Categories
 Women Private Eyes
This section is strictly about professional private detectives, not
for your Miss Marples
- Sharon McCone (Marcia Muller)
- V.I.Warshawski (Sara Paretsky)
- Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton)
- Carlotta Carlyle (Linda Barnes)
- Private Detectives -- These are tough broads (and they would just as soon kill you if you
called them broads or babes or chicks or anything like that). They are just as tough
as Sam Spade or Marlow or Archer, and the plots are just as rigorous -- maybe
sometimes more so, but there is a tendency to stress 'relationships' overmuch in their
books -- this has also corrupted male writers such as Parker and Pronzini. When it
comes to straight private investigator books you want your heros to be loners
and basically antisocial Knights Templar types. These tecs spend a lot of time in their
books jogging, melding with their neighbors, eating healthful foods, and dealing with
domestic problems. Bah humbug!
[In fairness, I have to say that this sometimes works very well. Muller's
recent The Broken Promise Land is a really good
job along these lines and is a major improvement after some doldrum novels.]
- Professionals -- This is another category of women detectives, the professional lawyer, cop, medical examiner, etc.
These include Maron's Deborah Knott, who is a Marcia Clark that will never turn into
an incompetent wimp like that. Maron also has a pretty interesting NYPD detective,
Sigrid Harald. Patricia Cornwell has had great success with her Kay Scarpetta series about a coroner's office examiner.
Jane Tennyson, as played by Helen Mirren in the Prime Suspect
British TV series (there are books too but I haven't read them) -- absolutely marvellous,
just as good if not better than Hill Street or NYPD Blues. (This latest one, #5, which is
being shown currently--Feb 1997--is really devastating; the villain 'Street', not necessarily
the actual murderer, is the most repulsive crook since Moriarty. But, dammit, Jane will
nail this guy, I'm sure.) She always has to deal with the Macho attitudes of her police
colleagues, which makes up all the sub-plots of these series, but she is an indominitable
person who always gets the perp, even if she ends up screwed by her superiors, maligned
by her inferiors, at first, and put down in some way or other. Mirren is incredibly good
in this role, and for both toughness and compassion beats the PI's listed above hands
down. Best woman detective (well, police Superintendant) going these days.
- Various -- You also have a miscellaneous category of women detectives (and again, I am leaving out Miss Marple and her ilk from the 'Golden Age', mainly because everybody who is likely to be reading this web page knows all about them to begin with, and there is nothing wrong with those books at all except for some old-fashionedness and PC incorrectness!). They tend to get caught up in mysteries the way Gracie Allen used to get caught up in predicaments. McCrumb's Elizabeth McPherson, who is
feisty enough, but basically uninteresting, is one (If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him is an example of one of McCrumb's great titles). Likewise, Hardwick's Doran Fairweather. Sharyn McCrumb wrote Bimbos of the Death Sun as a
take-off of Science Fiction Conventions (which if you've been to one as I have, is right
on the money). That was a fine debut, but not a very good mystery, and there are a bunch of McPherson books
that are good but minor reads, but then came some astounding books such as
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, and
She Walks These Hills. These are real novels (with great titles) and classics in the mystery/crime genre -- mind-blowing. The Rosewood Casket and The Ballad of Frankie Silver are recent ones -- wow! they just keep getting better and better.
For more on women detectives, go to this web page.
Race Tracks, Casinos, and Bars
There is an entire sub-genre in mysteries that revolves around race tracks
and gambling milieux (and bars)
- Stephen Dobyns (Charlie Bradshaw and Victor Plotz) -- Everything takes place in
Saratoga NY, which therefore makes it a real place even if you have never been there.
These are the best damn horse-racing books (scams, etc.) set in the US, and compare
very well with the master, Dick Francis, and with a lot more sleazy humor. Plotz, who
took over recently as the lead, was a minor sleazeball in the earlier books who kind
of ran away with the laurels. [Recently read Saratoga Fleshpot, a howl of a book
where Vic Plotz disrupts a grand parade in a very spectacular fashion.] Vic's girlfriend,
a 50-ish diner owner, is known as the Queen of Softness (har de har -- but this stuff is
really funny in an understated way). Dobyns is well on the way to producing Rumpole-like
classics, and he's a damn good writer.
- William Murray (Shifty Lou Anderson) -- California (Santa Anita) venue. Shifty makes
his living, when not at the racetrack, performing as a magician in Holiday Inns and such
places, good titles such as When the Fat Man Sings and King of the Nightcap.
These are caper books and very amusing because everybody is cheating everybody else.
Murray is a damn good writer too -- another Damon Runyon.
- Lawrence Block (Matthew Scudder) -- Good sleazy stuff and very nasty villains in
a bar-room environment (even though Matt doesn't drink anymore and his AA involvements
tend to distract from the plots). Scudder, as an unlicensed detective (ex NYPD), takes on
some unredeemable clients to avenge crimes that you wouldn't even want to see Attila the
Hun's family subjected to. This is probably the best Private Eye series in recent years.
[He also wrote the Rhodenbar Burglar and sleepless spy Tanner series, which are quite good.]
- Dick Francis (various) -- The initiator and master of the horse-racing mystery. The early
books that had ingenious race-fixing scams were the best. Nowadays it seems that he takes
his big bucks (he only has to do one book a year now, with huge royalties), and goes off
on a first-class cruise to learn about some new esoteric profession (investment banker,
professional kidnap-ransom negotiator, engineer on the trans-Canada train, etc.) that he
can write his next book about. Sid Halley is one protagonist he keeps coming back to,
and he was the jockey whose hand was destroyed in a 'fixed' racing accident compounded
with torture by the villains -- Dick Francis heros always get beat up in his books. [Do I somehow
resent Dick Francis? I think so. He is too much at home with these rich bastards and aristos,
whom I despise as types, even though (thankfully) he shows them up as villains half the time.]
Good God, this man was once Queen Elizabeth's main jockey, although that doesn't put him on
a par with Angel Cordero -- at least he knows everything there is to know about horses.
- Ian Fleming (James Bond) --Fleming lived the Francis life too, but obviously overdid
it (killed him at an early age, unlike his hero, with those 60-cigs a day and all the martinis). But
these books are incredibly atmospheric and shouldn't be forgotten. Best stuff about gambling
of any kind I've ever read in this genre; Fleming was the ultimate punter (as was Bond -- Jeeze,
even his undercover roles were I'll-stick-my-neck-out-and-I-bet-I-can-still-win propositions).
[Fleming was a snob too, like Francis, but he knew about the good life and I sort of envy that:
I dream about Aston-Martins and the wonderful smell of horse shit sometimes, and then have
to wake up to reality.]
- Ross Thomas (Oliver Bleeck) Some very fine 'caper/scam' novels, mostly political,
but they involve bars sometimes (especially the McCorkle ones). This guy weaves wonderful plots
about people scamming and betraying and often slaying each other. He is especially good at
portraying politicians and lobbyists. His heroes are cynical rogues; you side with them from the
very beginning.
- Carl Hiaasen Absolutely grotesque books set in the sleazy depths of Florida (compare
these with the more serious, but also more politically correct Travis McGee and Matthew Hope
books).
Specialties (Antiques, Archeology, Rare Books, etc.)
There is something appealing to me about mysteries that are based on
relatively recondite areas of expertise. They can be fine mysteries in themselves but most
of the interest arises from a deft interweaving of an esoteric subject into the substance of
the plot; the sidelights are fascinating (although having little interest in Sports, I am not
going to list anything related to tennis or baseball or anything like that here -- also, doctors
and lawyers are not in this grouping).
- Antiques
- Jonathan Gash The Lovejoy books.
Welcome to the wonderful sleazy Balkan underworld of the Antiques
Trade. Lovejoy is a joy. These books are thrillers rather than mysteries,
but what the reader picks up on the side, obscure facts regarding
antiques of any kind, is very interesting. The early books are better
because they are more coherent; the later ones have too many recurring
characters that you'll have trouble keeping track of unless you go on a
tear and read several in a row. You learn along the way how to fake a Ming
Vase or an 18th C. snuffbox and other neat things. [Warning: Gash's style has
become more and more eccentric. A fitting but labored metaphor for it is along
the lines of: Take a child's bucket (or a Thomas Smarterton 1850s hand-wheeled
stoneware bouguette de tot), fill it with stone chips, gold nuggets, rock salt,
rubies, stale cheese, and coal clinker, stir up well, and throw it all in the reader's face to see if
the result is any comprehension of what the book is about or what is happening.]
- Anthony Oliver Lizzie Thomas et al.
A really fun series of four books (don't know if the author died, or wasn't profitable to American
publishers, or just stopped after 1987). Good reads, if not classic detective stories.
- P. M. Hubbard: A Hive of Glass.
The protagonist of this book is obsessed with ancient glassware,
as are his antagonists. One of the best studies of an anal-retentive compulsion ever written. The
ending is absolutely devastating.
- Rare Books
- John Dunning The Bookman's Wake.
One of the best ex-cop private-eye books in recent memory, with some really fascinating stuff
about the book trade. Oddly enough, this Cliff Janeway person is a really tough guy who left the
Denver police force to become a rare-book dealer. If you can buy that you'll have a great read.
Plotting is incredibly complex in the Ross Macdonald mode (elements and characters behind the
crime dating back 20 years or so).
- R. T. Campbell Bodies in a Bookshop.
A really nice one from the Golden Age of Detection. [Dover Books: some very fine collectibles from
the old days in this line, but they don't seem to be doing that many any more. Pity.]
- Archaeology and Antiquarianism
- Aaron Elkins Gideon Oliver series.
He is an anthropologist who specializes in ancient bones (but detects, of course); good stuff.
I got extremely irritated by Murder in the Queen's Armes (an early one), when he cited
the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys in 1685 as a revolt against Cromwell, not Monmouth's
rebellion over the succession to Charles II, and tossed the book as the work of an ignoramus --
a mystery fan persuaded me to try again: the book is full of fascinating stuff. One has to forget
the lapse (and hope it gets corrected in later editions) on the excuse that Gideon Oliver is pretty
much ignorant of any historical events that occurred after the end of the Stone Age. [It is a rare
thing for me to do, throw out a book that pisses me off, as I did with Martha Grimes, and even
rarer to change my mind later. --G.S.]
- R. Austin Freeman Dr. Thorndyke stories.
Freeman used the antiquarian approach quite often in his plots. Among of the best of these (under
this category) are: The Penrose Mystery and The Eye of Osiris. When ancient bones
are not involved, he has enough arcane knowledge in his other books to keep one entertained,
especially when it comes to his portable crime lab and his assistant Polton's tinkerings with bizarre
mechanical devices.
Historical Detective Novels
Since John Dickson Carr set the example (although he was not the first; there
was Christie's Egyptian mystery Death Comes As the End or Tey's Richard III Revised
The Daughter of Time, for example), there has been a recent proliferation of this
sub-genre, which I happen to like. Earlier practitioners were Robert Van Gulik and Lillian
de la Torre. Now there's a whole slew of them. The ones mentioned here are series authors. See also the special web page on this site.
[* indicates especially good]
- England
- Ellis Peters (Medieval) -- Brother Cadfael: nicely realized series with good
recurring characters, but awfully romanticized plot lines (usually young lovers being thwarted). She (the late Edith Pargeter) started as a mediocre detective novelist, but captured this new market and raised up this new sub-genre almost from scratch. There are now a bunch of series about medieval nuns, priests, whatever as detectives. Cadfael is now a major industry in this appalling redneck town (Shrewsbury).
- P.C. Doherty (Medieval) -- Hugh Corbete, secret agent for Edward I; conspiracies and witch cults
- *Edward Marston (Elizabethan) -- detective Nicholas Bracewell of Lord Westfield's
Men acting troupe; good political skulduggery, nice cast of characters and great theatre stuff
- Leonard Tourney (Elizabethan) -- County Constable Matthew Stock; pleasant series,
with political intrigue (Walsingham, the 1st great spy-master; of course, it goes with the times)
- *John Dickson Carr (1660s to 1920s) -- consult the Web Page
- Lillian de la Torre (18th C) -- Dr. Sam: Johnson Detector series of short stories;
the incomparable Dictionary personage as a detective, as narrated by Boswell
- Bruce Alexander (18th century) -- Sir John Fielding. Good thrillers (not really mysteries, although there is always a 'surprise' villain). Justice Fielding, the 'Blind Beak' was a real person, who along with his brother Henry, the novelist, did much to establish the modern police department. (I wrote my master's thesis about Henry Fielding, whose Tom Jones, while not a mystery novel, is probably the most well-plotted book of its time; the clockwork structure is fantastic -- he set the book in the historical past by a few years, into the Jacobite rebellion, but actually consulted almanacs to make sure that there was a full moon on that particular night, etc. -- 200 years later Henry Fielding could have written classic detective stories.)
- Charles Sheffield (18th C) -- Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's grandfather); an
oddball small collection of short stories in the Jules de Grandin (Seabury Quinn) mode
- J.G. Jeffreys (Regency) -- Bow Street Runner Jeremy Sturrock; I couldn't really
get into these [will try again some day, there are a lot of them]
- Francis Selwyn (Victorian) -- Sergeant Verity of the Yard; kind of fun (Swell Mobs,
Indian Mutineers, etc.)
- *Peter Lovesey (Victorian) -- Sergeant Cribb, The Prince of Wales ('Bertie'), among
others; great period pieces with unusual settings (on purpose, of course)
- Ray Harrison (Edwardian) -- D.S. Bragg and Constable Morton, an interesting pair
of police detectives (higher-ranking one is a Cockney and the other is a Toff)
- *Peter Dickinson, Robert Barnard, Julian Symons, and others -- Contemporary detective
story writers of high repute who have set some novels back in the time of the 'Golden Age of
Detection'; I guess that makes them historical novels, but since I teethed on the genre, I'm not
sure I regard them as such, more like respectful tributes to a bygone age
- Old New York (well, and maybe the rest of the USA)
- S.S. Rafferty (Revolutionary War US) -- Captain Jeremy Cork; good short stories
from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
- Raymond Paul -- Lawyer Lou Quinncannon (brothels and barrooms, newsrooms and
courthouses -- good stuff)
- Michael McDowell -- A couple of gruesome period pieces by the master of grue
(Gilded Needles and Katie)
- William Marshall -- The New York Detective; bizarre police 'procedurals' set at the
turn of the century [have you ever read his weird Yellowthread Street Precinct books set in
modern Hong Kong?]
- *Edward D. Hoch (1920s New England) -- Dr. Sam Hawthorne; anecdotes of an old
man who solved more 'impossible crimes' than Dr. Gideon Fell [this gets us into Uncle Abner
territory, but those are NOT Historical Mysteries because the period was not historical then --
am I quibbling over a technicality?]
- MISCELLANEOUS
- Ancient Rome
- Lindsay Davis -- Edile Marcus Didius Falco in the court of Vespasian; Rome's
answer to Archie Goodwin; good dirty fun
- *Steven Saylor -- Gordianus the Finder in the days of Cicero; politics, corruption and
debauchery -- great stuff (much nastier than Davis's). The portrayal of the Dictator Sulla is
excellent. But nothing has yet matched Graves's I, Claudius (the difference being that
the Saylor books, starting with Roman Blood, are novels by a 20th-C author, no matter how
well-researched and well-written, but Graves was a mad poet and really believed he was writing the autobiography of Claudius -- and that comes across in every pore, if that's not an inappropriate
metaphor). Regardless, these Gordianus novels are highly recommended.
- Ancient China
- Robert van Gulik -- Judge Dee; fascinating (though the formula wears out after
a while), exotic setting, to us, strange customs, ritualized structure based on traditional Chinese crime story formats; however, RvG was a Dutchman, so his style does not scintillate (maybe that's impolitic of me to say). Check this web site (while you can -- it is a news service of Radio Netherlands, and they may not keep it up forever) -- interesting person, played both lute and lady equally well.
- Ancient Egypt
- Agatha Christie -- Death Comes As the End; an experiment in historical detection
for which you have to give her credit, but not altogether successful
- Lynda S. Robinson -- Lord Meren ('Eyes and Ears of the Pharoah') in the court of Tutankhamun; start of a very nice series; well researched, even if the characters seem
anachronistic in that they behave like Washington politicians at their worst, and there is a touch
of Regency Romance in the style (actually, those nuances are what make these books fun)
Visit this comprehensive site: Bibliography of Historical Mysteries.
Comic Mysteries
Many of the best serious mysteries have comic elements, and many comedies have
true mystery situations, so this list is just a pointer to authors whose aim is primarily comic, and who
are also genuinely funny. Those criteria cut down on the number of entries. There were some mystery
authors who wrote some supposedly comedic series (Elliot Paul's Homer Evans books set in Paris, Gardner's A. A. Fair Lam & Cool books, Craig
Rice, even S.S. Van Dine in his Gracie Allen Murder Case, which is so awful that it actually
is funny), but they are mostly too facetious for more than an occasional chuckle.
Some Classic Short Stories
This site is not concerned so much with short stories (except as collections,
such as Sherlock Holmes or Father Brown), but there are some one-of-a-kind ones that well
deserve mention:
- Jorge Luis Borges -- The Garden of Forking Paths, Death and the
Compass, and a few others that might fall within the detective story category. Marvellously
succinct author, doesn't have to write a full novel, just provides a plot outline, and that's all
you really need with this brilliant writer -- every sentence reverberates with meaning.
- John Dickson Carr -- The Gentleman from Paris: uses Edgar A. Poe in a
unique way (see my web page on Carr for his other short stories).
- Harry Kemelman -- The Nine-Mile Walk: the perfect 'armchair deduction'
story; a whole skein of deductive reasoning exposing a crime based on a simple overheard
phrase.
- Robert Barr -- The Absent-Minded Coterie: a take-off on Holmes's The
Red-Headed League, but a classic in its own sense (Eugene Valmont as a conceited
contrast to SH).
- Ellery Queen -- The Lamp of God: the ultimate impossible-crime story; an
entire house vanishes (but a typical EQ trick, given his use of very eccentric Howard Hughes
types somewhere along the line -- this is much more fun in short-story format than at novel
length).
Hard-Boiled Detectives
Hard-boiled thrillers do not excite me; however, the triumvirate (Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald) vitalized this sub-genre
with genuine mystery plots. Some later authors have carried on the tradition.
- Hammett -- The Maltese Falcon is the best of the novels (of which
there are only a handful), mostly because the classic John Huston movie resembles it so closely, a real noir classic. The Dain Curse is also quite entertaining, as are some of the pulp Continental Op stories.
- Chandler -- The Lady in the Lake is a classic mystery in all senses. Many of the other Marlowe books consist of his bashing in doors and in turn
getting bashed in the head.
- Macdonald -- Lew Archer is one of the best of the private eyes; the stories
are well-plotted, with roots generally going far back into the past. The Underground Man is a good example.
- Bill Pronzini -- The "Nameless Detective" is by far the best of the modern
hard-boiled detectives, with ingenious plots. Hoodwink takes place at a Pulp
Writers' convention, which is amusing, and Shackles is a harrowing story with Nameless kidnapped and chained up in a remote cabin with no food -- these are just examples.
- Non-fiction -- Pronzini's Gun in Cheek series is a wonderful history of the Black-Mask type genre. Descriptions of the plots of Keeler, Daly, etc.
are lovingly detailed, funny, and informative.
- Noir Books -- Another sub-genre, not necessarily involving private eyes,
that can be a big turn-on. James Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and Jim Thompson (Pop. 1280 and The Killer Inside Me) are prime examples.
For a different perspective, visit Thrilling Detective.
Spy Novels
These fall into two categories, basically, the fantastic and the realistic.
Among the first, the prime example is the James Bond series, which is a separate web page on this site. In the second, the best of course
is John LeCarre. A spy novel is not a mystery or even thriller in the usual sense, although a good one will contain both elements. There should at least be a mystery --
Who are the villains? What is their diabolical plot? How will the hero defeat them? There should also be a lot of killing, and, preferably, some sex -- a damsel in distress or something. Really evil villains are important too, to justify the generally
sleazy behavior of your master-spy hero. Ambiance is also criticial, an exotic setting, or a familiar one regarded in a new light. Given that, here is a sample reading list:
- Eric Ambler -- A Coffin for Dimitrios: an all-time classic 'noir'
story about sleazy Balkan crooks/spies. Ambler's other books from the 1930's are
also very fine -- he was a pioneer of the 'realistic' school. [Peter Lorre was the hero
in the fine movie made of this, by the way, and he was wonderfully miscast in that
role, which was intentionally done, bravo to the director, and to him.]
- Erskine Childers -- The Riddle of the Sands: the most famous of
the early realistic spy novels, a sailboat expedition into the Frisian Islands, very well
done. [Childers, an Irishman, was executed by the British during the "Troubles" -- his
son became president of Ireland a while back.]
- Manning Coles: Drink to Yesterday and A Toast for Tomorrow -- Tommy Hambledon was the hero of several spy novels written in the 1940s and later. These two are the first (1940), and the best of the series. The latter is especially interesting in that it takes place in Weimar Germany and during the early days of Hitler, with Goebbels as the main villain. Nice job all round, and well written.
- Len Deighton: A Funeral in Berlin -- anonymous spy (a.k.a. Harry Palmer played by Michael Caine in the movies), a fresh antidote at the time to the James Bond absurdities of spydom. Deighton's later books with chess themes just got too complicated to bother with.
- Ian Fleming: On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- after re-reading the entire series in December 1999, I have picked this as the best. It has everything a James Bond novel should have, and what you would expect. Of course, Fleming falls into the 'fantasy' school of spy fiction, along with the authors of the Our Man Flint movies and Matt Helm (who was totally misplayed by Dean Martin -- the Donald Hamilton books deserved better than that).
- John LeCarre: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold -- an absolutely devastating book that out-Amblered Ambler and pleased James Bond
haters. His later books in the Smiley's People series are also wonderful but very
heavy reading with their complex plots and characters.
- Anthony Price: Gunner Kelly -- had to throw in this author since he is (was?) one of the best, with very erudite but moving cold-war plots. Recently re-read the whole series and now perhaps think Tomorrow's Ghost is the best. They are all characterized by complex plotting in the sense that nobody ever says anything straightforward.
- E. Phillips Oppenheim, et al. -- no particular book, but he should be mentioned, along with Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Victor Canning,
"Bulldog Drummond", John Buchan, Manning Coles, Joseph Conrad, and others I can't think of at the moment. They all made major contributions to the genre in its early days. [And I beg your pardon if your favorite spy novelist is just listed here under Oppenheim -- and e-mail me if you think I left anybody else out.]
There are also several comic spy novels, such as Hopjoy Was Here, by Colin Watson, and Michael Moorcock's The Chinese Agent and The Russian Intelligence.
Science Fiction Mysteries
Mixing two genres is not always done effectively. A good science fiction writer does not normally have the mentality or skills for writing a good mystery, and vice versa. Exceptions, of course, prove this rule. There are authors who wrote well in both fields, but without combining them in one story; Fredric Brown and John Sladek come to mind. There is also Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, a classic science fiction novel with a thriller theme. But two prime exemplars of the true Mystery/Science Fiction (or Fantasy) combination deserve special mention:
- Isaac Asimov -- The Naked Sun and The Caves of Steel are set in his science-fictional 'robot' world, but are genuine mystery stories as well. For example, how can a killer murder his victim while a robot (sworn to protect human life) was standing by and what was the murder weapon, since none could be found?
- Randall Garrett -- Too Many Magicians is a locked-room mystery set at a wizards' convention -- how was it done without using magic? There was a whole series of these mysteries, in an alternate history setting where magic works.
This mixing of genres has become very popular in the last few years, but this section is just an overview and will not go into later practitioners of the art. But see the web page on Mixed Genres.
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