Comments on: Thursday Night Trivia: Mystery Series!

By: elibard

elibard — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:34:55 +0000

I’m late to this party, but I have a huge soft spot for Fiona Buckley’s series about lady-in-waiting to the Queen Elizabeth I, Ursula Blanchard. Plus, the author is one the people I hope to be when I’m older – completely sweet, respectable scholar, delightfully frumpy, British, and very smart.

By: Daantaat

Daantaat — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 11:57:41 +0000

Agatha Christie’s Poirot series is one of my faves. I love to watch the David Suchet episodes especially. I also really like Midsommer Murders, which is another tv series set in England. One of my favorite books series is the Inspector Wexford mysteries by Ruth Rendell. I’m not quite sure what it is about all these British series that I enjoy so much, but they just seem to be fascinating to me. Maybe it has something to do with the “stiff-upper-lip” mentality of the detectives.

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:44:25 +0000

Oh, I forgot a couple: the Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr and the Temperance Brennan by Kathy Reichs. The latter is the series from which the tv show “Bones” was taken, although I’ve never watched it.

Sometimes I read stuff other than mysteries, although that may be hard to believe. :-0

By: Evamaria

Evamaria — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:12:21 +0000

I recently listened to the first Phryne Fisher book by Kerry Greenwood and thought it was brilliant: Phryne is an independent-minded, unconventional heiress in the roaring 20s, and a proper flapper to boot. She travels back to her native Melbourne (left when her poor family unexpectedly inherited a British fortune) and decides to right wrongs and sleuth fearlessly while always looking fabulous of course (and having flings all over the place *g*

I really enjoyed the book (which has some nice social commentary among the fluff) and can’t wait to read more!

By: Es

Es — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:31:20 +0000

Thanks for these – I love mystery novels. I’m slowly getting all the Agatha Christies from charity shops as there are just too many of them to buy new. They’re proper comfort reading for me, brings back memories of reading my grandmother’s copies when I was tiny.

Dorothy L Sayers’ Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novels are cracking, proper novels with characters and plots and everything, and remarkably enlightened (about most things) and feminist for books written in the 1930s.

Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn mysteries are less well known than the other two, she was a contemporary of Christie and Sayers, and they’re in a similar vein, intelligently written and absorbing but not taxing.

I will be checking out some of these recommendations!

By: baraqiel

baraqiel — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:57:04 +0000

@Becky – I don’t normally have visceral reactions to scary/gross things in books (one of the few I can remember is the whole maggot situation from The Dante Club), but damn, the reveal at the end of Mistress of the Art of Death (the first book) was freaky as all hell. Definitely a good payoff. I’m looking forward to reading more — as you say, the protagonist is a very well-done character.

By: MKP

MKP — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:22:10 +0000

Joan Hess – she’s got two series’ – one starring Sheriff Arly Hanks in the tiny town of Maggody, the other starring amateur detective Claire Malloy in Farberville (a stand-in for Hess’ hometown, Fayetteville, Arkansas). They’re funny, they’re quick, they actually are decent mysteries, and they feature two grown women handling their business

By: Ms. M

Ms. M — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:54:55 +0000

I adore the Elizabeth Peters – Peabody / Emerson books! I am not a huge mystery book fan, but I love those.

There is another series I enjoyed years ago, the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books by Anne Perry. I thought it was such a nice refreshing egalitarian marriage portrayed during victorian times.

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:52:19 +0000

I used to read a lot of different series, and eventually whittled them down until I was reading pretty much only women. Robert Parker (of blessed memory) was always a fun read. You could read one of his books in a couple of hours and there was usually a laugh or two along the way.

I also like Laurie King a lot, although I wish there were more Holmes in the last few.

I’m a huge fan of Sara Paretsky, whose VI Warshawski series takes on serious issues and it unapologetically feminist. Her latest one concerns the body as art-good stuff.

The Kinsey Milhone alphabet series by Sue Grafton is reliably entertaining every time.

Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone series is worth reading. The character has developed a lot through the series and it’s fun to be part of her life.

The 2 sort of “comfy” series I read are the Goldy Schultz one by Diane Mott Davidson and the China Bayles one by Susan Wittig Albert. Neither is a strain and you get recipes with both!

I always look forward to a new Barbara Holloway. Kate Wilhelm writes the best courtroom scenes in the business. The best.

Finally, the Kate Atkinson series with Jackson Brodie is terrific. She weaves multiple plot lines together with ease and wit. I highly recommend them.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:32:58 +0000

I absolutely LOVE Ariana Franklin’s medieval “Mistress of the Art of Death” series which stars a female doctor who’s the 12th century version of a medical examiner. The writing is first-rate, the heroine is one of the smartest and most original I’ve ever read, and if you like Sharon Kay Penman and Plantagenet-era fiction, the historical part is awesome (Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are recurring characters).