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Wed 7 Jan, 2004 10:21 am
I've never been one for the classics, I guess it had something to do with one of my teachers, and her relentless rantings about "Read this book and write an essay about it!". When I could choose my own books in those days, I usually read something by King or Koontz, had to be scary. Important thing was that I read something , at least.
Nowadays, I seek, no, I yearn for crime. Hardboiled classics, new hardcore,sleuths, P.I.'s, detectives, lawyers, salvage artists, you name it.
Yup, you heard me, you name it, please! as a list, as a recommendation, as your secret tip, your favorite book, author, genre...[size=7]who am I to tell you what to do?[/size]
Now, here's my list, without order, but sometimes with a why!
Mickey Spillane- the Mike Hammer books turned me this way!
Raymond Chandler- had to see if he was better than Spillane...
John D. McDonald- Travis McGee; the guy with a heart and muscle
George P. Pelecanos- Awesome, just plain awesome
John Sandford- who else has a cop that drives a Porsche?
Robert Crais- Elvis lives! In L.A.!
Carl Hiassen- plain fun reads!
Patricia Cornwell- just the early ones
John Maddox Roberts- crime in ancient Rome
Jonathan Kellerman- he makes you even not wanna think about being bad
Probably forgot half, but hey, lemme see yours now! I showed mine!
Robert Parker. Spenser is his big gun... very easy reading, very fast, very fun.
Lawrence Bloch. I found myself buying all of the Matt Scudder mysteries I could find. Bernie Rhodenbarr as 'The Burgler Who...' is good for a chuckle, but Scudder is dark and violent. Keller, on the other hand... Hit Man and Hit List. Just a working guy who happens to love his job. An assassin for hire...
Tony Hillerman, out on the Navajo reservation.
Elmore Leonard!
For true crime, how 'bout Vincent Bugliosi?
Elmore Leonard is great. You'll enjoy his use of the language, but you don't have to copy it.
Dean Ing. His "Spooker" is one of the best, and he is never off on technical details.
the Ellis Peter's books about her sleuth Brother Cadfael - a monk in the monastery in Shrewsbury in a very disturbed time in England when 2 monarchs were claiming the crown (11C in think but could be wrong)
He is a sort of early pathologist with his knowledge of medicine and herbs
(an ex Crusader)
Cadfael is Welsh and pronounced Cadvile
P.D. James, yep.
Kinky Friedman, though not for the plots.
Elmore Leonard.
Carl Hiaasen, definitely.
Jan Willem von der Wetering or something.
Simenon.
I like Janet Evanovich for her Stephanie Plum novels, and Karen Kijewski. These are more of a chick-slant than your hardened male detectives books. I also read Jonathan Kellerman, Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski novels), John Sandford (love the Prey novels), Ruth Rendell, Jeffrey Archer, P.D. James, James Patterson (Det. Alex Cross), Lynda LaPlante (for the Prime Suspect novels - Det. Jane Tenison, and the Lorraine Page novels).
have you read Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow:?
they made a film of it (which I haven't seen) but the book was very good and rather different.
Was published as "Smilla's Sense of Snow" here, though I believe that was a translation from the original... Dutch? No.
He was Scandanavian I think though i can't remember which country
It's by Peter Høeg, and Smilla is half Danish, half Greenlander... I think Høeg is Danish, though I haven't found out for sure yet.
did you ever read it? I really enjoyed it as it was quite unusual and the tone and nature of the characters and writing style were unusual whilst being a really good mystery/murder investigation at the same time.
I read it, yep! Really liked it.
The late Lawrence Sanders, who wrote, among many other works, the "Deadly Sin" (e.g. "The First Deadly Sin") series and the McNally series, about highly eccentric detective Archie McNally. Now the estate has some other guy putting out McNally books with Lawrence Sanders in big letters and the new author's name in tiny ones.
Seems like I'm going to stay with Amazon for a while!
I've been looking at Janet Evanovich's books for a while, but, as you said... chickbooks, naaah...
Elmore Leonard, how could I forget?
And then, of course, there are some excellent swedish crimewriters. I don't really know if many of them are translated in to english, except for Henning Mankell (the Wallander series), and Sjöwall-Wahlöö. Also very good stuff.
Michael Connelly's books are good and definately in the hard boiled genre.
Liked Michael Connelly and Mickey Spillane when I was young - tend now to read PD James, Anne Holt (the former Norwegian minister for justice), Ake Edwardsson and ... yes, certainly Henning Mankell as well.
Yes, Åke Edwardsson is good. And also Arne Dahl, Åsa Nilsonne. I like the Swedish authors a lot.
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