Read Any Good Mysteries Lately?

[leftyladyfrommo]

It is too hot to go outside here so I need some good stuff to read. And I love mysteries.

My cousin has a good one out now just in case someone else is looking for something to read: Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. Of course, we want everyone to run out and buy it.

I do have Evanovich's new one to read this afternoon - have heard it is really funny.

[Flaxbee]

1. I'm reading a few of Lyn Hamilton's...

some are better than others, but the protagonist is a Toronto antiques dealer who usually finds trouble of some sort on her buying trips... they're called "archeological mysteries" b/c quite often there's a rare artifact or something similar involved. Short, and pretty good armchair travel, which is why I like them. I've been to many of the places she writes about, so I can revisit them through the books.

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Thanks - I'll look for those tomorrow.

nds like the kind I like.

Have you ever heard of Aaron Elkins? I just discovered his books and they are really good. The ones I have read have to do with old crimes of the French Resistance in France - interesting stuff.

[Flaxbee]

4. I've read Aaron Elkins "Gideon Oliver" mysteries

about a forensic anthropologist and quite liked them. I'll look for his other series.

I also LOVE Tony Hillerman, Dorothy Sayers (if you haven't been introduced to Lord Peter Wimsey yet, please grab a few of her books. I like the ones with Harriet Vane best, so start with "Strong Poison", go to "Have His Carcass" and then on to "Gaudy Night" and "Busman's Honeymoon". One of my all-time favorite series of books.).

P.D. James' Dalgliesh novels are always wonderful. I also like Deborah Crombie quite a lot. Used to really like Minette Walters but her books have become so dark that I, who read to escape and not necessarily to be reminded of the hideousness of life, don't read them much anymore. They're too 'real'. But I can highly recommend four of her earlier ones: The Sculptress, The Ice House, The Scolds Bridle and The Dark Room.

Also, Margaret Maron if you'd be interested the life of a female NC county judge. Good writing.

And Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series is also wonderful. He concluded the series several years ago, so start with some of the earlier ones, do not, repeat DO NOT, start with "The Remorseful Day" b/c it's the last in the series and you miss a lot of the character's development, why the last book is meaningful, etc.

Happy reading!

[BlueIris]

3. Well this is by no means a "recent" read, but do you know of

Jonathen Lethem's "Gun, With Occasional Music"? Hillarious. Interesting. And for a progressive--resonant.

[China_cat]

5. Kathy Reichs' new book is a good one.

Break No Bones.

[leftyladyfrommo]

9. I like her books. I have a degree in anthropology so I really

getinto that kind of stuff.

[ForrestGump]

6. The GD Forum

Kind of dreading how it will end...

[xmas74]

8. That can be the scariest one of all.

I'd sometimes label that as horror instead of mystery.

[auntAgonist]

7. I'm currently into "Mystic River" by Dennis Lehane

I have it on audio disc and I'm listening to it at work. It's also a movie, although I've not seen it yet.

From Publishers Weekly
Lehane ventures beyond his acclaimed private eye series with this emotionally wrenching crime drama about the effects of a savage killing on a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood. Written with a sensitivity toward character that exceeds his previous efforts, the story tracks the friendship of three boys from a defining moment in their childhood, when 11-year-old Dave Boyle was abducted off the streets of East Buckingham and sexually molested by two men before managing to escape. Boyle, Jimmy Marcus and Sean Devine grow apart as the years pass, but a quarter century later they are thrust back together when Marcus's 19-year-old daughter, Katie, is murdered in a local park. Marcus, a reformed master thief turned family man, goes through a period of intense grief, followed by a thirst for revenge. Devine, now a homicide cop assigned to the murder, tries to control his old friend while working to make sense of the baffling case, which involves turning over the past as much as it does sifting through new evidence. In time, Devine begins to suspect Boyle, a man of many ghoulish secrets who has led a double life ever since the molestation. Lehane's story slams the reader with uncomfortable images, a beautifully rendered setting and an unnerving finale. With his sixth novel, the author has replaced the graphic descriptions of crime and violence found in his Patrick Kenzie-Angela Gennaro series (Prayers for Rain; Gone, Baby, Gone) with a more pensive, inward view of life's dark corners. It's a change that garners his themesAregret over life choices, the psychological imprints of childhood, personal and professional compromiseAa richer context and his characters a deeper exploration.

[catbert836]

17. All of Lehane's books

are well worth a read for any mystery fans. The movie made of Mystic River is incredibly faithful to the book.

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. Thanks for the ideas.

I also love PD James and Dorothy Sayers and even Martha Grimes. And don't forget MC Beaton (short but sweet.) I like her Hammish McBeth series.

I just love a good mystery - and especially a good British murder mystery.

[mvd]

11. Right now I'm reading Lisa Scottoline's Dirty Blonde

More of a legal thriller, but tied to mysteries.

[China_cat]

12. I just finished it.

While it was pretty good, it left me a little cold in the last couple chapters.

[mvd]

13. I hope I like it more

I've loved all her books up to this point.

[China_cat]

14. Oh, you'll like it.

It just seems that she rushed the ending and, while ok, it could have been better. And a little more realistic.

Still worth the read. Don't let me scare you off it. But you'll see what I mean. (I try very hard not to do spoilers)

[mvd]

16. Thanks for the warning

As usual, she was great at the beginning - she never ceases to draw me in.

[XemaSab]

15. "Sabbathday River"

by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

:hi:

[Paladin]

18. I Hear That James Lee Burke Is Coming Out With A New One

In preparation for it, I'd suggest "A Stained White Radiance" or "In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead." All set in Cajun country in Louisiana. Mysteries don't get any better, as far as I'm concerned....

[leftyladyfrommo]

20. Sometimes he gets too painful for me.

It is like reading a book that is too scary.

[Saboburns]

31. I just finished his latest "streak' book.

Pegasus Descending.

LOVED IT.

[Arkham House]

19. Try something classic--

--Christie, Carr and his locked-room mysteries, Ellery Queen..."The Greek Coffin Mysetry" by Queen is the cleverest, most elaborately-plotted mystery novel ever written, if you can find a copy...

[RebelOne]

21. Any of Robin Cook's medical thrillers are good. n/t

[SiobhanClancy]

22. Ruth Rendell or P.D.James

If you like British mysteries(which I do)

[leftyladyfrommo]

23. I love those, too. I think I've read most of them. n/t

[Bridget Burke]

24. I've been "rereading" lately....

I just reread Kipling's Kim again--a wonderful book, but NOT a mystery. Then I found my copy of Laurie King's The Game, in which Mary Russell accompanies her husband, Sherlock Holmes, to India. An intelligence agent has gone missing--one Kimball O'Hara. (All the Mary Russell books are excellent.)

Now, I'm rereading In the Lake of the Moon by David Lindsey. Houston in the 80's & memories of Mexico City in the 30's. Pretty grisly.

I'm fond of Rick Riordan's mysteries. Somewhat lightweight--but I like the San Antonio setting.

[MissHoneychurch]

25. A suggestion: Ian Rankin

great mysteries!!!

[SiobhanClancy]

26. Oh,yes!

I love these...very edgy.

[MissHoneychurch]

27. And you even chose (?) the same name

as one of the characters. I love the name Siobhan.

[SiobhanClancy]

28. Siobhan and Clancy are two cats...

that I had when I first joined DU. Sadly,my parents chose the much more boring Barbara:(

[MissHoneychurch]

29. It is easier to say

than Siobhan :)

My mom has the same name as you.

[tigereye]

30. jsut read a bunch by Sharyn McCrumb

archaeological-type mysteries...

and also a beach mystery by Sally Gunning. Interesting characterizations.