski

British
Ian Rankin - His Rebus series was superb
Peter Robinson - Insp Banks
Elizabeth George - the Lynley series but I found the quality varied.
PD James - Dalgleish series - a great writer
Ruth Rendell - Wexford - great books, didn't like the TV series at all
(also try the Barbara Vine books, a pen-name she uses - for darker stories)
Donna Leon's Brunetti series set in Venice - really loved these.
Ellis Peters - Cadfael series - wonderful
Dick Francis - great fun & a very easy read - also very informative about a lot of different things not just horse racing

Scandinavian
Henning Mankell - I love Kurt Wallander
Stieg Larsson - the fashionable Millenium series

I've also just finished a couple of books by Brian Eisler - his hero is a Japanese/American hit-man. Great read

Some historical ones
Laura Joh Rowland's books about her Samurai detective Sano Ichiro
John Maddox Roberts - SPQR series set in Ancient Rome
Robert Van Gulik - Judge Dee set in Ancient China - written a long time ago but recommended

Finally some very highly recommended Australian writers
Arthur Upfield's indigenous detective Boney
Peter Corris - especially the Cliff Hardy series - these are as good as anything in the world & a very easy read
Gary Disher & his criminal hero Wyatt
Jon Creasy & his hero Scobie Malone
Peter Temple
Barry Maitland - though his combatants are based in England.

All these I've read recently & most of their books.

The masters - Cain, Thompson, Chandler, Hammett etc - I haven't read for a while but remember as being great.

All of these are highly recommended. Loads of others I've really liked but just don't make it on to this list - Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs etc etc

Some I just haven't read enough of their books but have enjoyed what I have - Mark Billigham, Robert Wilson, Hiassen, Hillerman

And then of course there are all the others that I've forgotten - a regular event at my age

Long-winded I know but I'll guarantee you won't go wrong with any of these.

Be lucky
Larry

What a great list!

Many of those are authors I enjoy as well. You may want to also try Stephen J Cannell, Randy Wayne White and Ridley Pearson.

SensualPoet · 11-06-2010, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmacmart

Heh heh - You have to read that WHOLE sentence to understand it. Thanks for the recommendation.

Edit to add: How ironic. I can't get it in Canada!

The Louise Penny thing is really annoying. The good news is all of her books (and audio books etc) are available in Canada and probably at your local chapters. But the ebooks rights are tangled up in release at the moment. It also means none of her books are in Canadian public libraries (as ebooks).

Steve Anderson · 11-06-2010, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

And the reminder of both Patricia Highsmith and George Pelecanos is excellent. Any specific volumes you might recommend?

For Highsmith, her Ripley books are best. I liked The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley's Game. For Pelecanos, his early novels feature a Greek-American private eye in Washington DC. A Firing Offense and Nick's Trip are the first two. Most of his books are in DC, I think. He also wrote for the HBO series (here in the US anyway) The Wire.

The Terminator · 11-06-2010, 03:33 PM

The secret adversary by Agatha Christie is good

mr.jjm54 · 11-06-2010, 07:38 PM

I enjoy Michael Connelly, Lee Childs, Robert B. Parker, and many of the names previously mentioned by other readers. I have read Dick Francis but it's been awhile.

SensualPoet · 11-11-2010, 09:04 PM

Born out of the example of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, the genre "cozy mystery" has come to mean the adventures of amateur sleuths (who otherwise have a different day job) who uncover bodies in their environs with shocking frequency and who manage to assist, or sometimes outwit, the local constabulary. Cozy mysteries are almost always more light-hearted than not, and while murder is by definition violent, the violence and gore of a cozy is normally left in the shadows. We're often treated to romance as a side dish.

And so it is with Cleo Coyle's "Coffeehouse Mysteries" starring Clare Cosi, divorced half-owner of the Village Blend, a coffee shop in New York's Greenwich Village, set in modern day. The series runs to ten titles so far starting with On What Grounds from 2003. I read the second title in the series, Through The Grinder, in which one of Clare's customers, Valerie Lathem, has apparently committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train ... and a picture of a Village Blend take-out cup, gruesomely found intact next to the body, is splashed across the front pages of local tabloids. But the local detective, also a Village Blend regular, thinks it was murder: Ms Lathem was pushed! Enter dashing Bruce Bowman, a dating club that meets on the second floor of the coffee shop, and motherly concern for Clare's daughter Joy ... and more female customers of the Village Blend dying in more suspicious accidents ...well, it's a tale made for an amateur sleuth and Clare goes to work.

It's a charming romance mystery, predictably easy to read, and not terribly complex in plot or plot twists. There are some extraordinary flights of dialogue centred around coffee -- roasting methods, growing details, recipes -- that are frankly forced to the breaking point ... but that is the "hook" (some might say schtick) of this series and for that reason it's forgiveable. I have no doubt the facts are correct so coffee afficiandos will not stay awake with angst. Nor will anyone else as the story is as frothy as a freshly foamed latte. Available at Amazon for under $7.

SeaBookGuy · 11-11-2010, 09:16 PM

Cleo Coyle also writes the "Haunted Bookshop" series as Alice Kimberly: A New York P. I. was murdered in small town Rhode Island in the 1940's, his ghost unable to leave the building where the incident took place. Fast-forward 60 years ... young widow who sets up a bookshop on the premises discovers that she can communicate with him.

SensualPoet · 11-20-2010, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Cleo Coyle also writes the "Haunted Bookshop" series as Alice Kimberly: A New York P. I. was murdered in small town Rhode Island in the 1940's, his ghost unable to leave the building where the incident took place. Fast-forward 60 years ... young widow who sets up a bookshop on the premises discovers that she can communicate with him.

Thanks for the background behind the Haunted Bookshop series. There's an author's website here: http://www.coffeehousemystery.com/cl...d_bookshop.cfm

Some cute titles: "The Ghost and Mrs. McClure", "The Ghost and the Dead Deb" and "The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library" -- and that's just the first three; five so far and a sixth arriving in the spring.

SensualPoet · 11-20-2010, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by THE TERMINATOR

The secret adversary by Agatha Christie is good

I really enjoyed "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", which is also the first Hercule Poirot novel and the first novel by Agatha Christie. It's also here at Mobileread in Kobo/Nook/Sony/etc ePub and in Kindle mobi.

SensualPoet · 11-20-2010, 09:58 AM

I thoroughly enjoyed Margaret Truman's Murder at the Washington Tribune, one of the last in her series of murders set in and around Washington, DC. She produced about one a year from the mid-1980s, each with a straight-forward title like Murder at the Opera, Murder at the National Library, Murder at Union Station, etc. Truman relies on the places, not recurring characters, to drive the series. It helps greatly that her style is adult, offering a good balance between descriptive narrative and character development. And, as a mystery writer, the plots and twists keep the reader wanting more.

At the Washington Tribune, veteran crime reporter Joe Wilcox is approaching retirement and feeling somewhat pushed aside by the new wave of journalists he's rubbing elbows with, not to mention tabloid TV ... where his daughter, a young reporter with the local news channel, skirts the boundaries. And then it happens: a fellow reporter, voluptuous and bright, is found strangled inside the offices of the Trib. Tracking down the murder, Joe's juices are back but as the competition heats up to find the best story angle, Joe finds himself on the wrong side of journalistic ethics. Enter his brother, recently released from 40 years in a mental hospital for having murdered the girl next door when he was 16 ... the brother his daughter never knew he had. And then another strangulation, of another young media professional, and coincidences creep in. Who dunnit? And will he or she dunnit again?

Well written, fast paced, with lots of back-story snippets to fill in the lives of the main characters, there isn't a moment when the reader isn't thinking ... "good heavens, what next?" ... but all in a believable context. Available as an ebook for $6 and change at Kobo and Amazon.

GA Russell · 11-20-2010, 03:22 PM

It occurs to me that in recent years (say, the past ten years) crime books written for the male audience have (for the most part) been thrillers rather than mysteries. It appears to me that nowadays most mysteries are written by and for women.

Of course I could be wrong, but if you disagree, take a look at what The Mystery Guild is offering.

11-05-2010, 11:24 PM	#137
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	This week I turned to Graham Thomas's first novel in the Erksine Powell series, Murder in the Highlands. It's pretty breezy -- with a welter of Scots idioms -- not too encumbered with deep character development and leaning heaviliy on dialogue and ample description of a fishing retreat in the Scottish highlands. Although Detective Chief Superintendent Erkine Powell of New Scotland Yard is 50-something and wondering if life has landed him quite where he wants to be, there is nothing of the darkly brooding character of Ian Rankin's Edinburgh-based Inspector Rebus. Thomas lays down short-hand markers ... and then gets on with is tale. Powell, feeling somewhat burnt out, has taken an annual holiday -- away from the wife and two teenage boys -- trying his luck (again) at salmon fishing and meeting up with a colleague, Inspector Alex Barrett and an old friend, Pinky Warburton. Charles Murray, a Canadian mining promoter in the throes of retirement, has bought the local castle which controls the river rights of Powell's favourite hotel retreat. Before he's had a chance to get out his rod, the mining magnate turns up quite dead in the waters. With two police inspectors off duty but onsite, and a well-known Canadian dead on foreign soil, Powell's vacation comes to a screeching halt. We get to know the hotel staff, the castle staff, Murray's daughter and some of the ins-and-outs of penny stock mining business. (Canadians might recognise Murray Pezim in the murdered magnate ... I'm just saying ....) As with any good mystery, there are a couple of handful of characters who might have done it and, slowly, Powell eliminates one after another until, staring him in the face, is the one clue he refused to accept from early on. I loved the atmosphere, and very much enjoyed the Scots idioms peppering the tale. Powell himself is pleasant enough that I'm intrigued to read the next in the series, although I can't say the character is drawn in nearly as compelling a way as Spenser, Rebus or Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. But entertaining? Oh, yes. A reasonably cheap e-book read at both Amazon and Fictionwise; around $6. Last edited by SensualPoet; 11-05-2010 at 11:29 PM.

11-11-2010, 09:04 PM	#145
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	Born out of the example of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, the genre "cozy mystery" has come to mean the adventures of amateur sleuths (who otherwise have a different day job) who uncover bodies in their environs with shocking frequency and who manage to assist, or sometimes outwit, the local constabulary. Cozy mysteries are almost always more light-hearted than not, and while murder is by definition violent, the violence and gore of a cozy is normally left in the shadows. We're often treated to romance as a side dish. And so it is with Cleo Coyle's "Coffeehouse Mysteries" starring Clare Cosi, divorced half-owner of the Village Blend, a coffee shop in New York's Greenwich Village, set in modern day. The series runs to ten titles so far starting with On What Grounds from 2003. I read the second title in the series, Through The Grinder, in which one of Clare's customers, Valerie Lathem, has apparently committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train ... and a picture of a Village Blend take-out cup, gruesomely found intact next to the body, is splashed across the front pages of local tabloids. But the local detective, also a Village Blend regular, thinks it was murder: Ms Lathem was pushed! Enter dashing Bruce Bowman, a dating club that meets on the second floor of the coffee shop, and motherly concern for Clare's daughter Joy ... and more female customers of the Village Blend dying in more suspicious accidents ...well, it's a tale made for an amateur sleuth and Clare goes to work. It's a charming romance mystery, predictably easy to read, and not terribly complex in plot or plot twists. There are some extraordinary flights of dialogue centred around coffee -- roasting methods, growing details, recipes -- that are frankly forced to the breaking point ... but that is the "hook" (some might say schtick) of this series and for that reason it's forgiveable. I have no doubt the facts are correct so coffee afficiandos will not stay awake with angst. Nor will anyone else as the story is as frothy as a freshly foamed latte. Available at Amazon for under $7. Last edited by SensualPoet; 11-11-2010 at 09:06 PM.

11-20-2010, 09:58 AM	#149
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	I thoroughly enjoyed Margaret Truman's Murder at the Washington Tribune, one of the last in her series of murders set in and around Washington, DC. She produced about one a year from the mid-1980s, each with a straight-forward title like Murder at the Opera, Murder at the National Library, Murder at Union Station, etc. Truman relies on the places, not recurring characters, to drive the series. It helps greatly that her style is adult, offering a good balance between descriptive narrative and character development. And, as a mystery writer, the plots and twists keep the reader wanting more. At the Washington Tribune, veteran crime reporter Joe Wilcox is approaching retirement and feeling somewhat pushed aside by the new wave of journalists he's rubbing elbows with, not to mention tabloid TV ... where his daughter, a young reporter with the local news channel, skirts the boundaries. And then it happens: a fellow reporter, voluptuous and bright, is found strangled inside the offices of the Trib. Tracking down the murder, Joe's juices are back but as the competition heats up to find the best story angle, Joe finds himself on the wrong side of journalistic ethics. Enter his brother, recently released from 40 years in a mental hospital for having murdered the girl next door when he was 16 ... the brother his daughter never knew he had. And then another strangulation, of another young media professional, and coincidences creep in. Who dunnit? And will he or she dunnit again? Well written, fast paced, with lots of back-story snippets to fill in the lives of the main characters, there isn't a moment when the reader isn't thinking ... "good heavens, what next?" ... but all in a believable context. Available as an ebook for $6 and change at Kobo and Amazon. Last edited by SensualPoet; 11-20-2010 at 10:09 AM.

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11-05-2010, 10:57 PM	#136
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	Thanks for your list, Larry qrpfan99! I have Jeffrey Deaver on my "must sample" list. I adore Robert B Parker's Spenser (there's another thread lurking about him). And, yah, you ought to treat yourself and re-reader Chandler. A true joy to read. And the reminder of both Patricia Highsmith and George Pelecanos is excellent. Any specific volumes you might recommend?

11-05-2010, 11:48 PM	#138
GA Russell Ford to the rescue? Posts: 7,608 Karma: 31484197 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Raleigh, NC Device: Paperwhite, Kindles 10 & 4 and jetBook Lite	I remember when Murray Pezim ("the Pez") signed Doug Flutie to play for the BC Lions! And Mark Gastineau too!

11-06-2010, 03:33 PM	#143
The Terminator Retired Posts: 2,552 Karma: 37638420 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Vancouver Island Canada Device: Kobo Touch, Optimus One (2.3), Nexus 7 (4.2)	The secret adversary by Agatha Christie is good

11-06-2010, 07:38 PM	#144
mr.jjm54 Member Posts: 14 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: moved from NY to TN Device: nook	I enjoy Michael Connelly, Lee Childs, Robert B. Parker, and many of the names previously mentioned by other readers. I have read Dick Francis but it's been awhile.

11-11-2010, 09:16 PM	#146
SeaBookGuy Can one read too much? Posts: 2,015 Karma: 2487799 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Naples, FL Device: Kindle PW 3, Sony 350 and 650	Cleo Coyle also writes the "Haunted Bookshop" series as Alice Kimberly: A New York P. I. was murdered in small town Rhode Island in the 1940's, his ghost unable to leave the building where the incident took place. Fast-forward 60 years ... young widow who sets up a bookshop on the premises discovers that she can communicate with him.

11-20-2010, 03:22 PM	#150
GA Russell Ford to the rescue? Posts: 7,608 Karma: 31484197 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Raleigh, NC Device: Paperwhite, Kindles 10 & 4 and jetBook Lite	It occurs to me that in recent years (say, the past ten years) crime books written for the male audience have (for the most part) been thrillers rather than mysteries. It appears to me that nowadays most mysteries are written by and for women. Of course I could be wrong, but if you disagree, take a look at what The Mystery Guild is offering.

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