Crime Fiction Recommendations

[DMB]

I second all the recommendations of Michael Connelly. I only discovered him fairly recently and am slowly reading my way through.

Dick Francis is interesting. I enjoy his books but truth be told he seems to write the same book again and again. Although his heroes are nominally different, I find it quite hard to tell one from another. They always give a first-person narrative, they are always decent people who end up being forgiving to twerps and they always seem to suffer a lot of physical torture at the hands of totally despicable villains. Really good escapist stuff!

I enjoy the classic crime queens of the period before and immediately after WW2, but Agatha Christie the least. IMO Dorothy Sayers is by far the best. For anyone who likes her, there is a nice little collection of DVDs of the stories featuring Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane: Strong Poison, Have his Carcase and Gaudy Night, which were beautifully made in the 1980s starring Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walter.

I think Kathy Reichs writes very well but I was very disappointed with the TV adaptations. Stick to the books!

I would thoroughly recommend Mark Billingham. If you can stomach Val McDermid's books then you won't mind his being a bit gruesome. But he is a wonderful writer. I assume that his other job as a stand-up comic has made him very observant. I like his books as much as anything for their sharp observation of contemporary society. There was a recent attempt to dramatise some of his books for TV. I saw a bit and was disappointed.

Another writer I discovered recently is John Connor. Some of his books have a rather unusual female detective, Karen Sharpe. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find one of his books in eformat, and that is ePub. I hope they'll turn up for the Kindle soon.

[benham]

I have not read Mark Billingham yet but have Sleepyhead loaded.

[DarkRoast]

Originally Posted by amward

I think all of my favourites have been mentioned but I would have to give a gold star to Michael Rowbotham.

Anne

Anne, do you mean Michael Robotham, or is there also a Michael Rowbotham? It's a shame there is only the one book available as ebook at the moment.

[DarkRoast]

I just remember also. If you are a dog person AND you like crime books, there are also the Chet and Bernie books. Nothing too intense or dark but I stopped reading them because of Chet's unresolved lump situation, not sure what happened in the latest installment.

[flhden]

Great thread with so many good authors. Bottom line for mystery thriller fans is that we have an abundance of fabulous authors to choose from. Just finished all of Tess Gerritsen books and Dennis Lehane and now starting J.T. Ellison series and enjoying every minute of it. Who knows where I will go from here but thanks to everyone and all your great recommendations.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by flhden

Great thread with so many good authors. Bottom line for mystery thriller fans is that we have an abundance of fabulous authors to choose from.

I'm happy for the many who like thrillers, but from my point of view too few people are writing good hard boiled mysteries nowadays. Most of my mystery reading is of authors who have been dead for decades.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

from my point of view too few people are writing good hard boiled mysteries nowadays. Most of my mystery reading is of authors who have been dead for decades.

Yup. I second that. I continue to discover living authors I enjoy but the dead ones seem to have better, umm, future.

[DMB]

I had a pleasant surprise when I visited amazon.co.uk yesterday. All the Dorothy Sayers books are now available for Kindle, though above the paperback price. When I last looked you could only get Whose Body?, which is out of copyright. Clearly, the publisher has just decided to release them.

BTW for any Sayers fans, Jill Paton Walsh, who is a good writer of whodunnits in her own right, completed an unfinished Sayers book, Thrones Dominations. It follows on after Busman's Honeymoon. She also wrote a book based on some Sayers wartime writings called A Presumption of Death. I don't think it's quite as good.

One can now get a "Sayers" book written entirely by her called The Attenbury Emeralds.

Unfortunately, these ebooks don't yet appear to be available at amazon.com.

[amward]

Originally Posted by DarkRoast

Anne, do you mean Michael Robotham, or is there also a Michael Rowbotham? It's a shame there is only the one book available as ebook at the moment.

Yep DarkRoast, just a typo. I need to proofread a bit better.

Anne

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by DMB

I second all the recommendations of Michael Connelly ... Dick Francis ... Dorothy Sayers ... Kathy Reichs ... Mark Billingham ... John Connor

Welcome to the thread and thanks for sharing these authors and your explanations of why you appreciate their writing.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by DarkRoast

I just remember also. If you are a dog person AND you like crime books, there are also the Chet and Bernie books. Nothing too intense or dark but I stopped reading them because of Chet's unresolved lump situation, not sure what happened in the latest installment.

Not to mention the Doan and Carstairs series with the soft-hard-boiled detective Doan and his side-kick, a Marmaduke-like great dane named Carstairs. You'll find a few of these 1940s novels at Manybooks, Munsey's and possibly here at Mobileread. There are also a couple of paid editions at Amazon in Kindle format but they are likely the same source text (but I'm speculating).

[DMB]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Not to mention the Doan and Carstairs series with the soft-hard-boiled detective Doan and his side-kick, a Marmaduke-like great dane named Carstairs. You'll find a few of these 1940s novels at Manybooks, Munsey's and possibly here at Mobileread. There are also a couple of paid editions at Amazon in Kindle format but they are likely the same source text (but I'm speculating).

I discovered a whole lot of the Doan and Carstairs books at amazon.co.uk. I have bought one for £0.72.

[SensualPoet]

There's a warm tribute to Margery Allingham, one of the "Four Queens of Crime", according to insightful blogger and columnist Sarah Weinman in today's Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...000890008.html

Allingham's detective, Albert Campion, is a curious sort of hero: foppish, humourous and sometimes only peripherally part of the key action. Certainly in the first novel, The Crime of Black Dudley (1929), which as it happens I have just recently completed, Campion's role is obtuse and never quite explained; nor is he around for the final moments of triumph. In point of fact, the tale is set around George Abbershaw, a young doctor, and several of his friends who attend a weekend party out in the country. Campion turns up in the mix, and no one quite knows who invited him but eventually they are grateful he's about. Abbershaw, however, nurtures the notion Campion is the murderer ... and of course it's the murder early on which sets the tale in motion. Almost all the action takes place in the country house (fiendish Germans and their henchmen for a time take control and hold the party hostage) -- a splendid setting for a clever summer stock play.

The catch for readers today is that none of Allingham's work are (legally) in ebooks and the current reissues from paperback publisher Felony & Mayhem are amusingly priced at $15 each. (I absolutely applaud the work produced by this firm -- see here for a great backlist of pre-1965 mysteries, but none of their work is available for e-readers. Pity.)

[mountain_lion]

Stieg Larsson

[captkjaneway]

Mentioned on another thread - Jake Arnott, plus Richard Montanari, PJ Tracy, Jack Kerley and Simon beckett are also worth a read