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?

Nicola Upson has a series of books with Josephine Tey as the main character - well worth a read. Also, the Bryant and May books if you like a bit of supernatural and arcane history with your murder.

I've been reading the Inspector Felix series by RA Bentley. They are set in the 20's - I've read the entire series of 9 books and I like the characters.

Thanks Woolly - have looked for these and they are on Kindle Unlimited so I can read them for free.

Anything by John Bude, the series about Dandy Gilver - one was called After the Armistace Ball, The Brother Athelstane and High Corbett medieval mysteries.

@iwantmyownicecreamvan I found them via kindle unlimited recommendations. I've read so many books since I took it out - it's the best £8 I spend each month.

Have you come across Beth Byers? She's an American writing Golden Age mysteries. Some of her characters are a bit out of place for the era and she uses American terminology (auto for car springs to mind) but if you are looking for escapism rather than historical accuracy then they are entertaining. I've read all the Violet Carlyle books and they are her best set of characters. The Poison Ink books are too inaccurate and it sets my teeth on edge to come across some things like names and place names that show no research into British culture.

Other authors that are on kindle unlimited that I have enjoyed are Karen Menuhin (Heathcliff Lennox series) and Jack Murray (Kit Aston series)

I just finished The Woman in the Window, it was very Hitchcock-esque but modern.

Thanks for this thread! I love a good book recommendation and I love Victorian crime novels. I have also learned the term Gaslight fiction

OP, you can borrow library books on Kindle, as long as you haven't got a Paperwhite.

I love Rivers of London but I would neither call them classic Whodunnits (if the supernatural is involved you can't eliminate the impossible) nor lacking in gore and violence! (Also the author is Ben not David Aaronovitch)

Ooh yes, the Josephine Tey mysteries by Nicola Upson

As well as Cadfael, Ellis Peters wrote what were then contemporary (sixties) novels featuring policeman George Felse (and later his son) - Fallen Into the Pit is the first one.

Lindsey Davis' Falco series - a PI in Vespasian's Rome. The Silver Pigs is the first book.

Great thread!
Try Edmund Crispin: 1940s closed room murders solved by a slightly fey and irritating Oxford don. Very funny, completely mad plots and lots of allusions to classical music and English literature (Crispin, real name Bruce Montgomery, was also a composer).

I didn't realise that the kindle paperwhite had an issue with the library borrowing. I have my local library app on my phone, overdrive I think.

Francis Iles malice aforethought
Josephine Tey the franchise affair