Tag Archives: mystery

This is part of an ongoing series of posts, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.

I got sucked into Sue Grafton’s alphabet mystery series while on vacation a few years ago. Before that, I could not have imagined reading any series that seemed to follow such a formulaic plan: each title of the series begins with a new letter of the alphabet. But while these books do follow a very predictable formula, Grafton is such a great writer that I’m happy to play along.

Kinsey Millhone, Grafton’s fictional detective, is a tough loner private investigator who lives in the always beautiful, southern California beach town Santa Teresa (a very close cousin to Santa Barbara). Grafton has been writing these books since the 1980s and while the world has taken leaps and bounds forward over the years, her novels are still set in the 1980s. The latest has only progressed as far as 1988, and half the fun of these books is reading about a time in our recent history when no one used computers or had cell phones.

From A is for Alibi all the way up until her most recent V is for Vengeance and all the letters in between, Grafton has written an impressive series.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your mystery writer picks or, even better, write up a quick recommendation for your fellow readers on our blog!

This is part of an ongoing series of posts, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.

Laura Lippman writes a great series of gumshoe detective books set in Baltimore, Maryland. Her detective is Tess Monaghan, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun turned private investigator.  (Interesting note: Lippman herself who was a reporter for the Sun before she started writing novels.) Monaghan has a winning can-do personality and the stories have loads of local flavor, which is one of the reasons I read detective fiction. The west coast may claim such greats as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet, but the east coast has Laura Lippman.

Another interesting note: Lippman married a fellow Baltimore Sun alum: David Simon, the creator and writer of the television shows The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and Treme (the former two set in Baltimore). Lippman appears on the season 5 premiere of The Wire as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun.

The first book in the Tess Monaghan series that the library owns is The Sugar House. This series is fine to pick up just about anywhere, though if you like these books you will want to circle back to read the earlier novels. Lippman writes frequent stand-alone books that I’d call domestic thrillers. Try And She Was Good or Every Secret Thing.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your mystery writer picks or, even better, write up a quick recommendation for your fellow readers on our blog!

This is part of an ongoing series of posts, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.

This year I have been on a Maisie Dobbs tear. Maisie is the thoughtful creation of mystery writer, Jacqueline Winspear. The series is set in post-World War I London, where Miss Dobbs is a private inquiry agent.  She is an independent woman, though her beginnings were less auspicious. She went “in service” as a maid when she was thirteen years old and there her genius was discovered and nurtured. These books have a touch of the New Age about them (Maisie meditates and uses her higher understanding of human nature to aid in her casework) which adds to the individuality of the investigator.  I have read the entire series over the past year—I’m currently on the most recently published book, Elegy for Eddie. For those just starting the series, though, definitely begin with Maisie Dobbs.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your mystery writer picks or, even better, write up a quick recommendation for your fellow readers on our blog!

This is part of an ongoing series of posts, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.

Author of the popular Mary Russell series, Laurie R. King writes intelligent, accessible mysteries. Her characters are usually highly intelligent, feminist iconoclasts. She is the author of the Kate Martinelli series (American police procedural set in San Francisco), the Mary Russell series (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche set in England), and several excellent stand-alone titles.

I picked up The Beekeeper’s Apprentice as a lark many years ago and was so taken with Mary Russell that I’ve been a devoted follower of the series ever since. Russell is the young, brilliant apprentice to an aging Sherlock Holmes. She is a theologian, a chemist, as well as a detective. These books also work well as young adult novels for those YA readers interested in Sherlock Holmes.

The Kate Martinelli series is darker than the Mary Russell series, but equally satisfying. Kate Martinelli is a tough, private, police detective working in San Francisco in the present day. Begin with A Grave Talent.

The library owns one of King’s stand-along novels as well. I highly recommend Keeping Watch, a novel about a man who operates something like an underground railroad for abused women and children.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your mystery writer picks or, even better, write up a quick recommendation for your fellow readers on our blog!

I love a good mystery. This post will be part of an ongoing series, featuring some of my favorite mystery authors.

No such list would be complete without the inimitable P.D. James. The undeniable mistress of British crime drama, James has written dense, complicated novels about murder for the last five decades. Her primary series features investigator Adam Dalgliesh, the reserved Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard who writes poetry when not solving murders. If you are just embarking on your journey with James, there is no better place to start with one of the early novels, such as Death of an Expert Witness. I also love the two mysteries featuring private detective Cordelia Gray: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull beneath the Skin.

Subgenre: British whodunit, literary detective fiction

The one thing I like better than discovering new writers on my own is finding out what my fellow mystery lovers are reading. Please leave a comment to recommend your favorites or, even better, write up a quick recommendation for your fellow readers!