(no subject)

[skygiants]

After my last read, I felt desperately in need of some escapism.

- which is what I am reading now! (I am in fact making my first foray into a non-Heyer Real Romance Novel, guys. It's . . . interesting. But MORE ON THAT LATER.) But first, I took a detour in the complete opposite direction from escapism and read the third one in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlin series, White Butterfly. I really get more and more impressed by these books as I read further in the series. I feel like a lot of ongoing mysteries tend to return to a status quo with every book in order to keep the comfort level of the reader - and I have no objection to that, mind; many of my favorite mystery series do this! - but every book in the Easy Rawlins series actually affects Easy's life in significant ways, and Mosley is really not afraid to shake things up. This book actually starts with Easy married, with kids, to a woman we've never even heard of in previous books, which is a way bold move and allows for a ton of interesting character development. The actual mystery plot, as usual, was a bit hard to keep track of (there's a serial killer on the loose, but nobody cared until he killed his Nice White Girl. OR MAYBE HE DIDN'T!) but this series isn't about that, really. It's about Easy Rawlins, trying and often failing to be a decent man, and the society he lives in, and the noir-detective role he'd much rather not be trapped in. (I was also surprised and somewhat impressed that Mosley brought up the issue of spousal rape, although I wish he'd gone further with it than he did.)

Anyway. Like I said, the Easy Rawlins books are really not characteristic of most mystery series I have read. (Also, it feels like almost all mysteries are long series - I wonder why that is?) But some of you read lots more mysteries than me, and between that and the official launch of the WEST IS DEAD MURDER MYSTERY PLOT, I am getting curious about what you like to see! Therefore: POLL TIME.

[Poll #1427811]

Comments

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

I also admit to loving, or having loved at one point:
-The Inspector Lynley books (Elizabeth George) - I lost track of that one, though
-Jonathan Kellerman's books (mostly series)
-Janet Evanovich's series (but NOT her romances. ew.) - those are my fluffy beach books, and hilarious.

Once upon a time when I was young and naive and one of the authors wasn't omg crazy bananas insane, I read a lot of Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell.

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

(OH. and also, I read Devil in a Blue Dress, and never even REALIZED there was a whole series.)

[skygiants]

I had a summer-program roommate once who loved Janet Evanovich, and she ended up being one of the first mystery writers I ever read. Who wasn't, you know, Nancy Drew. (I never ended up reading most of the series, but mostly because for fluffy beach reading I tend to fall back on escapist cheesy sci-fi/fantasy rather than mysteries.)

[gramarye1971]

The Inspector Lynley books (Elizabeth George) - I lost track of that one, though

Really, you're not missing anything. ^^;; I stopped reading at A Traitor to Memory, and haven't looked back since. The unnecessary angst started annoying me.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

My dad's more of a mystery fan than I am, as are some other friends of mine (such as silmaril), but mystery has its moments.

Dennis Lehane (who wrote a bunch of mysteries that got turned into movies, such as Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone) is interesting dark, but I tend to prefer happier endings.

The Dresden Files are urban fantasy neo-noir mysteries. Pretty fun.

The classics, of course--Doyle and Stout spring to mind.

Recently, SF author Michael Stackpole (http://stormwolf.com/) has been branching into mystery. He's got two different ones, "Merlin Bloodstone" (Great Detective in the Doyle/Stout mold) and "Trick Molloy" (urban fantasy neo-noir).

As to series, I don't follow series of mysteries the same way I do SF, but I still try not to read out of order or jump around. If I like a first book (or, as in Dresden, only think it's OK but know it gets better) I'll keep reading.

[skygiants]

I keep meaning to read more sci-fi/fantasy mysteries - I know I love the concept, but have yet to actually get hooked on a series that I can think of. (Though I read the first Dresden Files book, and the rest are on my 'will get around to it someday' list.) One of these days I'll actually go back to the classics and read some of Asimov's mysteries WITH ROBOTS.

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

I sadly don't have a devoted to series! I just pick up something from a series if I liked one of the previous ones. Or one of the future ones, cause I some times pick them up out of order. >_>

[skygiants]

Hey, that is a good reason to pick one up! :D

Heh, I am trying an experiment this year in Reading Mystery Series In Dedicated Order, All The Way Through, which is something I have never been successful at before . . . so we will see how it goes!

(ALSO, apropos of nothing, but I feel you should know I am wearing your skirt today! And my roommate was all, "Becca, that skirt is great, I think I like it best of ANY YOU OWN" so clearly your taste is better than mine. :D)

[newredshoes]

Oh man, so many to choose from! Amelia Peabody! Rumpole of the Bailey! Brother Cadfael! M. HERCULE POIROT.

Basically most of what gets aired on PBS, is what I'm saying. :-D But I have an incredible soft spot for mysteries -- my mom always listens to them on car trips or while she's doing housework, and they just feel like home that way.

[skygiants]

That is because what gets aired on PBS is AWESOME!

- hah, mystery series is what my family usually ends up listening to on family car trips (well, after we exhausted Harry Potter) which is how our last big road trip ended up in the discovery that my mom ships Poirot/Hastings. "COME ON, THEY'RE TOTALLY IN LOVE!"

[blacksheep91.livejournal.com]

I like.....Sherlock Holmes and Mrs. Marple the most probably. But you know, I'm extremely the type who cheats and just watches the BBC series on PBS. ^^; (It's not nearly as fun if you can't see the look on the inspector's face, "Why, this biddy old lady with no business here what so ever aside from smelling a mystery afoot has completely under minded me and solved the case in no time flat. -_-;;"

On that note, I suppose I'll also watch Rosemary and Thyme and Murder She Wrote. Is it just me, or are the heroines of these shows the bringers of death?? Always a murder to be had when they toddle in.)

[skygiants]

Someone really needs to write the crossover where Angela Lansbury on Murder She Wrote is ACTUALLY a retired Mrs. Lovett. She pins the crime on innocents to cover for the fact that she is the serial killer!

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

This. I also cheat in this manner. (Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes for the win.)

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

My interest in mysteries tends more towards the television/movie kind! I challenge you to find another person who, as a teenager, used her babysitting money to buy all of Foyle's War.

I keep meaning to start reading some mystery series, especially Elizabeth George, but for now I mostly watch them.

[skygiants]

I'm normally the reverse, in that I'd much rather read a mystery novel than watch a mystery TV series . . . but that said, Foyle's War has been on my to-watch list for ages and ages. Mystery solving in WW-II England!

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

You forgot the option "I like mysteries solved by CATS."

Saying that, I used to read "The Cat Who" books, but I stopped some time ago. I'm not exactly sure why I stopped, but I did hear the more recent ones aren't as good as the earlier ones.

[skygiants]

. . . oh man, I am shamed, how could I forget that option! I read a couple of those when I was young, because people kept giving me them for birthdays and things - operating I think on the assumption of "Becca likes cats! Becca likes books! OKAY THEN!" (I also got an epic ton of cat stationary, diaries, photography books, etc. . . . my relatives like defaulting to animal gifts. My grandmother got pigeonholed as a giraffe-lover years back and has not received a non-giraffe-related gift since.

. . . and wow, that was a tangent.)

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Amelia Peabody. Independent woman egyptologist at the turn of the century! She's smart! Meddling! Deals with mummies and unearthing tombs! And later on she's a suffragette and has the world's most perfect man as a son! These are AWESOME BOOKS.

[skygiants]

I read the first several Amelia Peabody books in college, and . . . then forgot which ones I'd read and lost track, as always happens. *sheepish* That's another series that's on my list to go back and read in full one day though!

[genarti]

My mother reads mysteries like I read sci-fi. (Only she's a much slower reader, so the volume is different.) So does my grandmother. This means that for me, mystery novels aren't something I seek out so much as something we always had around the house in my childhood. Many of my favorites are ones with a certain nostalgia value, because I picked them up as a bored child who'd read all her other books at the moment.

Series I like, off the top of my head, include:

- Dorothy Sayers, duh
- Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax books (problematic in certain ways, I realize now that I am not twelve, but I am forever charmed by the heroine and many of her friends and hijinks anyway)
- Dick Francis (former steeplechase jockey who took to a retirement of writing thumping good stories which always involve horses at some point -- sometimes peripherally, but the business is always in there somewhere, and often it's fascinating)
- Sherlock Holmes
- Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series (there are definitely flaws, but I kind of adore Mary both as a character and as a narrative voice)
- The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency -- well, I haven't read the rest of the series, but I adore the first!

I like the Brother Cadfael books I've read, but I haven't read that many of them. I need to fix that one of these days. And there've been a couple of Agatha Christies I liked.

And then, if we're going for nostalgic fondness, there's always Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins and the Boxcar Children and Encyclopedia Brown and on and on and on with our Plucky Young Sleuths that I ate up as a child.

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

Ooh! I forgot about Encyclopedia Brown!

[skygiants]

Same for me, sort of, but with both my grandfathers - a lot of the mystery books that I read growing up were ones that had migrated over from one or the other of their houses.

Are the Mrs. Pollifax books the ones you were telling me about with the polite elderly spy lady? Because those are SO on my list!

You should totally read more Brother Cadfael books. They are great on historical detail, and excellent at small-town-with-lots-of-traders-passing-through dynamics in a low-technology society with a lot of civil unrest, not that that would be interesting to you or anything. :D

Oh Plucky Young Sleuths! Forever after now I will be thinking of Kate Beaton's Teen Comic.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

I read mysteries by Nora Roberts. >.> Which is to say, I read J.D. Robb's In Death series, which are decidedly not-romancy. Instead they are vaguely futuristic and feature an ass-kicking female detective who actually *does police work* to solve crimes, her awesome Gary Stu husband, and a diverse cast of secondary characters who actually get their own story arcs and character development. There is some graphic sexx0rz in each book to keep the romance fans happy, but mostly it's about following clues and uncovering motives and digging around in other people's lives to find the killer.

[skygiants]

I've heard good things about the J.D. Robb mysteries! And real police work to solve crimes is very cool - I will admit, I do get frustrated occasionally with 'but - but we're TEN TIMES AWESOMER than the police.'

[agentclaudia.livejournal.com]

...I put Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books 'cos the Sookie books are EVERY GENRE EVER. But the driving plot, so far, is usually a murder mystery, or two murder mysteries. >.>

[skygiants]

Hah, from what I've heard, they really are, aren't they! Romantic-suspense-paranormal-Southern gothic . . .

[obopolsk.livejournal.com]

I went through an intensive mystery reading phase one summer in college, when I interned for a mystery editor, and after that I reviewed mysteries for a magazine for about a year, but I don't read many these days.

Some mysteries I do enjoy, though, are anything by Minette Walters and a medieval mystery series by Ariana Franklin. (Actually, I've only read the first one, Mistress of the Art of Death, but I keep meaning to pick up the second.)

[skygiants]

I always think I haven't read that many, until I remember the length of the series I have . . .

That's one of those books I keep seeing on bookstore tables and things, and being intrigued by!