Good crime/mystery novel?

[showersandflowers]

I've just read my first book since my daughter was born and really eager to carry on reading. Looking for good crime/mystery recommendations please. I'm not really into sci-fi or fantasy, which can sometimes overlap with these things.

Thanks and looking forward to your suggestions!

I love the Cormoran Strike books by Robert Galbraith (jk Rowling pseudonym). There's about seven or so to get your teeth into. Or L J Ross Northumbria series also Peter James is good. His Grace series, they are showing on Itv at the moment on a Sunday night if you want to get a feel for what they're like.

Have you been through all the 'Golden Age' authors - Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey and others? The British Library is republishing a lot of 'forgotten' authors of this era in their Crime Classics series.

I prefer Christie and Sayers to Allingham and Marsh, but tastes vary.

Or if you like history, historical crime is a massive genre. Lindsey Davis' Falco series, set in Ancient Rome, is fairly light reading. Ellis Peters' Cadfael on the Middle Ages. C.J. Sansom's Shardlake set in the last years of Henry VIII is more heavyweight. And many, many more.

The Maeve Kerrigan series by Jane Casey

I've just discovered John Marrs. Really, really great books - loads of twist and turns - highly recommend!

The Strike books are excellent, very easy to read which is a must for me as parenting has turned my brain to mush. Other than that I regularly re read agatha christie and Sherlock Holmes.

I also like the Jeffery Deaver Tracker books.

Another fan of the Strike books!
If you think you'd like a cosy, gentle mystery than I'd recommend a series of 3 books by J M Hall. A Spoonful of Murder, A Pen Dipped in Poison and The Clock Stopped Dead. The main characters are 3 retired primary teachers. There are a lot of nice anecdotes about their teaching careers.
I also enjoy another series of cosy mysteries with the late queen as a detective. Not as bizarre as it sounds! The first one is The Windsor Knot and they are by S J Bennett.
Elly Griffiths writes a long series about an archeologist living and working in Norfolk where the mystery is almost second to her fairly complicated personal life. The same author also writes 2 more series .One is set is 1960s Brighton and the other is about a young woman detective who is rather socially awkward, trying to gain respect in the police force.
I like Richard Osman's books about a group of amateur detectives who live in a very smart care home but they divide opinion!

I've really enjoyed the Verity Bright series, and the Anthony Horowitz Hawthorne and Horowitz books. Shamini Flint, Jack Cartwright, Faith Martin, Ann Cleeves and David Gatward have good series too. Plus I recently read all of the Cadfael books by Ellis Peters.

Happy reading.

I agree. It's amazing just how good people like Agatha Christie really are. Plus, of course, Sherlock Holmes. Laying in a hot bath listening to Stephen Fry read Holmes is my idea of heaven.

I'm not sure he'd qualify as a 'mystery' writer, but how about M. R. James?

Second the Grace novels, by Peter James. They're better than the tv series, which is good in itself.
The Vera books are very good.
Harlan Coben writes a natty tale full of twists and turns.

I really like JD Robb's Lt Eve Dallas series. Quite funny, easy read if you are interrupted. Same characters. And quite frankly quite repetitive, like James Patterson. My mum likes Ellie Griffiths and until recently Donna Leon, set in Italy. I don't mind Osman's books - mum hates them!

Jane Harper - ‘The Dry’ ‘The Survivors’ and a couple of others. Really good strong stories, set in Australia.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett is brilliant- very easy to read but also written in an unusual way.

Agree re Strike books and Anthony Horowitz- both the Hawthorn books and the Magpie Murders.

I second these - I thought they were excellent.

Barbara Vine physiological thrillers, Barbara Vine was actually Ruth Rendell, but as Ruth she wrote mainly crime novels.

Gillian Flynn, wrote Gone Girl and Sharp Objects

Lin Anderson has a good series about a forensic scientist Rhona McLeod. I 've also just finished one of her standalone novels, The Party House, which was very good too.

LJ Ross is also good with her Ryan series set in Northumberland and also Ann Cleeves.

I'd also recommend Peter May and Alex Gray.

Any of Janice Hallets, they’re really compelling puzzlers.

The Strike books - I enjoyed the first 3 or 4, but after that they get so violent and incredibly long. Been really disappointed with the last few.

The Jack Parlabane series by Christopher Brookmyre is one of my faves - Parlabane is a Scottish investigative journalist. Lots of dark humour, a bit sweary, and great writing.

If you want something short, cosy, and not in the least bit taxing, the Agatha Raisin series by MC Beaton is one you could try.

It's amazing just how good people like Agatha Christie really are.

For anyone who is really into Agatha Christie, I recommend reading up on her life. You see that the inspiration for so many of her books came from her own experiences. Her own house in Devon (under different names) is the setting for at least two of her novels, and she herself makes several appearances, as Mrs Ariadne Oliver.

For light reading, I recommend Come Tell Me How You Live, her memoir of life on an archaeological dig between the wars - when the Middle East was very different from what it is today.