I do like Rex Stout. The Doorbell Rang. Death of a Doxy, If Death Ever Slept.
The Maltese Falcon is of course a classic and definitely worth reading.
Flowers For the Judge, Mystery Mile and Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham are excellent reads.
If you prefer fun over mystery I’d recommend a small series by Ron Goulart that features Groucho Marx as a detective.
CatCafffffe on
Well, you’ll find it’s hard to beat Our Agatha. She was the best, and most of the mystery writers you now find will at some point make homage references to “little grey cells,” “Poirot,” and so forth!
But I think you’ll like Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford series. She’s in the same vein, but a bit more updated, a bit more sex and so forth. She started writing in the 1950s or 60s, but actually wrote up into the 2000’s! The first few books are a bit uneven, but around Book 5 or 6 she really hits her stride.
Then you might try:
Val McDermid, Karen Pirie series
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club series, and he’s just released Book 1 of a new series, We Solve Crimes
Kate Atkinson, Jackson Brodie series (these are a bit more free flowing & odd, if you like that)
Shamini Flint, The Inspector Singh series, a delightful character. The books often start with a rather unpleasant event (say, something in the Cambodian killing fields, for example) but the books are very enjoyable and present day, and as I said, the character is delightful. The books are also set in Southeast Asia and are more interesting in terms of setting & texture, as well.
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series — again, set somewhere quite unfamiliar to most of us, Botswana, but absolutely delightful books. Great characters, a real love letter to Botswana, conjuring up the total atmosphere, the culture, the way people interact. Doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff, but at the end of the book you feel strangely uplifted and happy.
Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series is good too.
Linda La Plante’s Prime Suspect series and the prequel Tennison
A lot of people really like Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series. Gamache and his second in command Jean-Guy are really good characters, and the Quebec setting also is fresh, but I find she idealizes small town life, her other characters are cardboard and repetitive, (really repetitive, to the point where she repeats dialogue exchanges in every single book), and she gets very wordy. Still that might just be me. The first few books are better, before all the endless repetition and repeated shallow characterizations start to wear on you. But, again, the settings are very picturesque and well described.
If you want something more “thriller” oriented, there’s also Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series–quite violent, but a great character and especially the first few books, ingeniously plotted.
Anyway that’s my two cents. I started with Agatha and have now been on a two-year mystery “obsession.”
Oh, there’s also a couple of WW2-set series that I really enjoyed, if you like historical fiction set in WW2: the “Station” series by David Downing and the Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr (very “film noir”).
Sisu4864 on
I saw someone else suggesting Louise Penny, and I do recommend her, but I will say I prefer the earlier books in her series that were more murder mysteries. The later books are still murder mysteries, but she has introduced things like espionage, wide spread corruption, etc into the books and I wish they went back to being murder mysteries with some small town life sprinkled in.
Other suggestions:
Peter Grainger’s series of books
Jane Harper’s books including the Aaron Falk series
Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder books
William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor books
Robert Thorogood’s Marlow Murder Club series
Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryland series and Hawthorne and Horowitz series
Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series
Richard Osman’s series of books
Margaret Mizushima’s Mattie Cobbs series
(As you might have guessed, I read a lot of mystery novels)
4 Comments
If you liked Christie, try Dorothy L. Sayers.
Well, all Agatha Christie, but that’s a given.
I do like Rex Stout. The Doorbell Rang. Death of a Doxy, If Death Ever Slept.
The Maltese Falcon is of course a classic and definitely worth reading.
Flowers For the Judge, Mystery Mile and Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham are excellent reads.
If you prefer fun over mystery I’d recommend a small series by Ron Goulart that features Groucho Marx as a detective.
Well, you’ll find it’s hard to beat Our Agatha. She was the best, and most of the mystery writers you now find will at some point make homage references to “little grey cells,” “Poirot,” and so forth!
But I think you’ll like Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford series. She’s in the same vein, but a bit more updated, a bit more sex and so forth. She started writing in the 1950s or 60s, but actually wrote up into the 2000’s! The first few books are a bit uneven, but around Book 5 or 6 she really hits her stride.
Then you might try:
Val McDermid, Karen Pirie series
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club series, and he’s just released Book 1 of a new series, We Solve Crimes
Kate Atkinson, Jackson Brodie series (these are a bit more free flowing & odd, if you like that)
Shamini Flint, The Inspector Singh series, a delightful character. The books often start with a rather unpleasant event (say, something in the Cambodian killing fields, for example) but the books are very enjoyable and present day, and as I said, the character is delightful. The books are also set in Southeast Asia and are more interesting in terms of setting & texture, as well.
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series — again, set somewhere quite unfamiliar to most of us, Botswana, but absolutely delightful books. Great characters, a real love letter to Botswana, conjuring up the total atmosphere, the culture, the way people interact. Doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff, but at the end of the book you feel strangely uplifted and happy.
Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series is good too.
Linda La Plante’s Prime Suspect series and the prequel Tennison
A lot of people really like Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache series. Gamache and his second in command Jean-Guy are really good characters, and the Quebec setting also is fresh, but I find she idealizes small town life, her other characters are cardboard and repetitive, (really repetitive, to the point where she repeats dialogue exchanges in every single book), and she gets very wordy. Still that might just be me. The first few books are better, before all the endless repetition and repeated shallow characterizations start to wear on you. But, again, the settings are very picturesque and well described.
If you want something more “thriller” oriented, there’s also Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series–quite violent, but a great character and especially the first few books, ingeniously plotted.
Anyway that’s my two cents. I started with Agatha and have now been on a two-year mystery “obsession.”
Oh, there’s also a couple of WW2-set series that I really enjoyed, if you like historical fiction set in WW2: the “Station” series by David Downing and the Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr (very “film noir”).
I saw someone else suggesting Louise Penny, and I do recommend her, but I will say I prefer the earlier books in her series that were more murder mysteries. The later books are still murder mysteries, but she has introduced things like espionage, wide spread corruption, etc into the books and I wish they went back to being murder mysteries with some small town life sprinkled in.
Other suggestions:
Peter Grainger’s series of books
Jane Harper’s books including the Aaron Falk series
Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder books
William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor books
Robert Thorogood’s Marlow Murder Club series
Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryland series and Hawthorne and Horowitz series
Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series
Richard Osman’s series of books
Margaret Mizushima’s Mattie Cobbs series
(As you might have guessed, I read a lot of mystery novels)