Whodunit thread: discuss

[jackm8]

What you read, what you liked, what you didn't.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by jackm8

What you read, what you liked, what you didn't.

Why not start it off?

[jackm8]

I love to return to this genre from time to time. I read a few fresh or old novels, then move to other things.

I'm not on a particularly good streak lately, though:
The Mitford Murders: It was a fine basic novel, but nothing spectacular. I somehow completely missed that Mitford family in the novel were based on a real family of Nancy Mitford and her sisters. I'm actually glad that I did, in other case, the plot would be even more predictable.
Cahokia Jazz: More of a noir detective fiction. Great alternate history world with Indians thriving in their own state in the prohibition era USA. Poorly executed plot with action sequences that are so awkwardly bad that they are almost good.
Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder: I didn't get a particularly strong opinion of the setting.
Salvation of a Saint: Decent novel, not as good as The Devotion of Suspect X from the same author, but I believe I will return to him in the future. His plots are thick with clues and hints, I'm just slightly put off by dark settings and impersonal characters.

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by issybird

Why not start it off?

I've got it. It was supposed to be 2nd post.

[issybird]

I've been planning for a while to start a thread about favorite mystery/detective series, but you beat me to it with this. In line with that concept:

I've decided that my favorite series of all is the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout. A little cozy, a little hardboiled, quirky as anything. It shouldn't work, but it does because of great characterizations, witty badinage and clever plotting. And, not inconsequentially, there are a ton of them and the quality is consistent throughout. The icing on the cake is the New York setting. I've been bingeing on them lately and the great thing is, by the time I get to the end, I can start all over!

I compare that to the equally witty and clever and characterized Hilary Tamar books by Sarah Caudwell, but there are only four of them.

I'll also mention the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik, clever and a look at an entirely different time and culture and entirely persuasive, as well.

I personally would like to hear about other people's favorite series, but if I'm hijacking the thread by making that request, I'll gladly delete it.

[Apache]

Nero Wolfe too.
Bruno Chief of Police.
Longmire Mysteries.
Elvis Cole & Joe Pike.
Spenser.

[JSWolf]

Here are some series that I like.

In Death by J.D. Robb
Women's Murder Club by James Patterson and others
Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Rizzoli & Isles by Tess Gerritsen
Spenser by Robert B. Parker
Chief Inspector Gamache by Louise Penny
Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs
Sloane Monroe by Cheryl Bradshaw

[Uncle Robin]

A few series I always plug when I get the chance

Michael Stanley Inspector Kubu

Iona Whishaw Lane Winslow

Tom Meads Joseph Spector

Martin Edwards Rachel Savernake and Lakes District Cold Case

Madhulika Liddle Muzaffar Jang

Francis Vivian Inspector Knollis

Moray Dalton Inspector Collier

E. C. R. Lorac Robert MacDonald

and of course, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh

[Karellen]

I recently read the Strike series by JK Rowling. Really enjoyed them. She certainly knows how to write.
Then watched the tv show. I found the tv show a bit weak but still enjoyable, and it really helps to have read the novels first.

[rkomar]

There are too many for me to remember. I love the translations of Shizuko Natsuki's Japanese mysteries. Fred Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg, Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall's Martin Beck, Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. But most of all I love Georges Simenon's Maigret. Michael Bond's Inspector Pamplemousse books are a guilty pleasure of mine. There are many others that I really like but that list would be too long.

[Martinoptic]

And fwiw I’m currently reading:
The Inspector Grant books by Josephine Tey
Meredith books by John Bude

Both are quite old now, the Meredith books were written in the 1930s but entertaining.

[Apache]

One I forgot about, but enjoyed is Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro series.
Apache

[haertig]

I liked "The Blue Nowhere" and "Roadside Crosses" by Jeffery Deaver.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by haertig

I liked "The Blue Nowhere" and "Roadside Crosses" by Jeffery Deaver.

I do like the Lincoln Rhyme series by Deaver.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by jackm8

I love to return to this genre from time to time. I read a few fresh or old novels, then move to other things.
...
I'm just slightly put off by dark settings and impersonal characters.

Sounds like our tastes run in the same direction.

Barbara Hambly's series from New Orleans in the 1830s, starting with A Free Man of Color are really good, with a vibrant but dark setting. I remember one scene where the sheriff says that a few years ago, a man wouldn't be sentenced to death for murder on the flimsy evidence in the current case just because he was Black, and in a few years noone will be sentenced to death for the murder of a Black woman, but right now, the person he's speaking to is in serious danger.

For a much lighter novel, KJ Charles' Proper English is a romance with murder mystery, on a country estate in England in the early 1900s. An ill-assorted collection of guests, secrets and quarrels and money troubles, and a murder which was clearly done by one of us, but who?