What’s On YOUR Quarantine Reading List?

I don’t know about you, but these days escapist genre fiction is about the only thing keeping me sane. Historical, space opera, international, all good. (Anything but those science-gone-wrong epidemic thrillers. NONE OF THOSE.)

So, just for a moment here, I’m going to trade my Only-In-Japan mystery writer hat for my international mystery reader hat (with matching fluffy slippers!) and let’s trade quarantine book recommendations!

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I’m going to toss out my ten favorite mystery authors from around the globe, in case you haven’t yet read them and you need some escapist reading too.

All these authors check my reading-in-the-time-of-virus boxes:

1: I’d like to spend time with their characters in real life – they’re not perfect, but not sociopaths or people with crippling psych issues either.

2: The plots are airtight, and deliver believable why-didn’t-I-see-that-comings (in a good way) right up to the end. And they don’t rely on dropping gruesomely murdered bodies onto every other page to keep me guessing. (I’m a dedicated thriller reader at all other times, but right now? Not so much.)

3: They whisk me away to places far beyond my four quarantined walls. Places like…

ENGLAND – Phil Rickman

[image error] This is the first in the series, but they’re all good to the last drop. I recommend starting here, though, because the continuing character arc between Merrily and her diabolically funny daughter is better enjoyed in sequence

I love this series. It features the Rev. Merrily Watkins, who happens to be the diocesian exorcist for the Church of England in a picturesque English village not too far from the Welsh border. But she’s also single mother to one of the most delightfully snarky teenage daughters you’ll even encounter between two covers. Rickman’s characters are quirky and delightfully flawed, and he’s such a fine mystery writer, even the slight paranormal aura becomes utterly believable through the skeptical eyes of the capable (but oh-so-human) Merrily.

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TURKEY – Jason Goodman

[image error] Yeah, I admit, he had me at eunuchs. This one is the first and the best, but they’re all pretty readable

This series gets extra quarantine points for being both exotic and historical, and it’s such a good read, I had a hard time leaving the Ottoman Empire to get up and cook dinner. Goodwin’s hero Yashim serves the sultan as his personal investigator, and because he’s a eunuch, no corner of the palace or the harem is off-limits to his sleuthing. These cleverly plotted mysteries dish up all kinds of fascinating factoids about a society and period I didn’t know much about before (although now I am an EXPERT, #askmeanything).

TURKEY – Barbara Nadel

[image error] This is the first, and a fine read, but this series gets more enjoyable as you read deeper into it. It takes a while to really know the main characters, and they do grow and change with experience

This series is also set in Turkey, but these are modern mysteries featuring Police Inspector Cetin Ikmen’s team of diverse detectives. I love how Istanbul’s complex mix of cultures and religions plays a central role in both the crimes and how they’re investigated – the characters’ strengths, weaknesses, and religious/social backgrounds all come into play while pursuing a solution, and Ikmen’s deep knowledge of what’s permissible and forbidden to each allows him to deploy his team in creative ways while solving the crimes.

ISRAEL – Batya Gur

[image error] This is actually the sixth book in the series, but it’s the only one you can get from Amazon US. If you’re lucky enough to live in the Amazon UK region, though, you’re golden, because they sell all of them

Superintendent Michael Ohayon of the Jerusalem CID is one of my favorite detectives ever. It’s such a pleasure to watch him direct his team as they solve crimes in the powder keg epicenter of the Middle East, because he does it with such intelligence and understanding of the cultural and religious backgrounds of the police and suspects alike. Jerusalem itself is a vivid character in every one of these mysteries, and every book in this series deepened my understanding of the tensions and points of view held by its citizens.

CHINA – Robert Van Gulik

[image error] There are tons of books in this series, but each “case” is short, some of them little more than short stories. These work really well as a “palate cleanser” in case some of your other reading gets too heavy

I’m a sucker for surprising twists and clever methods of winkling out the truth, so it’s no surprise that I devoured these historical police procedurals set in Ming Dynasty China. Judge Dee is the regional magistrate charged with both investigating crimes and bringing the criminals to justice, and his ultra-tricky ways of unmasking evildoers also reveal fascinating insights into bygone Chinese society. These tales aren’t deep or psychologically insightful, but for sheer enjoyable puzzle-solving, they can’t be beat.

RUSSIA – Stuart Kaminsky

[image error] This is the first in the series, but they’re all good. I’d suggest reading them in order, though, because the background story arc is best read in sequence

Soviet Russia is the setting for this police procedural, and these books are as much about how ordinary people made ends meet, and how they ducked the all-seeing eye of the State as they are about Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov’s smart and compassionate crime-solving. He heads up an excellent cast of sympathetic characters, and the way they dart and dodge out of the way of a behemoth system that could roll over and crush them at any moment is as compelling as the crimes they solve.

SPAIN – Arturo Perez-Reverte

[image error] This one is a supremely delightful art mystery – it’s set in the modern day, but the mystery surrounds a painting that was made in the 1400s, so it delivers lots of surprising and delightful reveals about that time and place. I highly recommend it, but I think my favorite of Perez-Reverte’s is The Fencing Master, which isn’t exactly a mystery, but still a hella good read

This Spanish author doesn’t write a series, but each of his stand-alone novels instantly and completely transports me to another time and place. His specialty is vividly bringing 19th century Spain to life, while penning characters so real and appealing that I’m always sorry when I have to close the covers on them. The books all rely on craftsmanlike plotting and the tricky relationships between the characters, which make them my ideal kind of read right now.

ITALY – Michael Dibdin

[image error] This is the first Aurelio Zen. It’s the best place to start, I think, because it’s good to get to know Zen in his native Venice, before he gets sent off to other parts of Italy to solve crimes

Aurelio Zen is a wily Venetian police detective whose adeptness at manipulating the Byzantine and often-corrupt Italian legal system in order to bring criminals to justice is a pleasure to behold. Often funny, always witty, Zen is far from perfect, but against considerable odds, he manages to thwart both the good and bad guys arrayed against him and bring each case to a satisfying close.

ITALY – Donna Leon

[image error] This is the first – and one of the best – but my favorites are Acqua Alta (which takes place during one of Venice’s periodic floods) and A Sea of Troubles (which shifts the spotlight to Signorina Elettra, my favorite character)

I’m sure Donna Leon’s name isn’t new to you, as her Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries are one of the most beloved and longest-running series in the world. Nevertheless, I can’t leave it off my list, because the combination of Brunetti’s entertaining family (not to mention his wife’s mouthwatering lunches) and multi-talented colleagues (including their creative maneuvering around their superiors) are the stuff of which reading binges are made. If by some chance you’ve been marooned on a desert island for the past twenty years and never read any of these, see you sometime next year when you re-emerge from your reading cave.

FRANCE – Cara Black

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As private investigator Aimee LeDuc cuts a crime-solving swath through each arrondissement, we’re treated to delicious bites of Paris around every corner. It’s easy to spend time in the company of her main characters, and hard to say goodbye (which is why it’s good that there are nineteen of these just waiting to be binged). Even with various murderers afoot, fleeing to an un-virused City of Light sounds pretty damn appealing right now, doesn’t it?

[image error]Who knew that my vast wardrobe of flurfy Japanese character sox would become so essential to modern life?

So, those are my go-tos. What are yours? If you didn’t see your favorite author here, mention them in the comments and I’ll enthusiastically (not to say desperately) welcome any suggestions you have in return!

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Jonelle Patrick writes mysteries set in Japan, produces the monthly newsletter Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had 

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