Detective novels

[Jux]

I, too, am looking for new writers, but I have read:

Martina Cole (one of) and James Patterson (one of) and found them ghastly as well as far too grisly.
PD James' prose is horrible, but I can cope (!) just!

I have been warned that I would hate Mo Hayder, by the way.

Otherwise I have read all the obvious oldies - Marsh, Christie, Rendell etc.

I don't want grisly and horrible (have nightmares as I'm a wuss), but I do love Brookmyre who alleviates grisly with humour and makes the really nasty characters into such wonderful sketches of ineptness that I don't mind so much. (As an aside, and to demonstrate that I am a fairly hopeless case, I was gobsmacked when I found Brookmyre had been moved from Fiction to Crime, as I had had him down as Political Thriller!)

I know there's a thread about crime writers already, but didn't want to hijack, and can't tell which authors are like Cole and Patterson, who must be avoided at all costs!

You could try putting your favourite authors' names in here and see what turns up?

If you like oldies try Margery Allingham - gentle and fairly non-violent quite like Ngaio Marsh. I also quite like M C Beaton's Hamish McBeth books (although her other offerings are terrible).

Reginald Hill (Dalziel and Pascoe) is supposed to be good. We're due to read his first book for our local crime book club soon.

No1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. No grisly, easy to read and lovely stories .

Have you read any Dick Francis? V good - all set in racing.

Georgette Heyer's detective stories are very like Agatha Christie's, but a bit more tongue in cheek. You might like Peter Robinson, he's not too grisly. Or try Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books.

Have you read Sarah Paretsky (only the early ones are good IMO)?

Also Marcia Muller (Sharon McCone novels), Val McDiarmid (her early ones with a woman journalist as tec) & Sue Grafton A is for Alibi series (again the earlier are better, easy to tell as she works through the alphabet!).

I agree with you on Brookmyre, usually I don't do grisly but I make an exception for him & just skip the gruesome bits.

I'm a big crime/thriller reader, but only seem to read American writers for some reason! So I would recommend Harlan Coben - Tell No One is excellent, but he also has a series with a character called Myron Bolitar that is good. Also Robert Crais - also a character series with a private detective called Elvis Cole but has done a few stand-alones as well. Neither of these are gruesome and also have an element of humour about them that I like.

Carl Hiiasen is good - his books are set around Florida/Miami. Of his I would recommend Skinny Dip, Nature Girl or Lucky You.

James Lee Burke is a little bit darker but still not gory - he has the Dave Robicheaux series and the Billy Bob Holland series.

I prefer Kathy Reichs (Temperance Brennan) to Patricia Cornwell, but her earlier ones are better, the last few have been a bit samey and disappointing.

Janet Evanovich are very funny

Ann Cleeves. Excellent plotting, really good sense of 'place', not gory.

Also, my Dad reads lots of detective novels & I know he likes the ones set in ancient Rome by Lindsey someone (like the Roman Mysteries for grownups).

Sure someone on here will know the author!

Lindsey Davies?

That's it! Thanks tilly

Thanks all.

My brother gave me all the Lyndsay Davis when he'd read them. They're fun, but can be a little iritating unless you read them very well spaced apart!

I've read a lot of Allingham and McCall Smith - they're just hanging about in the house. I think Allingham's are probably first edition paperbacks, they're so old! Heyer and Francis I read in my teens. Not so keen on Francis, tbh, but Heyer was fine at the time - think I'm looking for something more meaty now. Will check her out again though (they're hanging about in the house too, possibly also first edition paperbacks!).

I have not even heard of Peter Robinson, Peretsky, Muller, Grafton, Crais, Lee Burke, Reichs, Coben, Evanovich or Cleeves. Will check them all out.

Off to Waterstones later in the week, armed with a long list of authors! Thank you very much.

Natasha Cooper? I mentioned her on the other thread; just discovered her myself. Oh, and Denise Mina is fantastic. Not conventional police procedurals but the Garnethill trilogy is just brilliant.

Thanks, Salteena. I stopped looking at the other thread when I saw Cole, Patterson and Hayder recommended, as I knew they wouldn't be what I wanted and I didn't want to hijack by posting my own 'requirements'.

I forgot Dennis Lehane as well. He wrote Gone Baby Gone and there's a sequel to it called Moonlit Mile, both pretty good. Also Mystic River and A Drink Before the War. They're not outstanding but I do find they hook me easily.

Good bedtime read, tilly? Are they peopled by unpleasant, bigoted and ignorant characters, full of gory details and no humour in sight (like Patterson and Cole)? I must say, I'm so glad I don't know either of those authors

They're not gory, and there is some humour in them - I like humour in crime books too! They're mainly set in the poorer areas of Boston so he does include a lot of attitude but he challenges it, iyswim. If you're going to read one, I would start with Gone Baby Gone or Mystic River.

I particularly detest Patterson, and have to wonder at how much writing he actually does considering most of his books are co-written with another author!

Opening line on Amazon: Cheese Olamon, "a six-foot-two, four-hundred-and-thirty- pound yellow-haired Scandinavian who'd somehow arrived at the misconception he was black"

You have to read it, just for that! Thanks, tilly

Oh you are in for a treat with the Kenzie and Gennaro novels, I enjoyed A drink Before The War, but the next in the series Darkness Take My Hand really hooked me, I would read them in order if I was you, there may be spoilers if you read them randomly, there are only 6 books in the series.

I loved Brookmyre but think he has gone off the boil recently, I didn't enjoy the last one I read and haven't even bought his last after poor amazon reviews.

Phil Rickman has a series about a female Vicar who happens to be a deliverance minister, quite gentle mystery/supernatural, very readable anyway.

Peter James is also very good.

Can't remember whether anyone's mentioned Peter Lovesey, but he's certainly worth a punt. He writes several different series and I've read some of the Peter Diamond ones. They're set in Bath and I guess you'd call them fairly gentle; certainly not gory or remotely Patterson-esque!

Someone on the other thread said Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, who is also very good - the Bill Slider books are funny too, which is always a bonus.

Have you tried Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe books? The original hard bitten detective and even thought the books are now 70 years old they are BRILLIANTLY written, funny, engaging and gripping.

Sarah Paretsky does the VI Warshawski novels set in Chicago which I like. (Kathleen Turner played the lead in the film.)
David Baldacci is good. Tends to be goodies outside the law eg former CIA sorting out the bad guys.
An oldie worth a try could be Ellery Queen.