Posted on 04/23/2020 11:54:45 AM PDT by Pining_4_TX
Help! I need recommendations for fun reading material. I really enjoy mysteries and have been re-reading some Agatha Christie books, because so many of the newer books are PC or extremely gory. Also, I prefer my reading material to be clean. Humor books are also good, as well as real crime and crime solving methods, as long as it's not too hair-raising. Fiction or non-fiction, as long as it's entertaining.
Are there mysteries out there where the detective has at least somewhat conservative values? Are there ones set in the past that don't have feminist females entirely out of character for the times?
I read a real stinker that got a good review in the WSJ with the tired, old plot of artistic types stuck in the boonies with a bunch of knuckle-draggers who just didn't appreciate anything but farming and football. Naturally, the murderer was a high school football player. Ugh.
Books I do like, in addition to Agatha Christie, are No Stone Unturned about forensic science, and Amy's Answering Machine, which is a humorous collection of the messages left on Amy's machine by her Jewish mother. I'm not keen on spy thrillers, and please, no romance novels.
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If you’ve never read Louise Penny’s books, you’re in for a treat. They’re about a detective, Armand Gamache, and a village in Canada named Three Pines. I can’t recommend them highly enough.
There are about 12 of them now. I envy you, you’re in for a treat.
Lee Child’s Reacher books.
Use the web, read them in order.
On my Kindle (I have many other books, too - I must get reading!)
M.C.Beaton’s Hamish McBeth series
Detective Lavender series by Karen Charlton - Kindle unlimited about a London detective in the early 1800’s
Lindsey Davis book series about Marcus Didius Falco, an ancient Roman detective/private informer
Colin Dexter Inspector Morse novels - classic TV series also viewable.
Weird novels by Ben Aaronovitch - the Rivers of London series — yes, another detective
“The Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly”
The last five or six Harry Bosch novels and the Amazon Prime video series are totally politically correct SJW screeds...nothing conservative about them.
Was a huge fan of his from the very first novels....those are worth the time.
Nightfall Nelson DeMille
You want fun mysteries, anything by Charlotte McLeod will fit the bill.
Also there’s a fun series by Gretchen Archer’s, the Davis Way Cole Crime Caper Mystery series, starting with Double Whammy, soon to be nine books, are a lot of fun. Set in a Biloxi Mississippi gambling casino Davis Way is a female security expert for the casino where anything and everything happens in an often hilarious fashion. She also has a family of kooks to add to the problems, as well as an ex-husband who doesn’t help keep things sane either.
Both authors are available on Amazon or Apple Books
I just finished reading a Horror Murder Zany Comedy mystery book by Dean Koontz called TickTock, it was a lot of fun.
I second the suggestion of anything by Dean Koontz, especially the "Odd Thomas" series.
I disagree. They do have some of what you say, but they are not screeds by a long shot. Michael Connolly is the producer of them. It sounds as if you haven’t given much time to paying attention to them and focused on just a few things in them. They are fairly true to the books spirit of Bosch. Titus Welliver does a good job of playing Bosch.
I have a pretty good radar for SJW crap. I don’t see much of it. The bad guys are pretty much equal opportunity bad guys.
I also enjoy:
Inspector Montelbano Series by A. Camilleri (mentioned)
Joe Pickett Series by CJ Box (mentioned)
Brunetti Series By Donna Leon
Monk and Pitt Series by Anne Perry
These will keep you busy for a long time!
After watching the movie with Jimmy Stewart and Lee Remick, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book “Anatomy of a Murder.”
OK then, how about Nathaniel Hawthorn - the father of the modern mystery novel.
Or Edgar Allen Poe.
Fools Die by Mario Puzo. Old book and I enjoyed the read.
ping
Chandler's work had a decisive role in developing the modern detective story, with a direct line from Chandler's hardboiled Phil Marlowe of the 1930s and 40s to TV's genial, cynical Jim Rockford of the 70s and 80s. Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer is a more polished version of the hardboiled type, set in the 1960s and 70s. Paul Newman did a good job of playing Archer in two movies.
The cynicism of the hard-boiled type usually offers little room for politics. Robert B. Parker's Spenser series though stirs in a dose of liberalism, which puts him off my favorites list. So also with John D. MacDonald and his Travis McGee series, which tends to have plot points based on issues of the 70s and 80s. The books now seem dated.
Loren Estleman's Amos Walker series is set in modern Detroit with an effect close to Chandler's hard-boiled style. Estleman's writing is well-regarded.
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series is an acquired taste, but the writing and plotting are clear and direct. Set in New York in the 1930s to the 1960s, the series avoids politics, with the obese and housebound Wolfe relying on his street detective, Archie Goodwin, to dig out facts that Wolfe processes toward a solution that is revealed in interviews and a confrontation with the main suspects.
Director's Cut by Roger L. Simon is worth reading in that it makes conservative points and is by an author who went from liberal to conservative. Simon's earlier mystery books in the Moses Wine series are good but have Leftism applied like decorations on a cake.
Ditto Taylor Caldwell, though maybe not “anything.” :) And I wouldn’t call them mysteries. My favorite was Testimony of Two Men.
Another book I enjoyed, not exactly a mystery, was The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Count of Monte Cristo was great.
You can try Ngaio Marsh. She wrote the Inspector Alleyn series, some of which were made into a film series.
I can’t believe no one mentioned Perry Mason (Earl Stanley Gardner), seem they would fit your description of what you are looking for.
Did Chesterton write any Father Brown novels? I only know the short stories.
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