Category: mystery reader

I like these books so much I’ve bought the last two in hardcover. Didn’t want to wait for the paperback or a library hold. Worth every penny – HA. Pun INTENDED.

A friend of mine and I have talked about how Three Pines (the fictional Quebecois town where the mysteries take place) is a place we just want to be. And I’m so grateful every time I get to revisit. I think all the fans must feel the same. And the characters are so likable, I am just happy they exist. I’m reminded of when I first read the Narnia books. Narnia was so enchanting I couldn’t wait to go back. I had a longing for it that would never go away.

Is there a German or Japanese word for “the longing to go home to a fictional place”?

This book is set in Paris. So not Three Pines. But I’m not going to be mad at Paris.

The Gamache books are murder mysteries, pretty traditional in style, with a police officer for a detective, suspense, danger, red herrings, twisty plots and satisfying conclusions. These are bestselling mysteries.

But what stands out about this series is that it is emotional. The books often hinge on the characters being able to express their love for each other. This seems very unusual in a detective book. Gamache is not a damaged, lonely cynic – he’s a loving husband and father and friend. We are in Gamache’s head a lot – and he is doing a lot of emoting and a lot of thinking. I love every bit of it. The books also reference art a lot. There are poets and painters among Gamache’s circle and their art is often woven into the books. The excerpts of poetry and the descriptions of paintings add so much richness. So much life.

Ultimately – and this is a quality of all my favorite books – this book is about relationships. Every thing comes back to the relationships between the characters. That is what matters.

And – this is Paris after all – lots of excellent food.

Vive Gamache!

Just finished the audio version of Moonflower Murders. I was given the hardcover as a birthday gift when I was about halfway through the audiobook, and now that I’m done listening I’m looking forward to reading it or at least part of it to spend more time with the story.

I really love anything that Horowitz writes. I didn’t know it at the time I watched them but he created two of my favorite tv shows: “Midsomer Murders” and “Foyle’s War”. He has written some Sherlock books, and some homages to Sherlock books, and I read those with glee.

Then there was Magpie Murders which introduced protagonist Susan Ryeland. It was like a masterclass in detective fiction. Moonflower Murders is the follow up.

These two books employ a technique that woos me every single damn time – the book within the book. Magpie had sections of a novel; Moonflower has the whole thing. AN ENTIRE DETECTIVE NOVEL WITHIN A DETECTIVE NOVEL. What?!?! I got giddy – GIDDY – when I realized that was the case. And then the interior detective novel features a case history which is like a short story within the book. Swoon.

The layers and the hidden clues and the references to detective fiction are layered like phyllo. The whole thing feels like a game. It makes gentle fun of all the conventions of detective fiction and of writers while at the same time forming a long, twisty love letter to the form.

It’s just so much clever fun. Ryeland is a retired editor who needs to read one of her late author’s books to look for clues to solve a current mystery. The book she reads is in itself an homage to the golden age of detective fiction, in particular to Christie. Ryeland is smart and funny and stubborn, hapless while being aware of her haplessness. Falling into the conventions of detective books while pointing that out while noting how it actually works pretty well that way. It’s so self-referential while using those references to distract the reader and lull them into complacency. The embedded novel is full of word games and references to other detective writers.

Read this if you like a solid mystery that is fast-paced, intricate and well-written. Especially read if you love other mysteries. It is a celebration of mystery books that is at once winky and sincere. It reminds me all the reasons why I love them.

I discovered Josephine Tey through Nicola Upson’s mystery series that feature Tey as an amateur detective. I only learned that Tey was a real person when I entered “Josephine Tey” into the search bar on my library app because I couldn’t remember Upson’s name.

It was an upending discovery.

It is a strange thing to realize a character you thought was fictitious lived and breathed. It is also strange to read the fictionalized version of her life first. So for awhile I was binge reading both Tey and Upson’s books at the same time, constantly pulling apart the threads of fiction and reality.

I love Upson’s novels. They imagine the personality and life of a woman who was extremely private. They rely on her novels as much as the scarce known details of her life as scaffolding for a very rich rendering of an unconventional person.

I listened to the audio of a few of Upson’s books (read by the excellent Wanda McCaddon, whose Scottish burr for Josephine’s voice is a delight, though I’m no Scotswoman and I find almost any approximation of that gorgeous accent to be a treat) and was addicted almost right away. They have a heady combination: intellectual mystery, personable main character and rich settings.

Tey lived during the first half of the 20th century. She was a playwright as well as a novelist. Maybe more of a playwright than a novelist. She moved between Scotland and England. Upson places her settings within these frames beautifully. The books explore the world of the theater, of post-war London, of an Alfred Hitchcock movie set, of the Scottish countryside and all are interesting. They describe in Tey a woman who supports herself with her writing (often under a pseudonym) in a world that is changing with a startling rapidity. These are my favorite kind of historical novel – the research is thorough and educational but doesn’t hit you on the head with a “Hey, appreciate all the research I did, writing is hard!” shaped stick. And the prose is just really fluid and beautiful.

But then I found out Josephine Tey was a real person. And that the mystery books alluded to in the mystery books based on a fictional version of her life … exist.

Oh happy day!

And they are wonderful. She was writing at the same time as Agatha Christie, but she is in many ways a renegade. She does wonderful things with the form. It’s as if she turned the thing – the thing that is the golden age detective story – over and over in her hands and then set it back down on the table in a different orientation. And that makes all the difference. When you’ve read/watched/listened to approximately 400 million mysteries, a little difference is significant – and significantly interesting.

And occasionally it wasn’t a little difference either. The Daughter of Time – the British Crime Writers’ Association once voted it greatest crime novel of all time – is truly a masterpiece and truly original.

The writing is intense and psychological. Sentences are beautifully and intricately woven, hanging together like a large piece of filigree.

Agatha was my first love. I fell for her mysteries in a way that changed the way I read forever. And versions of her stories are absolutely EVERYWHERE. I have watched even more Christie mysteries than I’ve read. But Josephine is a new and wondrous love and one that is somehow more wondrous because of how scarce her work is. There are only eight mystery novels and the only movie adaptation I know of is the Hitchcock movie, but I believe that veers pretty widely from the original course.

If you don’t yet know either author, you can maybe proceed with order. Read Tey’s Alan Grant novels in the order in which they were written. Read Miss Pym and Brat Farrar. Then dip into the Nicola Upson novels and decide what you think of the imagined life the contemporary author created for the historical one.

Or maybe do what I accidentally did, because it was kind of fun and trippy. Read them all out of order, sometimes two at a time, reading books as the library holds come in, overlapping the layers of fiction like a collage, getting dizzy with the immersion.

Either way, you have hours and hours of good reading ahead of you.

Take any of McCall Smith’s books to bed. I promise you will have better dreams.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has long been a favorite of mine. The books are just so lovely. I like to read before I fall asleep and mysteries are my favorite – but a grisly murder mystery is not always what you want to read just before bed. Enter McCall Smith, who I suspect is the most optimistic person on the planet.

All the Precious Ramotswe (the hero of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books) books are EXCELLENT. They are not gritty or heart-stopping. They are heart-reinforcing. Read them in print – delightful. Listen to them on audio – narrator Lisette Lecat is perfect. She makes the humor sparkle. If you want an even more wholesome treat, listen to The Mystery of the Missing Lion and The Mystery of Meerkat Hill, two Precious Ramotswe Mysteries for Young Readers.

These books are like getting together with an old, dear friend. It is a place you want to visit. The prose is gentle and thoughtful and the observations about people feel true.

The characters are people I want to know. Their homes are places I would like to visit.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes is the first book in a new series set in Sweden. It has the same generous, optimistic spirit with some slightly darker humor. Sweden is slightly less of a vibrant character than Botswana is in the Ramotswe books.

I enjoyed it a little bit less, but I think I was just missing Precious and Grace.

A mystery book with no bodies may sound like it will be boring. And it will be for some. But I like the substance you find in a book that explores relationships and heartbreak and carefully, gently and with the best intentions, sets things to rights.

Ulf stood quite still. Then he bent down, patted Martin reassuringly on the head and took him back along the path by which they had come – which is, of course, the path that you can always trust to take you back to where you belong.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith