Oh, I can give you lots of mystery recommendations, but it depends on what type of mystery you like to read. You got your cop stories, your P.I. story, your amateur detective stotries, your cozies, your noir, your psychological thrillers, historical, victorian, medical, whodunnit, suspense, courtroom mysteries, british mysteries… even things called mini-genres like “Culinary Mysteries, Feline Mysteries, Craft Mysteries.” In general, I stay away from the gimmicky stuff. I don’t like all the culinary mysteries out there, I’ve never read a single one that was worth the money the library paid to have it on their shelves. But that’s just me. And, I like amateur detective stories, but you have to be careful. For some reason, there are a lot of hair dressers solving mysteries these days. Latest trend in amateurs. With the exception of Dame Christie and Elizabeth Peters, I’ve stayed away from the cozies, as well.

I like grittier stuff, and I like noir. When I first made the switch from young adult mysteries to grown up mysteries, one of my favorite authors was Rex Stout, who wrote the Nero Wolfe series. And that remains one of my favorites to this day. Set in the 30’s, lots of noir, lots of style and wit. I’ve read every single one of his books, several times over. Raymond Chandler, also very good. Robert B. Parker is famous for his Spenser series, but I can’t read them without picturing Robert Ulrich in my head and I don’t want him in my head. So I stick to his other character series, Sonny Randall. I also like stuff with forensics in it, I like to read about collecting evidence.

Maybe I should just make you a list of some of my favorites. Almost everyone has some element of humor in it.

Robert Crais – Elvis Cole Series. He has two other non-Elvis books as well. He’s funny and dark, and I can’t resist either one of those.

Laura Lippman – Tess Monoghan series, she starts out as an unemployed reporter and turns into a PI. Not a silly female detective series, she gets seriously messed up at times.

Sue Grafton – Kinsey Milhoun Alphabet series. A staple in any mystery library.

Sparkle Hayter – any of her books, she’s what you might call Tart Noir. You might call her that, because that is what she calls herself.

Rex Stout – Nero Wolfe series…. brilliant…. genius.

Agatha Christie – duh.

Elizabeth Peters – Amelia Peabody series. Set in turn of the century Egypt, usually, it’s full of historical, political, archeological goodness. Plus, Amelia is sassy.

Jim Butcher – Harry Dresden series. Won’t be found in the mystery section, but rather sci-fi, as he is a wizard. Full of fun preternatural stuff.

Carl Hiaasen – wacky environmental mysteries set in Florida.

Elmore Leonard – he’s great with the dialog, kinda old school.

Raymond Chandler – you won’t go wrong there.

And, I cannot recommend this book enough, even though it is probably not in the Mystery section,



Down on Ponce, by Fred Willard. One of your better buddy/crime novels. I wish I could write like this guy. This is actually the first Satan’s Bookclub Selection, so you might as well get started now.

General tip, stay away from any books that mention cats doing something in the title, anything that starts with “The Cat Who…” or any books that give partial author credit to a cat.

PS: Go read “Down on Ponce.”