Your favorite crime/detective fiction

[cumchucker69]

I like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files

 

[SamScribble]

At the top of my list, I would put Elmore Leonard, the man who is reputed to have said: ‘If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.’ He was also not afraid to write short stories.

Michael Connelly would be somewhere up there – especially for his Harry Bosch stories. And then I’d have to find a place for Anne Cleeves. Her Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez stories are about as believable as they get.

 

[SimonDoom]

Whose Body? is the first with Lord Peter Wimsey. Murder Must Advertise is one of the best, or Strong Poison. Gaudy Night is possibly the best but you need to have read the previous ones with Harriet Vane to appreciate it.

Cadfael and Dick Francis are good and plentiful - a little formulaic but always with a bit of new info about their well-researched worlds. Like Agatha Christie, the sort of books you want to read when recuperating from something.

Someone mentioned Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano - are the books good? I've seen a fair bit of the TV series which is mostly fun for being very Italian and Sicilian and showing our Inspector getting his leg over every episode, but Wiki suggests the books go into the local cultural issues (local plods having to deal with both Rome issuing central directives, and the local Mafia) much better.

Thanks for the suggestions. I decided to order Strong Poison, which has Wimsey and is the first one with Harriet Vine. I'm totally unfamiliar with her and looking forward to it.

 

[Wark2002]

I think Ross MacDonald is the best of the best; his descriptions of Southern California at a particular time are magnificent, and I like his themes of one generation affecting the next. Of course, Raymond Chandler is a giant, as well, and there's a lot more to Spillane than meets the eye.
Currently, although he has been silent for a while - I get the impression it's largely from an issue with the publisher - I have been a big fan of Steve Hamilton and his Alex McKnight series; I have gotten a few people hooked on him.





https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5430653&page=submissions

 

[KeithD]

I think Ross MacDonald is the best of the best; his descriptions of Southern California at a particular time are magnificent, and I like his themes of one generation affecting the next. Of course, Raymond Chandler is a giant, as well, and there's a lot more to Spillane than meets the eye.
Currently, although he has been silent for a while - I get the impression it's largely from an issue with the publisher - I have been a big fan of Steve Hamilton and his Alex McKnight series; I have gotten a few people hooked on him.





https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5430653&page=submissions

Raymond Chandler? He died in 1959. That's a long "patiently waiting around for the next one" time.

Ross MacDonald died in 1983.

 

[MadeleineSinha]

Stuart MacBride, his Logan McRae series is fantastic but everything he’s written is worth looking at

 

[Handley_Page]

If Keith D will permit me to hijack his excellent list:


From the past: Dorthy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Alastair MacLean, Ross MacDonald, Frederick Forsyth, Dashell Hammett, Victoria Holt, Ruth Rendell.

More recently: Dick Francis, Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Jonathan Kellerman, Elizabeth Peters, Ellis Peters.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have read every Travis McGee novel ever written by John D. MacDonald. Other than those, nothing else I tried to read just didn't do it for me.

 

[SimonDoom]

Whose Body? is the first with Lord Peter Wimsey. Murder Must Advertise is one of the best, or Strong Poison. Gaudy Night is possibly the best but you need to have read the previous ones with Harriet Vane to appreciate it.

I've been reading Sayers' Strong Poison, and simultaneously I've been reading Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. I am not sure it would be possible to pick two books that better illustrate the difference between British style and American style in crime fiction. They were both published the same year--1930--and they are completely different in tone, diction, and style. It's interesting and enjoyable to note the differences. Sayers' book is constantly witty, light, somewhat breezy, but with a depth underlying the breeziness. Class issues are constantly in play. Hammett's story is classic American noir. Women can't be trusted. Cops can't be trusted. Class isn't an issue. Cynicism abounds. The tone is heavier and much darker than in Sayers' book.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I've been reading Sayers' Strong Poison, and simultaneously I've been reading Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. I am not sure it would be possible to pick two books that better illustrate the difference between British style and American style in crime fiction. They were both published the same year--1930--and they are completely different in tone, diction, and style. It's interesting and enjoyable to note the differences. Sayers' book is constantly witty, light, somewhat breezy, but with a depth underlying the breeziness. Class issues are constantly in play. Hammett's story is classic American noir. Women can't be trusted. Cops can't be trusted. Class isn't an issue. Cynicism abounds. The tone is heavier and much darker than in Sayers' book.

I ought to read the Maltese Falcon just because I like noir but also to get the jokes in The Falcon's Malteser (Antony Horowitz, aimed at 10-12yos)

For a real contrast in styles, read PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler together, but remembering that they both attended Dulwich College within a few years of each other and had the same English teacher - the similarities of playful language use are astounding and even funnier when you flip from one to the other!

 

[yowser]

For a real contrast in styles, read PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler together, but remembering that they both attended Dulwich College within a few years of each other and had the same English teacher - the similarities of playful language use are astounding and even funnier when you flip from one to the other!

This is fascinating intelligence. Now I'm going to have to do this.

 

[Stillrandy]

I still favor the Sherlock Holmes stories by A. Conan Doyle. And the Grenada TV series where Jeremy Brett portrayed Holmes (I have the DVD set). Re-read them every couple of years.

 

[Nylonian]

Top has to be Dorothy Sayers at her best. I never read her when younger and churning through Christie etc, because the first one I read was Documents in the Case (finished by someone else posthumously) and the whole plot was obvious to anyone who had highschool chemistry. I'm actually glad as much of the allusion would have gone over my head 30 years ago

Then the Nine Tailors converted me (though Five Red Herrings wasn't great plotwise).

I like Raymond Chandler, PD James and have read many others though many modern ones are either too gory or too ditzy for me. Rivers of London is great police procedural with a magical twist which gets London and attitudes of the crime-solvers spot on, though as the series goes on, plot is being stretched thin. Often a problem - the first five or so Patricia Cornwells were good before turning into implausible bobbins, eventually resulting in the author deciding to ignore everything in the previous few books...

Well that's my reading list sorted for this Winter! Thanks for the extensive list. I haven't actually read the majority of these so I am off to the second-hand bookshop. Wish me luck.

 

[HectorBidon]

I have read every Travis McGee novel ever written by John D. MacDonald. Other then those, nothing else I tried to read just didn't do it for me.

There are apparently two types of detective story readers: those who have read every Travis McGee novel ever written by John D. MacDonald, and those who haven't. I belong to the former category..

 

[Handley_Page]

Thanks for the suggestions. I decided to order Strong Poison, which has Wimsey and is the first one with Harriet Vine. I'm totally unfamiliar with her and looking forward to it.

Take a look at YouTube:

Lord Peter radio drama

 

[HeyAll]

I don't know if this counts, but Ian Flemmings's James Bond novels are really well written. Most people have no idea about that.


I highly recommend these two audio books. I've bought them but haven't finished yet. They're narrated by Hollywood actors which gives it a different level of class.

https://www.audible.com/pd/From-Rus...fcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=YQP0Z7QSW357JB596XW0

https://www.audible.com/pd/Casino-R...fcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=YQP0Z7QSW357JB596XW0

 

[SimonDoom]

I ought to read the Maltese Falcon just because I like noir but also to get the jokes in The Falcon's Malteser (Antony Horowitz, aimed at 10-12yos)

For a real contrast in styles, read PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler together, but remembering that they both attended Dulwich College within a few years of each other and had the same English teacher - the similarities of playful language use are astounding and even funnier when you flip from one to the other!

I've read both, but I didn't know that connection. I'll give them another look.

An interesting difference between British and American styles is the British emphasis on class. It's a big element in British detective fiction, as with Sayers, but not so much with American fiction. It continues to this day. The books of Elizabeth George, an American author who writes detective stories set in Britain, emphasize class differences a great deal.

Another interesting difference is the way the hero is presented. Sayers' Whimsey obviously is a serious man of substance, but he almost always affects a light-hearted mien. Whereas Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade is constantly a cynical, sardonic asshole. He has a code of honor, just like Whimsey, but he makes a point of carrying it out as an asshole, whereas Whimsey does so as an unfailing gentleman.