Public Address | Cafe | Up Front: Reading Murder Books

Sister Mary Gearchange

Sun, 20 Dec 2015 15:51:54 +1300

Patricia Cornwell? I just couldn’t cope with the shitty writing. Elizabeth George would be a co-offender in that respect: when she’s not busy being impressed with herself about how clever a writer she thinks she is, her stories are quite good. Just to stay in the pop culture lack-of-respect theme…

Tess Rooney

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 19:01:23 +1300

I adore, ADORE, all those authors, especially Raymond Chandler. I think I've read most Agatha Christie (also from the library), and I own quite a few of Chandler's books.

Chesterton's Father Brown series isn't bad either.

I love it when the killer is someone I never guessed, but who it…

EliotBlennerhassett

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 10:50:01 +1300

I have to add to this growing mountain of recommendations the cyberpunk/crime novel When Gravity Fails and its two sequels by George Alec Effinger. An accidental discovery at the local library of course.

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 07:52:45 +1300

So let’s take time out from pre-Christmas stress and bitching and Judith Collins’ smug face, and share stories of our favourite murder books.

Here goes, with standard warning that there may be spoilers at the links.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith). Pop culture is awash in sociopaths who get…

Craig Ranapia

Sun, 13 Dec 2015 21:49:44 +1300

This is an odd co-incidence, because I was just thinking that of my four 'favourite books', P&P is the only one that isn't in some way a mystery.

Since you mentioned P.D. James, if you track down a copy of her 'diary as an oblique memoir' Time To Be In Earnest,…

Rosemary McDonald

Sun, 13 Dec 2015 19:58:41 +1300

My favourite contemporary detective writer is Laurie King

Yes. A shameless fan. I own (because I have to) all the Kate Martinelli books, Folly, Birth of a New Moon and O Jerusalem. The other Mary Russell books are on the 'list of what to look for' at the second hand…

sandra

Sun, 13 Dec 2015 17:19:27 +1300

Thanks so much Soon Lee. Have bookmarked it.

Rich Lock

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 23:03:18 +1300

do try The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay as well
Not so much a whodunnit as a ‘comics opera’ from the heroic age of escapism.

Great book, but given the Bam! Kapow! background/subject matter, its very downbeat. One of those highly fashionable grimy reboots, no doubt....

TracyMac

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 22:03:16 +1300

Some good recs here – good reason to fire up LibraryThing to add to "should-reads"!

I quite specifically didn't do English lit during the 5 minutes I attended university in the 80s (I did linguistics). I've always detested being told what novels to read, because most "worthy literature" appears to…

Lilith __

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 16:29:49 +1300

A Study in Emerald, which is collected in his Fragile Things.

It’s also a board game I really, really want.

Wow! Pity one has to pay so much to get one's tentacles on it.

Lilith __

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 15:47:25 +1300

Arrrrgh! So many books I now need to read. Thanks everybody!

Ian Dalziel

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 13:33:26 +1300

Kirby your enthusiasm…
Also …. by Michael Chabon
do try The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay as well
Not so much a whodunnit as a ‘comics opera’ from the heroic age of escapism.
All that and a golem too, IIRC, mud sticks…

Soon Lee

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:44:17 +1300

Regarding Bridge of Birds, the forgotten classics podcast recorded all of bridge of birds as hourlong pod casts starting here:

http://hcforgottenclassics.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/episode-168-bridge-of-birds-ch-1-3.html

Thanks! Runs off to download.

The Subterranean Press version has additional notes from Hughart which I have excerpted below. Seasonally apropos warning: contains references to turkey.

"Will there be…

Soon Lee

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:36:52 +1300

"A Study in Emerald" is available free from Gaiman's website .

Emma Hart

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:10:30 +1300

I think I’ve mentioned this before but I was very struck with Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time, which is the story of a detective who examines a historical mystery while stuck in hospital: did Richard III kill the Princes in the Tower?

Oddly, I've read this book twice, because I…

Tamsin6

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 10:48:34 +1300

I love this thread – I have loads of guilty reading pleasures and slightly cosy early 20th century set crime fiction is among them. Recently I've been reading a few genuine early 20th century mysteries, thanks to some reissues by the British Library, as per the catalogue here and this…

sandra

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 10:09:26 +1300

Thanks Lilith, I will try 'A Study in Emerald'. For Holmes fans I’d also recommend the slim volume (novella) that is 'The Final Solution' by Michael Chabon. It’s not predictable and rather sad – and I don't think the name 'Sherlock Holmes' is ever mentioned.

Also, 'The Yiddish Policeman’s Union'…

Joe Wylie

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 07:52:49 +1300

Doobie Dick?
I tried to like Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice both in book and movie formats, just didn’t work for me, tried too hard, too many words, or something…
Pynchon's been trying too hard since Vineland. Like Don DeLillo and Martin Amis, allowing himself to be anointed as a kind…

Ian Dalziel

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 06:05:22 +1300

Do be a Dick!
Ya can’t do Raymond Chandler without a side of Samuel Dashiell Hammett as well, heck, as it’s a buffet throw in a plate of Kenneth Millar as well… and if we’re going there we’d best knock back some Damon Runyon for the authentic street voice, too……

Lilith __

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 00:19:55 +1300

my absolute fav detective of all time is Lauren Henderson’s hilarious Sam Jones . Sam is a Camden girl – hedonistic, foul-mouthed and witty, and when not detecting or doing her day job as a sculptor, spends her time clubbing in black leather and rubber (one of the books is…

Lilith __

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 00:15:21 +1300

Another vote for the wonderfulness of Raymond Chandler. His books are tiny masterpieces of their kind. As you say Emma, his language is both sassy and original. And the deeply seedy atmosphere carries from book to book – if the pages of your copy aren’t tatty, and the cover sticky,…

Lilith __

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 00:08:34 +1300

Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series – Case Histories is the first one and then there’s another three to knock off after that.

Yes yes yes. Although the story is legitimately horrifying, the characters are engaging, the plotting deft, and the dialogue hilarious. My favourite of the series is the second,…

Lilith __

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 23:57:09 +1300

I think I've mentioned this before but I was very struck with Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time, which is the story of a detective who examines a historical mystery while stuck in hospital: did Richard III kill the Princes in the Tower?
Wikipedia informs me that it was "voted greatest…

Lilith __

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 23:44:12 +1300

My favourite re-imagining of Sherlock is Neil Gaiman’s Lovecraftian short-story A Study in Emerald, which is collected in his Fragile Things.
On looking it up just now, I see that it’s also in an anthology of Sherlock/Cthulhu mashup called Shadows Over Baker St. Well.

Lilith __

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 19:43:39 +1300

I was just thinking that of my four 'favourite books', P&P is the only one that isn't in some way a mystery. Rebecca certainly is, and I think, stretching the point more, Possession is as well.

I think Possession gets bonus points for oddly-plausible dark-stormy-night-graverobbing cliffhanger.

Emma Hart

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:37:56 +1300

Whatever your biggest recommend is Emma, I double it!

This may have just found a home on my Kobo.

Mark Cubey

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 15:19:40 +1300

The detective series I enjoyed most last year was a six-part epic by CJ Sansom (his standalone title Dominion, an alternate WW2 thriller, is also exceptional). Set during the reign of Henry VIII, the six books (start with Dissolution) follow hunchbacked lawyer-turned-detective Matthew Shardlake through a compellingly evoked historical England.…

sandra

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 09:21:08 +1300

Ooooh, can I add just one more?

Louise Penny. I found her quite by accident on the library shelves a couple of years ago and after I’d read one I grabbed everything else they had asap. She’s good – it’s not so much the murder or even the detection (although…

Hebe

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:44:14 +1300

The ‘cozy’ mysteries that American woman writers churn out … I occasionally read one just because there’s no intellectual work needed, kind of like a lie down or goofing off!
They sound wonderfully batty books for summer: food and murder. Perfect.

A C Young

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:46:00 +1300

Regarding Bridge of Birds, the forgotten classics podcast recorded all of bridge of birds as hourlong pod casts starting here:

http://hcforgottenclassics.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/episode-168-bridge-of-birds-ch-1-3.html

sandra

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:15:22 +1300

They’re awful, but in a really endearingly sweet kind of way

I agree. These authors know their audiences and are writing exactly what their fans want to read.

sandra

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:14:22 +1300

my absolute fav detective of all time is Lauren Henderson’s hilarious Sam Jones

Thanks for this – one I don't know. Library, here I come!

Emma Hart

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:10:45 +1300

Wreck the Halls, Purl Up and Die, Chamomile Mourning, Peach Cobbler Murder, Darned if You Do, The Cereal Murders, The Body in the Vestibule, A Brew to a Kill.

Heh. They're awful, but in a really endearingly sweet kind of way. You can usually find a couple on the sale…

linger

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:01:40 +1300

One from the world of linguistics is David Carkeet's Double Negative, set in an institute for research into child language.

Oh, and has anyone in this thread already mentioned the Peter Shandy books by Charlotte MacLeod (e.g. Wrack and Rune )?

Andrew Stevenson

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 11:57:28 +1300

Bridge of Birds, Story of the Stone, Eight Skilled Gentlemen

Oh god those are amazing! I have physical copies but I think I’ll just get them electronically
I'll take the physical copies off your hands so you can free up valuable space...

sandra

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 11:26:19 +1300

Okay, I'm going to bring it up ...

The 'cozy' mysteries that American woman writers churn out ... I occasionally read one just because there's no intellectual work needed, kind of like a lie down or goofing off! Turns out, 'cozy mysteries' is an actual sub-genre.

Diane Mott Davidson is…

BenWilson

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 10:11:58 +1300

The one where he fights a legion of invisible glass villains from China, for example. Or the one where they find a lost Persian army in the Egyptian desert.

I'm sure he was as phlegmatic and coldly logical throughout as ever. Lots of detail about the possible march times of…

kw

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 10:10:35 +1300

Had forgotten about Sam Jones and Saz Martin – Sam in particular seemed to have been left dangling a bit, but I guess there's only so many times a sculptor can get herself tangled up in crime without it being completely preposterous. (Not that I cared.) Zoe Sharp's Charlie Fox…

Bart Janssen

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:41:09 +1300

Bridge of Birds, Story of the Stone, Eight Skilled Gentlemen

Oh god those are amazing! I have physical copies but I think I’ll just get them electronically as well because realistically that’s how I do all my reading now.

And I didn’t know Fox published/destroyed books too. I presume they…

Ross Francis

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:35:15 +1300

I haven't read any detective novels as such but The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time can almost be described as a detective novel.

"Mark Haddon's bitterly funny debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a murder mystery of sorts--one told by an…

Biobbs

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 02:54:15 +1300

Staying in London, my absolute fav detective of all time is Lauren Henderson's hilarious Sam Jones . Sam is a Camden girl – hedonistic, foul-mouthed and witty, and when not detecting or doing her day job as a sculptor, spends her time clubbing in black leather and rubber (one of…

Rich Lock

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 21:47:58 +1300

Which might seem odd until you've read a Biggles and realize that he's basically a flying detective.

Although one or two of them wandered off-track quite a distance. The one where he fights a legion of invisible glass villains from China, for example. Or the one where they find a…

sandra

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 21:13:17 +1300

Curious London settings and mysteries to be found in the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler. The odd facts about the grand old city are true which makes the stories even better.

Thomas Lumley

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 20:39:13 +1300

I'm glad to hear the Murray Whelan books travel well, though a bit surprised. I'm from Melbourne and to me, they seem to fit their time and place so well.

kw

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 19:05:24 +1300

Among Australians who travel as well as Peter Temple, there's also Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan novels, which are fun, and a couple by Adrian Hyland set in the outback.

I have a weakness for (Scot) Chris Brookmyre as well, and the new series is far less ranty than those with…

John McCormick

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 16:47:53 +1300

Aarrrgh! I hate you all. The gap between the books I want to read and the time I have available to read them is already at epic proportions. Then I find something like this and add a whole lot more. I think I need several additional lifetimes to get through…

kiwicmc

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 16:40:57 +1300

I can't believe I forgot to name check The Bernie Gunther Novels of Philip Kerr. A detective in Berlin set before, during and after world war 2. Great sense of place, woven with real historical events.

Philip Kerr also does a series about a football manager in the English premier…

Emma Hart

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 16:36:48 +1300

Yep, those ones. Bridge of Birds, Story of the Stone, Eight Skilled Gentlemen. Apparently Hughart intended to write seven, but had a 'falling out' with his publishers, so there are only three. I used to own them, but I'm pretty sure they belong to my daughter now. They live in…

Stephen R

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 16:03:43 +1300

Barry Hughart's ancient-mythic-China detective novels

Are they the ones that start with "Bridge of birds" and have "Number 10 Ox" as the sidekick character?

Son of Dad

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 15:46:12 +1300

As a teen I loved Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee novels set in Tang Dynasty China. The novels were based (I think) on the life of a real Tang Dynasty official.

Also, the dire Johnny Depp film notwithstanding, Kyril Bonfiglioli's damn weird novels featuring dissolute art dealer / thief Charlie…

simon g

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 15:35:58 +1300

Peter Abrahams. My summer reading of choice (alas, he has stopped writing) – hits my middling brain's target area, between "I'm confused" and "I'm insulted".

Scott Turow for legal thrillers, and more.

Emma Hart

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 15:21:03 +1300

So much gold on this thread. You know I basically only do these to get book recommendations.

Two I haven't mentioned. Barry Hughart's ancient-mythic-China detective novels, and Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries, set in turn of last century Egypt. Both get a good deal of dry, gentle humour from fallible…

sandra

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:34:12 +1300

I endorse this wholeheartedly:
Inspector O series of books set in North Korea, written by James Church.

And would mention Colin Cotterill's series featuring Dr. Siri Paiboun that are set in the Laos of the mid-70s. Not as serious as the Inspector O books but a good read.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:28:52 +1300

‘Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience’.
I enjoyed this recent tweak on Sherlock Holmes, steampunk'd and hacked in his own time...

Andrew Stevenson

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:09:56 +1300

the background becomes as much fun as the plot
Which is part of the Stross's Laundry Files is so much fun – Lovecraftian horrors invoked by technology, dealt with by the modern British Civil Service... (another plug for 'The Rook' too)
Back on the Detective novels, good page turners for…

BenWilson

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:06:45 +1300

Cornwall put me off detective novels forever, unfortunately. Prior to that, the aforementioned oldies are favourites of mine, and I'd only add Biggles. Which might seem odd until you've read a Biggles and realize that he's basically a flying detective. Even in the wartime novels, he approached problems thrown up…

Rob S

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:52:41 +1300

Inspector O series of books set in North Korea, written by James Church.
A truly great read in such a foreign setting with an understated wit penned by an ex C.I.A. officer who presumably knows his stuff.

Bart Janssen

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:33:13 +1300

A really good book sometimes can have the solution to the crime being relatively less important than the setting.

Very true. However it's really easy to cross the line into boring travelogue, which is where the current book (Paul McAuley's gardens of the Sun) I'm reading has failed me,
"yes…

JacksonP

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:26:22 +1300

I believe I share this guilty secret with Craig. Over a few years I consumed two series, set at different times in Roman history.

Lindsay Davis’, Marcus Didius Falco series is a hoot, and his long suffering significant other, Helena, is one of my favourite fictional characters. They…

sandra

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:17:26 +1300

Oh, okay, just one more ..

James Lee Burke ... do not go past James Lee Burke. I started with the Dave Robichaux novels and although they have been getting bigger and bigger and somewhat formulaic (poetic description of the landscape/weather-action-landscape/weather-action-Dave wonders whether to drink-Clete does something outrageous-landscape/weather) he is…

sandra

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 13:12:41 +1300

Among the foreign writers that I enjoy reading in translation (in no particular order) are:

Fred Vargas (French: Commissaire Adamsberg)
Andrea Camilleri (Italian: Salvo Montalbano). A mention of translator Stephen Sartarelli here, he does a brilliant job.
Jo Nesbo (Norwegian: Harry Hole)
Hakan Nesser (Swedish: Inspector Van Veetern). These books…

sandra

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 12:54:26 +1300

Started with Christie when I was about 12 – as I recall my mother was reading them from the library and I just picked one up. Why do I always feel so guilty when I tell people that my main reading is crime fiction/thrillers?

On to Marsh and Sayers, both…

Son of Dad

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 12:43:46 +1300

As an aside, I recommend Colin Watson's 'Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience'. Watson was a fine crime novelist himself, and his witty and astute history of the genre from the 1920s through the 1960s makes for a very entertaining read.

Ianmac

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 11:01:16 +1300

I enjoy Detective novels. But what makes it more intriguing is those that are set in so many countries that the background becomes as much fun as the plot. Swedish, Italian, French, Greek, etc. A really good book sometimes can have the solution to the crime being relatively less important…

octopusgrrl

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 10:47:02 +1300

Quite right, Carol – I enjoyed Cornwell's books in the beginning but now they seem to dehumanise the victims too much and the plots are so unbelievable, not to mention that Kay Scarpetta has become a very unsympathetic protagonist for me. I like the Tempe Brennan books, but they're a…

Carol Stewart

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 10:22:21 +1300

A few years later a bit of Rebus went down well,

I'm very fond of Ian Rankin's Rebus as well. I also went through a Patricia Cornwell phase, but I wearied of her humourlessness as well as the carnage you mention. In that genre I much prefer Kathy Reichs.

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 09:44:37 +1300

One to watch...
Step aside Patricia Highsmith, Paul Cleave, et al there's a new voice in town – the winner of this year's Sunday Star Times Short Story competition – with her story – Bodies
This story gives us the grand themes of sex and death. Perspective moves…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 09:27:58 +1300

the Gernsback Continuum…
… a rather odd fictional overlay to my memory of my first visit to the Manawatu.
aaaah… the mean streets of Palmerston Noir…
(reminds me of Mieville's The City and the City )

Bonzer noir – keeping it local…
…follow Ellerslie Penrose (among others) along…

Marion Ogier

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 09:11:45 +1300

Totally agree. Would also recommend his Jack Irish thrillers for more of a cynical, humorous take on the corruptions of Victorian politics and some cracking Aussie dialogue.

Rich Lock

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 01:23:38 +1300

I may have to get myself a Christmas present then.

I read 'Drood' and 'The Terror' back-to-back a couple of years ago. They're fairly hefty, and more 'horror' than they are 'murder-mystery'.

The amount of background research and detail is extremely impressive, if nothing else.

Rich Lock

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 01:09:40 +1300

I can't fathom what would make me sit through I and II again.

The only way to make any of the prequels 'watchable' is to watch them via Red Letter Media's 'reviews', which are almost longer than the films themselves.

I finally achieved some sort of catharsis over the four…

johnno

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 00:25:28 +1300

I would like to offer Aussie crime writer Peter Temple to the pot. His "Broken Shore" and "Truth"have wonderful broken police officers, and an amazing line in terse cynical dialogue.

Hebe

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 00:12:41 +1300

When my twin sons were two years old I started on 18 months of reading World War Two schlock thrillers, then the relentless carnage of Patricia Cornwell. My life was so overwhelmingly child-focused, with brief breaks for work, that I felt in need of a stringent counterpoint. I rapaciously read…

kiwicmc

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:33:32 +1300

Emma!, from Christchurch and no Paul Cleave shout out? My wife, appalled that I have only read 4 woman authors out of the 80 or so books this year, put me onto Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series – Case Histories is the first one and then there's another three to…

octopusgrrl

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:28:29 +1300

Lewis Buzbee said, “If you read one book a week, starting at the age of 5, and live to be 80, you will have read a grand total of 3,900 books, a little over one-tenth of 1 percent of the books currently in print.” Granted, my speed is a little…

Jeanette King

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:50:41 +1300

Ohh! Ka mau te wehi! Awesome thread. And with some suggestions (thanks folks) that'll make it a great summer of reading for me.

My (not already mentioned) favs are: Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries – orchids, food, NY brownstone, prickly but brilliant detective who outwits everyone. Also Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano…

B Jones

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:36:33 +1300

I'm having English lit thoughts now about crime fiction, women's prominence in it, and the genre as a vehicle to express a kind of feminism. It's often about male violence, usually about someone breaking society's rules, and always about the struggle of justice over greed or violence.

B Jones

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:27:25 +1300

I discovered Dorothy Sayers via Connie Willis. I never managed to get into Agatha Christie, but I like the way the adventures of Lord Peter et al illustrate the life and times of the interwar period. A pioneer of a long history of crime novels illustrating social issues.

I'm reading…

Rob S

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 19:29:12 +1300

More of a sci-fi fan with an Elmore Leonard, Doctorow, James Ellroy bent on the side.
However I've just started Arab Jazz by Karim Miske and am enjoying the hell out of it although I've only got around 30-40 pages in I don't want it to end.

Thomas Lumley

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 19:02:24 +1300

Another vote for Kerry Greenwood. I'd also add Donna Leon (cynical but not callous Venetians with good food), Janet Neel, and Laurie King (I prefer her modern series to her Holmes one).

Darker, but still very good: Batya Gur's police procedurals set in Jerusalem.

And for people who read Young…

Andrew Stevenson

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 15:44:07 +1300

Sci/Fi murder mystery and "what just happened?"
The rook by Daniel O'Malley.
Summary: The body you are wearing used to be mine.? So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves

Bart Janssen

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 15:29:18 +1300

But I can’t fathom what would make me sit through I and II again.

The value is you throw away vol I completely, however that still leaves you with the problem of the dialog in III which almost certainly has to win as the worst romantic dialog ever in a…

Emma Hart

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 15:05:51 +1300

Kerry Greenwood for good wry mysteries (I enjoy reading her Corinna Chapman novels more than Phryne Fisher although I love the TV series).

I have just discovered the TV series and it's my current binge-watch. I'm loving Essie Davis doing Diana Rigg.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie…

A C Young

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:58:50 +1300

Kerry Greenwood for good wry mysteries (I enjoy reading her Corinna Chapman novels more than Phryne Fisher although I love the TV series).

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis is technically a time travel comedy but there's some decent stuff in there involving classic mysteries.

I also…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:35:52 +1300

the three existing Star Wars movies

Making a statement there :).

Not even tempted by the Machete order?

Emma Hart

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:27:48 +1300

Have you read Dan Simmons’ ’Drood’?

Oo, no I haven't. I may have to get myself a Christmas present then.

Emma Hart

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:26:24 +1300

Is Jane Ayre the one what goes,
“I wish I’d looked after me wife, and not locked her upstairs for life…”?

All the names I spell-checked so carefully for this column, and I missed that. Eyre.

I bought Chandler’s The Big Sleep to keep me sane on a work trip,…

linger

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:18:13 +1300

One of my colleagues was reading that during yesterday’s interminable department meeting: partly as an ironic comment on said meeting.

Sam F

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:08:18 +1300

I bought Chandler's The Big Sleep to keep me sane on a work trip, and was very pleased to find rich veins of humour and snappy repartee alongside the hardboiledness.

I finished a large part of it during an afternoon's downtime at a café in Palmerston North, so I now…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:08:05 +1300

camera film

One of the hazards of older SciFi is the problem of current technology making the futuristic SciFi tech look old hat.

I mean really, film is so amazing – nothing could replace it :). And as for those pathetic communicators they use in Star Trek, you can't even…

linger

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:06:17 +1300

(Actually, generic series title is Insert-Noun In Death, which kind of makes my point about the non-memorability of the individual titles.)

linger

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:44:39 +1300

I always get all them classics mixed up. Is Jane Ayre the one what goes,
“I wish I’d looked after me wife, and not locked her upstairs for life…”?

@Bart – See also J.D. Robb, aka Nora Roberts in SF mode (generic title Death in Insert_Noun_Here ). Not always entirely…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:43:59 +1300

I'm mostly a SciFi & Fantasy reader nowadays but I grew up reading EVERY 3 Investigators book and Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Arthur Conan Doyle blew my mind with logic (so glad I never knew what a nutjob he was back then).

Once I became hooked on SciFi I worked…

Rich Lock

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:37:53 +1300

The book I most often claim as my favourite is Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, which is one of the contenders for the title of “first detective novel”. It’s a masterful piece of fiction, especially considering Collins was bombed out of his skull on laudanum and managing two mistresses. It’s a…

Alfie

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 13:34:26 +1300

I admit it... I'm an addict, hopelessly hooked on murder mysteries. In particular I've developed a taste for Scandinavian police procedurals. It started during a brief spell in hospital where The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo become unputdownable and I quickly consumed the rest of the series. That led to…

Emma Hart

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:45:28 +1300

A boarding pass. For Amy Gale.

I have left so many boarding passes in library books. When you're not using them as bookmarks, they tuck neatly inside the jacket flap of a standard hard-cover.

I get a lot of re-read pleasure out of Pride and Prejudice (not so much Austin’s…

Andrew Jack

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:06:05 +1300

The Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax books in Discworld by Terry Pratchett and frequently as much murder mystery as they are fantasy and I re read Pratchett every year. I still love Sherlock Holmes, although it's in a different way now than it was.

I love Ben Aaronovitch (although I…

Jeremy Andrew

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:05:21 +1300

Oooh yes. Put me down for Altered Carbon – Sci Fi Noir detective trilogy by Richard Morgan. I have a feeling if they manage to get the movie made, I will be disappoint.

Reading Agatha Christie's Mysterious Affair at Styles at present for a book club – good old Poirot…

Amy Gale

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:00:23 +1300

I just got a book of EVERY POIROT SHORT STORY from the library on Saturday!

And why?

Because I was browsing a few aisles away under STR, wondering if there was any Charles Stross there that I hadn't read, and someone came into the aisle, and I looked over, and…

Public Address

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:00:23 +1300

Discussion from blog post.