Becca's comments (member since Jan 24, 2008)

Becca's comments from the mystery lovers group.

I just read. Yes, I write for a living, but as a technical writer of software manuals. It's a completely different way of writing and thinking. I have "work" reading and "pleasure" reading.

I prefer Joan Hess' Claire Malloy series. They are a hoot, although she uses the words "mendacious" and "distaff" all too frequently.

Harlan Coben's standalone thrillers, such as Tell No One and The Innocent.

The Father Brown Omnibus

Beth: Chabon is a fantastic writer. I really enjoyed that book even though sometimes I had to do some research to get some of the dry wit that is in it. Even my Jewish friends did not "get" all his inside jokes which made them become interested in the book. It is a great book.

I consider Harlan Coben's standalone novels to be thrillers, and I love them!

Oh, Lillian, I truly envy you! I hope to collect them all before my time on Earth is done.

Lillian: I collect John Creasey mysteries. I love The Toff and The Baron, but I've started picking up the Inspector West series as well!

Doug, I won't beat you about the Paretsky comment. In fact, the standalone books were so "preachy" (and I mean "brow-beating preachy") about some of her pet topics that by the time she wrote another VI mystery I couldn't remember what had happened in the last one. By that time, even her minor characters were getting very well developed and it was necessary to be "in the loop" when reading the next book in the series.

Yes, I could have gone and re-read the previous book to refresh my memory. However, her standalone books had made me no longer care.

Very sad because I loved VI.

Paretsky should use Marcia Muller as a good example of how to write standalone books and keep up a series (Sharon McCone) without alienating the series readers.

I'd forgotten about Lovejoy! Yes, you must try Lovejoy. The books and the BBC telly series are both very good on their own.

What happens to me is that I discover a series that I like--two that come to mind are V. I. Warshawki by Sara Paretsky and Adam Dagliesh by P. D. James--and I read all the books that have been written so far in a marathon session. Then...I wait. And I wait.

Sara Paretsky went off on this binge of writing non-series "mysteries" that were not really mysteries at all. I tried to read them, and I did not enjoy them at all. By the time she wrote another V I Warshawski mystery, I just could not for the life of me get back into the series. I would have had to re-read not just the one before the newest, but a couple of the ones before the newest to relearn the characters.

With P D James, I will give her credit that she does extremely thorough research for each of her mysteries; hence, why they are not formulaic or "Scooby Doo" as some else said. However, even after having the delight of meeting her, I will have to say that I have not read a P D James mystery since Death in Holy Orders. I just lost interest. The gaps between books were just too long.

Death Walked In: A Death on Demand Mystery (Death on Demand Mysteries)

Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

I got the new Aunt Dimity book Aunt Dimity Vampire Hunter signed by Nancy Atherton last night. If you go in person, she stamps the front with a bunny face and the back with a bunny butt! The books that she signs for the store for customers to buy later only gets the bunny face.

Here's her site: Aunt Dimity

I'm so excited! I'm going to the signing of Nancy Atherton's new Aunt Dimity book on Monday--2/25/08 at my local mystery bookstore Murder By The Book. I hope there are some other Aunt Dimity fans on here.

I tend to read series, but in the case of Harlan Coben, I only read his standalone mysteries instead of his series.

I read the Isabel Dalhousie series. I could not get into the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series at all. I also read his series that revolves around the residents of 44 Scotland Street.

Sharon McCone (Marcia Muller--author)
Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton--author)
Agatha Raisin (M. C. Beaton--author)
Isabel Dalhousie (Alexander McCall Smith--author)
Regan Reilly (Carol Higgins Clark--author)
Claire Malloy (Joan Hess--author)
Henrie O (Carolyn Hart--author)
Lori Shepherd and Aunt Dimity (Nancy Atherton--author)
Annie Darling (Carolyn Hart--author)
Alvirah Meehan (Mary Higgins Clark--author)
Miss Juia (Ann B. Ross--author)
Aggie Sloan-Wilcox (Emilie Richards--author)
Jemima Shore (Antonia Fraser--author)

I used to love the V I Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky, but I lost interest during the dry spells when she would write non-series books.

Nancy Atherton (American writer of British cozy mysteries), M C Beaton (well, she could be considered British/Scottish--just the Agatha Raisin series--watching the Hamish series on BBC America ruined reading the books for me), Dorothy Dunnett (British/Scottish--the Johnson Johnson mysteries), E.X. Ferrars, Anthea Fraser, Antonia Fraser, H.R.F. Keating, P.D. James, Michael Z. Lewin (American writer who lives in the UK and writes a great, but small, British series about the Lunghi family of detectives who live in Bath, England), Ruth Rendell, and Julian Symons. Of course there are the classics, such as Agatha Christie, Wilkie Collins, John Creasey, and G. K. Chesterton (Father Brown Omnibus!!).

British mysteries that I love to watch on either DVD or BBC America:
Midsomer Murders
Inspector Lynley
Agatha Christie (only with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple and David Suchet as Poirot)
Hamish MacBeth
Inspector Morse
Prime Suspect (sometimes I have to look away)
Lovejoy