Well-written detective fiction

[StalkerEx]

I've been reading the Cormoran Strike books and enjoying them, but I'd like something written slightly better. Apart from Agatha Christie, which detective stories would you recommend? I've never really read much of this genre, but need something fairly light to get me through a tough few months.

*Horowitz

JD Kirk - DCI Logan, set in Scotland. Brilliant spin off books with Robert Hoon & DCI Filson

Alex Smit - DCI Kett, set is Norwich, gripping and soooo funny!

David J. Gatward - DCI Grimm, set in Wensleydale.

All three authors are actually friends as well and have a podcast, their characters appear in each others books or there are small cross overs and it's fab. All quite gritty, can be quite gory, but very clever and funny at the same time.

In fact, JD Kirk has been on mumsnet I believe! He certainly references it in a couple of his books

Oh, Case Histories (Ruth Atkinson) is so well-written. I never found any of the subsequent ones to be quite as lit-fic, but that is the genre I suppose.

Years and years ago I started a thread on exactly this topic and I was recommended a series set in SW Scotland, a female copper, and I can't remember either author or title! But those were excellent.

I've also really enjoyed reading the Shetland novels by Ann Cleeves.

And! One of his characters is renowned for his brutal insults, so he now have a Bob Hoon insult generator on his website

https://jdkirk.com/the-bob-hoon-insult-generator/

100 per cent agree, and I’ll add the Morse stories by Colin Dexter. Just sublime x

I’ve just read the first 2 books in a new series, by Charlotte Vassel, called The Other Half and The In Crowd. I loved them.

I read lots and lots of detective fiction and spy fiction and these are very good.

Also,

MJ Arlidge - DI Helen Grace (MUST READ!!)
Rees-Price with the DI Winter Meadows books
J.E. Mayhew - DCI William Blake
Rachel McLean - Detective Zoe Finch
Chris Carpenter - Robert Hunter
A.L Fraine - DCI Pilgrim
T.G Rein - DCI Bone
Alex Scarrow -DCI Boyd
Rachel Abbott - Tom Douglas books

I've enjoyed Catriona McPherson's Dandy Gilver series.
S J Bennett series with Queen Elizabeth ll as the protagonist. Not as silly as it sounds.

I googled (not sure why I didn't do this before): https://alinetempleton.co.uk/fleming/

The Roy Grace books by Peter James are my favourite

The Tom Thorn books by Mark Billingham
DI Lorimer books set in Glasgow, by Alex Gray, Eve Dolan books set around Peterborough, John Harvey books. Inspector Beck Swedish detective. It was televised. IRS set in pre computers faxes and mobile phones times

Another shout for Reginald Hill. Core characters that it's easy to engage with and well written plots without too much unnecessary gore.

Edit: small typo.

I was late coming to Anne Cleeves but picked up some of her older novels cheap in The Works.

She's a great writer.

Val McDermid is not light! Too gruesome even for me. And I love crime fiction.

Good cosy crime writers are Anthony Horowitz, Ann Cleeves.

Good slightly more literary crime writers are: Tana French, Alex Marwood, Barbara Vine, Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels (I loved these)

@Dahliasinallotment - Louise Penny is a great recommendation for cosy crime. I got through all the Gamache novels during a rough time in my life. Great escapism.

OP - I forgot my favourite: Sue Grafton's Alphabet series featuring Private Detective Kinsey Millhone. Absolutely gripping.

Just giving a shout out for Eluzabeth George's Inspector Lynley/ Barbara Havers series.

Definitely John connolly, Charlie parker series, starts with every dead thing. My favourite author ever, great stories, some humour, weaves a larger story through the books. Just wonderful

Seconding Dorothy L Sayers!

Yes to all above!
Some less well-known additions:
Sarah Caudwell
Robert Barnard
Michael Gilbert

Most of the ones I like have already been mentioned but I would also suggest Lin Anderson. She has written the Rhona Mcleod series based on a Glasgow forensic scientist.

I agree - I read On Beulah Height more than twenty years ago and I remember it vividly still, which is rare with the number of books I read.

You and I have very similar tastes! You might like Christianna Brand - Tour de Force is excellent. Also perhaps Dorothy Bowers, although I'm only halfway through the first I've ever read. Found her on the brilliant Golden Age crime podcast Shedunnit.

For light I don't think it gets much better than a lot of the Golden Age stuff. The distance in time helps to make even gruesome things less dark ;) and a lot of it is very intentionally written as leasure literature to pass the time - which doesn't mean the writers aren't good!

I love Dorothy Sayers. I think Murder Must Advertise is absolutely fantastic, it has such quick dialogue and snappiness. The actual plot is a bit so so and also I don't understand cricket, but this does not matter. But she's always good! I can also recommend her short stories!

I listen to the Shedunnit podcast and was from that introduced to ECR Lorac, who has sort of been rediscovered as an author and thus reprinted. I've only read one but loved it.

I love Ngaio Marsh too, but she's uneven I suppose. If I look at her critically. Read the one where he meets Agatha Troy, Artists in Crime!

Ellis Peters is always a sweet and easy read (not Golden Age, I know). She has such a fundamentally positive view of people, even in her "grittier" books. Every book centers a young and idealistic couple that are so nice and lovely and the hope for the future somehow, which is very relaxing. She also describes nature and localities so prettily and which such warmth. You always feel hopeful after her books.

I've also highly enjoyed Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, some of Laurie R King.

I loved the Maisie Dobbs series, set after WW1. Beautifully written and reflective of the inter-war years.