Classic Whodunnits

[FlySheMust]

I'm having pain in the night which is getting worse. I find reading helps while the painkillers kick in but I've run out of authors.

For night time reading I really enjoy a classic whodunnit. Locked room etc. I don't like gore or descriptions of violence. It's the puzzle I like. Poirot is my hero. 🙂

Can anyone recommend new authors who write in the classic tradition?

It isn't a new author at all, but have you read The Moonstone? There no gore really and as far as I remember very little violence (if any).

The Moonstone is brilliant.

Anything by Dorothy L Sayers, especially Gaudy Night and Murder Must Advertise.

Margery Allingham (Tiger in the Smoke is my favourite)
Ngaio Marsh (A Surfeit of Lampreys or Death and the Dancing Footman would be my picks)

How about the Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz? I really enjoyed that.

Sorry, utterly misread your OP.

Google gaslight fiction.

They're not new. Mostly Victorian.
Lots free on kindle.
Exactly what you're looking for. Very tense and locked-roomy whodunnits

Thanks for the suggestions. I've read some of the authors but not all their books. I shall google gaslight fiction.

Thanks again.

Presume you have read your way through Agatha Christie?

The Sherlock Holmes stories are wonderful classic whodunnits and there are loads of them with most being fairly short.

Christie of course

Raymond Chandler

The Agatha Raison books

British Library Crime Classics might be good. Short stories are sometimes better than a novel for sleeplessness as they get nicely concluded. Lots of locked room mysteries and no gore.

Have you read the new Poirot novels by Sophie Hannah?

Sophie Hannah's other fiction is good and very much based on the puzzle formula - but some of them do include gore/violence. My favourite SH is a v. early one which doesn't include any gory scenes- 'Cordial and Corrosive'

Yes, Agatha C and I have been friends for many years. Read them all at least twice. :) Agatha R I've seen on TV.

Also Sherlock Holmes.

I'd forgotten Chandler. I'll have a look for some by him.

Over the years I've worked my way through Rendell, Burley, Dexter and most of the "golden age" writers.

The modern ones like McDermid and Cornwell are just to gruesome for night time reading.

I'm having some problems with my hands and arthritis so it's easier to read on a kindle than page turning and holding a book. Which is a shame as I resisted kindles for years.

Thanks again.

Also Sherlock Holmes

I'm not sure if this means you've read the books or watched them on tv but if the latter I still recommend the books - much different, many more stories than have been televised, and good absorbing writing

There's a lovely series by Carola Dunn featuring Daisy Dalrymple which are set in the 1920's and very much in the spirit of the AC books.

The Maisie Donna series by Jacqueline Winspear.
Set in 1930's and very good set of crime novels

Not sure if this is something you could do without disturbing others but there is a podcast called Pheobe Reads A Mystery where a lady with a very soothing voice reads classic mystery novels.

I use it to get off to sleep when I’m struggling as the light required to read sometimes makes me feel too awake.

*Dodds not Donna! Stupid auto correct

Simon Brett, Lyn Truss & T P Fielden are pretty harmless. Laurie King has a series of books with Mary Holmes (yes, Sherlock got married!) as the central character which are quite interesting.

Oh, and the British Library Crime Classics series. Very cheap on kindle.

So,me lovely ideas here, thanks.

Yes, I have read all the Sherlock Holmes but when I was a teenager so quite a few years ago.

Try the Ryder and Loveday books by Faith Martin. Set in Oxford in the 60s, he is the city coroner, she is a young policewoman. Not gory.

The Cassie Swann series by Susan Moody are fun, again not gory, based around a bridge professional and her rough diamond admirer. Also her Penny Wanamaker series.

The Miss Silver books by Patricia Wentworth were written in the same period as Agatha Christie.

More modern 'cosy' crime by Martha Grimes. Features English villages, an earl and a Scotland Yard detective, cats and children and Tio Pepe

Have you tried Lesley Cookman’s Libby Sarjeant books? There’s quite a few and all available on Kindle.

The Brighton Belle series by Sara Sheridan. Set in post-war Brighton about a woman who was a Whitehall secretary and works for a debt collection agency then ends up as a sort of private detective.

I’d also recommend the Rumpole books by John Mortimer; not whodunnits but good page turners and short stories.