Whodunnits

[tomwaits]

Scooby Doo

 

[fuelair]

I agree that the Spenser theme is about worked out. And my wife likes Stephanie Plum Crazy.
Anyone else like Pronzoni's "Nameless Detective" series?

Yes - though it has been awhile!

 

[fuelair]

Another nice series of whodunnits is the Cadfael series. The protagonist is a monk in medieval England (during the struggle between Stephen and Mathilda for the throne of England). The books have also been turned into a TV series, starring Derek Jacobi.

Both are worth the effort!!

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

A lot of works by the Kellerman family (Jonathan, his wife Faye, or their son Jesse) fall into the "whodunnit" category, and are pretty good reads.

I grew reading Elizabeth Linington, under her pennames Dell Shannon or Lesley Egan, although those are more "police procedural" than true whodunnits. But I think the books she wrote as Lesley Egan are less police procedural and more the other. (But I admit it's been years since I read those.)

Also anything by Ed McBain, as himself, or as Evan Hunter, might satisfy your criteria as well.

But then, I'm harking back a long time ago too... I've kinda taken a long hiatus from the genre.

 

[Foolmewunz]

A lot of works by the Kellerman family (Jonathan, his wife Faye, or their son Jesse) fall into the "whodunnit" category, and are pretty good reads.

I grew reading Elizabeth Linington, under her pennames Dell Shannon or Lesley Egan, although those are more "police procedural" than true whodunnits. But I think the books she wrote as Lesley Egan are less police procedural and more the other. (But I admit it's been years since I read those.)

Also anything by Ed McBain, as himself, or as Evan Hunter, might satisfy your criteria as well.

But then, I'm harking back a long time ago too... I've kinda taken a long hiatus from the genre.

Back in the day (four decades ago), the bookstore I worked in carried a great section of both mystery and scifi. And they'd always keep a rotating stock. In Mysteries, it was Ed McBain, John D. MacDonald(McDonald?), Ellery Queen, and even the Perry Mason series. (Plus, of course, Tey and Marsh and Christie... etc...) For the "old guard", there would be maybe twelve/fifteen titles of each available. And the guy who did the ordering would pick new(old) titles for his next order.

I guess I was 'specting to walk in and see something like that - ten or twelve from each of a half-dozen main line authors, plus some of the names you guys have mentioned. (Hell, we're still demi-English here. I figured they'd at least have Rankin - the Wiki article says his books account for 10% of the Mystery sales in the UK.)

 

[Ove]

And you all forgot the master of whodunnit: Rex Stout and i must admit i share Nero's taste in beer.
But the classic Doyle-Christie-Sayers-Ellery Queen-Allingham-PD James... etc is allways good compagny. I have some favourites i can read again and again. "The nine tailors" f. inst is an extremely well engineered plot and the same with "Dead Nightingales" and not to forget "Too many Clients" or "Too many Cooks" by the master himself.

 

[ddt]

Another series you might like are the Martin Beck^WP police detectives, by the Swedish couple Sjöwall and Wahlöö^WP. They start out innocently enough as simple police detectives, but develop in the course of the series an increasing undercurrent of critique on the Swedish social-democratic society. To quote wiki:

Per Wahlöö described their goals for the series as to "use the crime novel as a scalpel cutting open the belly of the ideologically pauperized and morally debatable so-called welfare state of the bourgeois type."

This culminates in the last novel, where an American Kissinger-like politician is going to visit Sweden and there are strong leads that a terrorist group is planning an assassination attempt.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

It's more of a spy series, but plenty of detective/whodunnit elements in there too: Lucifer Box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vesuvius_Club

 

[Aitch]

(possibly) Interesting point about RB Parker

I remember a few years ago, writing a sort of fan latter to Mr (Professor?) Parker. One of the questions I asked him if he would be writing any spin novels with Hawk as the central character - there was a spate of that sort of thing at the time eg the Flynn novels by Gregory McDonald.

His reply was that he would never do that as he was not and never had been an African American and couldn't write from such a view-point.

A couple of years later he started the series of Sunny Randall novels.

 

[fuelair]

It's more of a spy series, but plenty of detective/whodunnit elements in there too: Lucifer Box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vesuvius_Club

Which has been done as a graphic novel also!.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I am on a Nordic kick- Stieg Larsson, Arnaldur Indridason, Mari Jungstedt, Håkan Nesser, Asa Larsson.

All highly recommended

Indeed. The trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson, especially, is simply a must-read. It's called the Millennium trilogy and starts with Men who hate women, which has recently been made into a film (sadly couldn't find a trailer with subtitles) which currently dominates Scandinavian movie theater ticket sales. It's a whodunnit mixing traditional and modern writing styles, and the addition of the incredibly complex character Lisbeth Salander really makes it so much more than a regular crime novel.

Indridason writes very good books, too, made even more interesting to read by their Icelandic setting.

Agatha Christie is required reading still, though.

 

[FSM]

I am a big fan of Elizabeth George as well. I thought it took quite a lot of courage for her to jump out of the 'formula' and write "What Came Before He Shot Her." I understand that many of her fans returned the book and made a big deal about how Tommy wasn't really in the novel. This is from the amazon.com comments:

How could Elizabeth George even think of letting her fans down like this? I've never before been moved to write a review but this book is a literary crime that cannot go unpunished! (Wish it had gone unpublished though.)

Geez.

I think it was very original and touching and certainly put her outside (maybe above?) the genre.

Two suggestions if you haven't read them:

1. Mistress of the Art of Death, Arianna Franklin.

2. Mystery, Peter Straub

If you give them a shot, let me know what you think.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I am a big fan of Elizabeth George as well. I thought it took quite a lot of courage for her to jump out of the 'formula' and write "What Came Before He Shot Her." I understand that many of her fans returned the book and made a big deal about how Tommy wasn't really in the novel. This is from the amazon.com comments:

How could Elizabeth George even think of letting her fans down like this? I've never before been moved to write a review but this book is a literary crime that cannot go unpunished! (Wish it had gone unpublished though.)

Geez.

I think it was very original and touching and certainly put her outside (maybe above?) the genre.

Two suggestions if you haven't read them:

1. Mistress of the Art of Death, Arianna Franklin.

2. Mystery, Peter Straub

If you give them a shot, let me know what you think.

I think George fans should expect more than just formula from her. I, too, wanted it to be an Inspector Lynley novel, but I was real pleased with a piece of modern lit in its place. Such tremendous characters and definition!

That's been her strength all along, though. (The characters are reach-out-and-touch-them real. I know those people.) I don't know why anyone would be disappointed that she took it to a different level.

James, OTOH, seems to have gotten bogged down in trying to create literary works. Where George gives those extra few hundred pages over to delving deeper into the characters, James seems to just add words without much additional substance.


I'll add the recommendations to my list. I'm moving this month and have already ordered extra lengths of bookshelves that I'll need to fill. I'm thinking of assigning business visitors (who I generally know well, anyway) sets of titles to buy me when the come over this year. I checked out another "good" bookseller yesterday, here. Woeful selection.

 

[Mr Clingford]

And then there is Josephine Tey's book Daughter of Time, which introduced me to the readings about Richard III, and I thought it was a brilliant book. I haven't read other Tey's mysteries.

I read her The Franchise Affair a few years ago and enjoyed it - I can't remember much so perhaps I will reread it.

 

[jenspen]

Current favourites:

Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series. Literate and funny cop novels.

Minette Walters novels. She is interested in the psychology of crime but writes a good thriller and a complex plot as well.

Both these are more "humane" in their attitudes than, for instance, P.D.James is. I used to think that James was creating dull, dry, unpleasant characters because they all had to be murder suspects but now I think that she is a bit of a snob with a poor opinion of human nature in general.

I have recently discovered the Jackson Brodie novels of Kate Atkinson and she is my new favourite contemporary novelist. The plots involve crime but are rounded novels as well. Black and funny.

 

[zooterkin]

I used to read a lot of SF&F, but these days I seem to be reading a lot of crime (rather than specifically "whodunnits") fiction. Most of the authors I've enjoyed have already been mentioned, but I've just discovered the crime novels of Graham Hurley, which are set in my home city of Portsmouth. I've only read one so far, so I'm not sure how important reading them in order is.

 

[blobru]

... I did the same thing with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. A bit of a throwback to Hammett, but they were still all essentially Whodunnits. ...

I think of Sara Paretsky's V I Warshawski as a sort of female Travis McGee. Similar lone wolf, view-from-nowhere outlook into human motivation; skewed running monologue on sloppy self versus uptight world; loyalty to friends, cynical joie de vivre and survival instincts. As whodunnits the plots are nothing special, but the protagonist's very likeable.

And Hammett's contemporary Cornell Woolrich, though I suspect you've already read him, just for the poetry of description alone, suspense of light and shadow. No wonder moviemakers were so eager to turn his words into film.

 

[dudalb]

I always preferred the more "action"-oriented authors; hard-boiled Mike Hammer, Travis McGee, Matt Helm..

Actually, Spillane's Mike Hammer novels are often Whodunnits, complete with the killer not revealed until the last pages,it's just couched in Hardboiled language, and Hammer does not wait around for a judge and jury to carry out the sentence.
The breach between the Hard Boiled Mystery Novel and the more traditonal Whodunnit was repaired a long time ago.
Conan Doyle (as you probably guessed from my avatar) and Dorothy Sayers did hte classic British whodunnit better then anybody else. I can reread their novels time and time again,whereas with Christie I enjoyed her stories first time through, but their rereadability quality is not high.
Rex Stout did the classic formula as well as any yank. He was an early example of combining the more realistic, gritty Hard Boiled detective with the classic whodunnit plot.
Of contemporary mystery writers, I really like Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody stories.
There was an attempt a couple of years ago to film the Peabody stories ,with, Kate Winslet in the lead (which is spot on casting...Winslet is perfect as regards age and appreance) but seems to have fallen through.

 

[Aitch]

I made the mistake of trying to read a Spillane/Mike Hammer once. When the central character raped a woman in the first few pages, I decided his work wasn't for me.

BTW the Sayers fans might like (if they didn't know already) that there are a couple of 'new' Lord Peter novels. Written by Jill Paton Walsh and based on Sayers notes. I think they are quite good; YMMV.

A Presumption of Death and Thrones, Dominations. But not necessarily in that order!

 

[Ove]

I made the mistake of trying to read a Spillane/Mike Hammer once. When the central character raped a woman in the first few pages, I decided his work wasn't for me.

BTW the Sayers fans might like (if they didn't know already) that there are a couple of 'new' Lord Peter novels. Written by Jill Paton Walsh and based on Sayers notes. I think they are quite good; YMMV.

A Presumption of Death and Thrones, Dominations. But not necessarily in that order!

The problem with Dorothy L. Sayers is that she can be just as booooooooring as she can be good. It is only "The 9 tailors" and "Bushmans Honeymoon" that i really enjoyed, most of the others i gave up on about halfway through, -or fell asleep. She wrote some good short novels though.