Grobius Shortling's Mystery Novel Guide
[There are many Mystery Sites on the Internet -- this is just my
own consolidation, plus my personal mystery pages, links to other sites, and to
publishers, and some categories.]
[Click
HERE
for a Frames Version of this Mystery Page list]
Subjects and Categories on this page
Excellent Mystery Sites on the Internet
You could spend hours and lots of connect time money browsing these sites,
but they are very comprehensive, especially with the 'classic' mysteries
Some brave souls publish their work on-line. Good (if you can read lots of
text on a monitor screen without getting a headache)
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)
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.]
There is another 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!).
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. You also have McCrumb's Elizabeth McPherson, who is
feisty enough, but basically uninteresting. Likewise, Hardwick's Doran Fairweather.
And that brings up Sharyn McCrumb, who 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 minor debut, 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,
She Walks These Hills, and If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him. These are
real novels (with great titles) and classics in the mystery/crime genre --
mind-blowing. New one out: Feb 1997 The Rosewood Casket -- wow!
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.
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.
I read this a couple of times a LONG time ago but no longer have a copy of the book (and haven't
been able to find it anywhere). 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.
[* indicates especially good]
- England
- Ellis Peters (Medieval) -- Brother Cædfæl; nicely realized series with good
recurring characters, but awfully romanticized plot lines (usually young lovers being thwarted)
- P.C. Doherty (Medieval) -- Hugh Corbett, 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 (above)
- 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
- 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)
- 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)
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 (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 not that good except for 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).
Some Publishers of Mystery Novels
Mysterious Press
--One of the best mystery lines going
Bantam/Doubleday/Dell
--One of the largest conglomerates with many mystery lines
Crippen & Landru
--Nice title for an imprint (hell, it could have been OJ & von Bulow); one of the best small publishers for specialty mystery short stories
Avon Books
--Mysteries and some (not much) SF
Random House
--They own practically everything (Ballantine, etc.)
... and Some Specialty Bookstores
Partners in Crime
--A nice bookstore with knowledgeable assistants
Mysterious Bookshop
--The largest of its kind (now with stores in Hollywood and London in addition to the original
NYC one behind Carnegie Hall). Love it although it is outside my usual stomping grounds --
hate midtown!
Murder Ink
--The original book store of its type and it set the ground rules for this sort of place. Unfortunately, the URL is a dead link now. The store changed hands a few years ago and may not even be in
business anymore for all I know (upper West Side is even more foreign to me than Midtown); used
to go up there twice a year or so with friends on 'safari' and buy about $50 worth of books at a
time that I couldn't find anywhere else.
(Many years ago, before they all disappeared under gentrification, lower Fourth Avenue in the East Village had a dozen or so used-book stores where you could get pristine copies of old Philo Vances (fold-out maps still included) for a couple of bucks and practically any other classic mystery you can bring to mind. Alas, no more....]
Some Book Reviews (not necessarily mysteries)
Also try out some of my own stories
 Click your mouse on the skull to go to the Grobius Shortling Home Page
An apology is owed regarding links that no longer exist. I hate it when this happens, but it does all the time. Some web sites leave a forwarding address when they have moved, which is the proper thing to do. Others just fade away, which is a pity. However, I don't have the time to keep all my web pages up to date, so
please don't blame me when you get the famous 404 error, just believe that it was seen and read and enjoyed at some point in time.
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