Suggest some good, well written detective fiction for me?

[LEMmingaround]

I fancied some detective fiction - nothing too high brow, i want easy to read and gripping, preferably not american.

I just read something by Peter James, really disappointing - it was just crap, predictable, mysoginistic and unrealistic. So that would be a good guide for what i don't like............

[DottyDot]

Ah - my very favourite genre!

Lee Child - Jack Reacher series (don't watch the film..!)
Robert B Parker - Spenser series. These are wonderful and there a loads of them.
Robert Crais - Pike and Cole books. Brilliant. Am gutted I've read them all now :(
Val McDermid - any of hers
Christopher Brookmyre - harder to get into but really clever.

[girloutofglasgow]

Let me be the next to recommend Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus. The novels are so much more than police procedurals although they are certainly cunningly plotted. Spanning more than two decades they really do chronicle contemporary society and current events through the jaundiced eyes of a thoroughly decent if depressive detective. As Ubik mentioned above, Rankin's style does alter over the years...bit like a good wine or malt..pretty fine to start with but gets so much more refined, complex and worthwhile over time. I especially enjoyed the ones he wrote in the early to mid 2000s....interesting social/geopolitical context and fascinating character development... Rebus had morphed from a bit of a cipher in the early novels to a fully formed personality - so believable that when I'm up in Edinburgh visiting my sister in Bruntsfield I fully expect to bump into him in Costa or Montpelier's...mmm, think I'm making the classic mistake of conflating character and creator.
Also well worth making the acquaintance of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie.
For something entirely different and down the other end of the country on the South coast, Simon Brett's Fethering mysteries are a good easy read, well plotted and with some amusing social observation. Enjoyable!

[BoiledPiss]

I second Donna Leon

[AnUnearthlyChild]

I third Rebus. Well written, great characterisation, amazing sense of being rooted in time and place. each novel stands alone but there is also an overarching narrative.

I love the way his later novels are set on specific dates. I was visiting Edinburgh for a significant birthday on the days Rebus did his last case and retired. (Saddo, but made it special for me, I read it thinking I was there! on that street! and like the poster above it almost felt like I could have bumped into him)

If you want classic crime fiction what about Eric Ambler? He is kind of the granddaddy of detective fiction. Mask of Dimitrios is great and Send no more Roses

[TheOneWithTheNicestSmile]

I used to love P D James relatively recently; & before that, Margery Allingham & Ed McBain

Josephine Tey is good too

All rather old-fashioned though (even PDJ!)
(I don't read crime any more)

[howcomes]

Ann cleaves Vera Stanhope series or jimmy perez are very good. Someone mentioned nicci French husband and wife team well nicci also writes under nicci gerrard. Another vote for rebus and Peter Robinson and finally Denise Mina

[howcomes]

Ruth rendall inspector Wexford is good too

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Ruth Rendell
PD James
Ann Cleeves

But most of all, Ian Rankin's Rebus.

[makeminea6x]

The Jackson Brodie books are ace and I wish there were more of them. Yy to Wallender and Martin Beck. I also really love the Montalbano books by Camalieri - you might have seen it on TV? IMHO the books are much better. Oh yes, and Albert Champion books by Margery Allingham.

[makeminea6x]

Campion not Champion

[SpecialAgentFreyPie]

Karin Slaughter.

IMO the best of them all, by far too.

[LEMmingaround]

Settled on pd james unnatural causes. But spent so much time browsing that I fell asleep 10 pages in :)

[CoteDAzur]

"How did I forget jack reacher! American yes but good."

That author (Lee Child) is British.

[Theas18]

Cote but the stories are set in america

[highlandcoo]

Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series are excellent. Canadian, small-town detective stories. If you dislike typical American crime you would find these quite different in tone.

Also love Peter May's Lewis trilogy and Ann Cleeves' Shetland series.

And Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series well worth a look.

[CoteDAzur]

Thea - I took OP's "preferably not American" to mean the books' writing style and not their setting.

[GreenShadow]

Two of my favourite detective fiction authors are both 'Hills'.
Susan Hill's Serrailer as mentioned above and also Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Yes, another vote for Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler series. I am really looking forward to the next one.

I think my favorite PD James is the one that follows Natural Causes: Shroud for a Nightingale.

Another possibility is Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series. She is American, but they are police procedurals set in the UK. The earlier ones are best; the last several not so good.

[Stokey]

Second the Ann Cleeves ones, surprised she's not more popular. Her Shetland quartet are really well written.

Also love Reginald Hill, probably the funniest of the detective genre

& Louise Penny too

[TheGirlOnTheLanding]

Yy to Rebus, Jackson Brodie and Simon Serrailler. All intelligent and well written without being at all hard to read.

I'd also like to suggest Denise Mina and I've recently enjoyed the first Robert Galbraith novel (ie JK Rowling under a nom de plume). Very like the Jackson Brodie books in tone I thought.

[TyrannosaurusBex]

Wilkie Collins' books The Moonstone and The Woman in White are fantastic if you're not dead set on something contemporary

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

I second (or is it third) Denise Mina.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Sara Paretsky - Chicago private detective, woman of Italian and Polish descent, tough as nails. Really like her.

Another vote for Rebus too! And Falco. She did one not too long ago starring Falco's daughter.

How about vintage Nero Wolfe? They are good.

[BasketzatDawn]

If you don't want misogyny, then you may like Val McDermid - various series - I've just finished the latest in the Tony Hill series. But some of her earlier sets are good too. And there are a few stand-alone ones too. I'm hopeless at remembering titles though!

While Rebus IS good, you may like some of the Glasgow writers too. eg Denise Mina's Alex Morrow series (It's at four now I think - AM is a woman police inspector).

Karen Campbell's trilogy, also set in/around Glasgow, very good too.

Like others, I like the Brodie series - also Ann Cleeves's Shetland stories. Books are superior to the TV adaptation IMO.

[evertonmint]

I've been reading detective fiction since I was 10. It's my comfort blanket and I return to my favourite authors again and again.

I don't like it too gory and find some of the American authors and Val McDermid a bit too much graphic for me but VMcD does write well so worth a try if you're not as squeamish as me.

My favourite authors are Ian Rankin (Rebus as others have mentioned but also his latest character Malcolm Fox - not quite as good as Rebus yet but may get there) and P.D.James.

A recent discovery which is very witty and well written is the Montalbano series by Antonio Camilleri. Based in Sicily and about 15 available in translation at the moment. Particularly good if you also love food as he spends a lot of time describing his delicious meals :) really evocative of Sicily, and I'm so glad I discovered this series.

Michael Dibdin's Zen novels are also set in Italy and well worth a read, especially as you can spend the whole of your reading time dreaming of the ravishing Rufus Sewell who played him on tv :)

I love Agatha Christie - a bit dated but utterly classic. I have been working my way through the female Golden Age writers recently - Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Dorothy L Sayers - and Christie is undoubtedly the best, much less dated than any of them. My favourites are The Body in the Library and Murder on The Orient Express. Her Tommy & Tuppence novels are less well known but equally worth a read.

Another series worth digging out is Amanda Cross's Kate Fansler. I love the lead character - a New York professor and rather feminist.

I agree on Peter James by the way - was recommended to me as I live near Brighton but he is so mysoginistic that I can't bear to give him my money.

If I think of more, I'll let you know