Mysteries

Last update: 21 Apr 2025 21:17
First version:

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I've spun off the list of recommendations into a separate page. True crime goes here too, for want of a better spot.

To read:
• Boris Akunin, The Winter Queen
• Karin Alvtegen, Missing
• Eric Ambler
  • The Dark Frontier
  • Dirty Story
  • Doctor Frigo
  • The Intercom Conspiracy
  • A Kind of Anger
  • The Siege of the Villa Lipp
• Barth Anderson, The Patron Saint of Plagues
• Poul Anderson
  • Perish by the Sword
  • Murder by the Books
• Lori Armstrong, No Mercy
• Kate Atkinson, Case Histories
• Sandi Ault, Wild Penance
• Camille Bacon-Smith, The Face of Time
• Robert Barnard
  • The Bad Samaritan
  • The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori
  • Death of an Old Goat
• Dave Barry, Big Trouble
• Nancy Bartholomew, Strip Poker
• Brett Battles, The Cleaner
• Benjamin Black, Christine Falls
• Anna Blundy, The Bad News Bible
• Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives
• Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
• Joan Brady, Bleedout
• Ken Bruen, The Killing of the Tinkers
• Dorothy Cannell
  • How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams
  • How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law
• John Case, The First Horseman [Thriller about a millenarian cult (which sounds like it's based on Aum Shinrikyo, only with more of an environmentalist ideology) and a genetically-engineered plague based on the 1918 influenza. Thanks to Mark Worden for the rec.]
• Raymond Chandler
• Douglas Clark [Police procedurals; ingenious, "scientific" ways to die]
• Liza Vody, Gimme More
• Max Allan Collins, The History of Mystery
• Martha Conley, Growing Light
• K. C. Constantine, Cranks and Shadows
• Susan Rogers Cooper, Doctors and Lawyers and Such
• Beverly Connor, One Grave Too Many
• Colin Cotterill, Disco for the Departed
• Robert Crais
  • The Monkey's Raincoat
  • L.A. Requiuem
  • Sunset Express
• David Cristofano, The Girl She Used to Be
• Amanda Cross
  • An Imperfect Spy
  • The Players Come Again
  • The Puzzled Heart
  • The Question of Max
  • A Trap for Fools
• Bill DeAndrea
  • Cronus
  • Killed on the Ice
• The Detective and the Toga
• Michael Dibdin
  • Vendetta
  • Ratking
  • Cabal
  • Dark Lagoon
  • Cosi Fan Tutti
• Margaret Anne Doody
  • Aristotle and Poetic Justice
  • Poison in Athens
  • Mysteries of Eleusis
• James D. Doss, White Shell Woman
• Susan Dunlap
  • Cop Out
  • Not Exactly a Brahmin
• Carola Dunn, Death at Wentwater Court
• Jerrilyn Farmer, Immaculate Reception
• Alane Ferguson, The Christopher Killer
• Robert Ferrigno
  • Dead Man's Dance
  • Scavenger Hunt
  • The Wake-Up
• Shamini Flynt
  3. The Singapore School of Villainy
• Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
• Leslie Forbes
  • Bombay Ice
  • Fish, Blood, and Bone
• Karin Fossum, Don't Look Back
• Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase
• Tom Franklin, Smonk
• Nicholas Freeling, Cold Iron
• Tana French, The Likeness
• Alan Furst [Many more, too...]
  • Blood of Victory
  • Dark Voyage
  • The Polish Officer
  • Red Gold
  • The World at Night
• Jim Fusilli, Hard, Hard City
• Luis Alfredo Garcia-Roza, Southwesterly Wind
• Katy Gardner, Faker
• Tim Gautreaux, The Missing
• Anne George, Murder Shoots the Bull
• Joe Gores
  • 32 Cadillacs
  • Dead Skip
• Laurence Gough [The "Willows and Parker" series]
  4. Serious Crimes
  5. Accidental Deaths
  6. Fall Down Easy
  9. Memory Lane
     11. Shutterbug
         13. Cloud of Suspects
     12. Sarah Graves
         13. Crawlspace
         14. Knockdown
     13. Annie Griffin, Date with the Perfect Dead Man
     14. Martha Grimes, Rainbow's End
     15. Heather Gudenkauf, The Weight of Silence
     16. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
     17. Rick Hanson, Body Parts
     18. George Harrar, The Spinning Man
     19. Charlaine Harris
         • A Fool and His Honey
         • Shakespeare's Landlord
         • Shakespeare's Champion
         • Shakespeare's Trollop
     20. John Hart, The Last Child
     21. Lauren Henderson
         • Don't Even Think About It
         • Exes Anonymous
         • Kiss Me Kill Me
         • Pretty Boy
         • Hiaasen
           • Basket Case
           • Powder Burn
           • Trap Line
           • A Death in China
         • Susan Holtzer, The Wedding Game: A Mystery at the University of Michigan
         • Richard Hoyt, Whoo?
         • Dorothy Hughes, In a Lonely Place
         • Charlie Huston, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death
         • Elizabeth Ironsides
           • Death in the Garden
           • The Accomplice
         • John T. Irwin, The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story
         • "Marshall Jevons"
           • A Deadly Indifference
           • Fatal Equilibrium
         • Catherine Jinks, The Inquisitor [Review by Danny Yee]
         • Denis Johnson, Nobody Move
         • D. J. H. Jones, Murder in the New Age
         • Clarence Budington Kelland, The Artless Heiress
         • Lauren Kelly, Take Me, Take Me with You
         • Stephen King, The Colorado Kid
         • Natsuo Kirino, Out
         • Henry Kisor, A Cache of Corpses
         • Gary Krist, Chaos Theory
         • Jane Langton
           • Emily Dickinson Is Dead
           • The Shortest Day
         • Gaylord Larson ["writes a series about an agnostic/rationalist detective who has various jobs in fundamentalist Christian colleges and solves crimes in those places... really first rate" --- Jane Haddam on dorothy-L, of happy memory]
         • Asa Larsson, Sun Storm
         • Don Lee, Country of Origin
         • Denis Lehane
           • A Drink Before the War
           • Darkness, Take My Hand
           • Sacred
           • Gone, Baby, Gone
           • Mystic River
         • J. Robert Lennon, Familiar
         • Elmore Leonard [w/ thanks to John Burke for recommendations]
           • Bandits
           • Cat Chaser
           • City Primeval
           • Freaky Deaky
           • Get Shorty
           • Glitz
           • Gold Coast
           • La Brava
           • The Moonshine War
           • Out of Sight
           • Pagan Babies
           • Pronto
           • Rum Punch
           • Split Images
           • Stick
           • Swag
           • Tishomingo Blues
         • Herbert Lieberman, Brilliant Kids
         • Laura Lippman
           • And When She Was Good
           • Every Secret Thing
           • Life Sentences
           • To the Power of Three
           • What the Dead Know
         • David Liss, A Conspiracy of Paper
         • Sophie Littlefield, A Bad Day for Sorry
         • Peter Lovesey, The Reaper
         • Stuart Macbride, Cold Granite
         • Paul Maliszewski, Fakers; Hoaxers, Con Artists, Counterfeiters, and Other Great Pretenders
         • Shaun Maloney, Stiff ["Set in Melbourne amid the machinations of the Australian Labor Party, this book is extremely funny, beautifully written and for those of us of the left persuasion, scarily close to the bone" --- from review in rec.arts.books.reviews by Katrina Beard]
         • Henning Mankell, Before the Frost
         • Lia Matera
         • Seicho Matsumoto, The Voice
         • Takashi Matsuoka, Cloud of Sparrows
         • Lise McClendon, The Bluejay Shaman
         • Cody Mcfadyen, Shadow Man
         • Michael McGarrity, Tularosa
         • Philipp Meyer, American Rust
         • Miyuki Miyabe, All She Was Worth
         • Bob Morris, Bahamarama
         • John Mortimer
           • Rumpole on Trial
           • The Penge Bungalow Murders
         • Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress
         • Sabina Murray, A Carnivore's Inquiry
         • Magdalen Nabb, Some Bitter Fruit
         • Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die
         • Leslie O'Kane, The Cold Hard Fax
         • Karen E. Olson, Driven to Ink
         • I. J. Parker
           • Death on an Autumn River
           • Akitada and the Way of Justice
         • Jill Paton Walsh
           • A Piece of Justice
           • Debts of Dishonour
           • The Bad Quarto
         • Rebecca Pawel, The Law of Return
         • George P. Pelecanos
         • Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Queen of the South
         • Marissa Piesman
           • Close Quarters
           • Survival Instincts
           • Unorthodox Practices
         • Andrea Portes, Hick
         • Lev Raphael, The Edith Wharton Murder
         • Matt Rees, The Collaborator of Bethlehem
         • Ruth Rendell
           • A Demon in My View
           • Gallowglass [as "Barbara Vine"]
           • The Speaker of Mandarin
           • To Fear a Painted Devil
         • Robert Rice, The Nature of Midnight
         • Candace Robb, The Lady Chapel
         • Rebecca Rothenberg, The Shy Tulip Murders
         • Marcus Sakey, The Blade Itself
         • Kris Saknussemm, Private Midnight
         • Barbara Sarenella
           • No Human Involved
           • No Offense Intended
         • David Schmid, Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture
         • Sara K. Schneider, Art of Darkness: Ingenious Performances by Undercover Operators, Con Men, and Others
         • Lisa Scottoline
           • Everywhere that Mary Went
           • Legal Tender
           • Mistaken Identity
           • Running from the Law
         • Mabel Seeley
           • The Beckoning Door
           • The Chuckling Fingers
           • The Whispering Cup
         • Catherine Shaw, The Three Body Problem
         • Charlie Sheldon, Fat Chance
         • Jenny Siler, Easy Money
         • Clea Simon, Probable Claws
         • David "Mr. Laura Lippman" Simon, Homicide
         • John Sladek, Invisible Green
         • April Smith, North of Montana
         • Mark Haskell Smith, Moist
         • Teresa Solana, A Not So Perfect Crime
         • Kelli Stanley, City of Dragons
         • James B. Stewart, Blind Eye [#2 Amazon seller with the Massachusetts Medical Society, as of 22 Feb. 2000.]
         • Dorothy Sucher, Dead Men Don't Marry
         • Duane Swierczynski, Severance Package
         • Akimitsu Takagi
           • Honeymoon to Nowhere
           • The Informer
         • James Thompson, Snow Angels
         • Stefan Timmermans, Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths [Blurb]
         • Marilyn Todd
           • I, Claudia
           • Virgin Territory
           • Man Eater
         • Kathy Hogan Trocheck
         • Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies
         • Mark Urban, The Linguist
         • T. C. Van Adler, St. Agatha's Breast [Review by Danny Yee]
         • Fred Vargas [Thanks to Jan Johnson for the recommendation]
           • Have Mercy on Us All
           • Three Evangelists
           • Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand
         • Tanguy Viel
           • Absolute Perfection of Crime
           • Beyond Suspicion
         • Michael Walters, The Adversary
         • Kimberley Warner-Cohen, Sex, Blood and Rock 'n' Roll
         • Timothy Watts, The Money Lovers
         • Betty Webb, The Anteater of Death: A Gunn Zoo Mystery
         • Patricia Wentworth
           • Out of the Past
           • Wicked Uncle
         • Donald Westlake
           • Cops and Robbers
           • Don't Ask
           • Put a Lid on It
           • Humans [I know, it's not really a mystery]
         • Polly Whitney
           • Until Death
           • Until the End of Time
         • Don Winslow, A Long Walk up the Waterslide
         • Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone
         • L. R. Wright
           • The Suspect
           • A Touch of Panic
         • Rafael Yglesias, The Murderer Next Door
         • Roger Zelazny, The Dead Man's Brother
         To read, about mystery novels:
         • Stephen Kern, A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought