Recommendations for NON series mysteries

[[deleted user]]

We've talked about our favourite series...but I'm looking for good stand alone mystery novels. Sometimes I just want a beginning, a middle and an end all on the one neat package.

I liked Karin Slaughter's Triptych and Helen Fitzgerald's Dead Lovely. Any ohter recommendations?

[Melissa]

I have read and loved The Heat of the Moon and Disturbing the Dead by Sandra Parshall. Technically, Disturbing the Dead is a sequel, but the main character from Heat of the Moon is in a completely new town with completely new people so they both pretty much read as stand alone books. They are very good psychological thriller/mystery. Quick reads you won't want to put down.

[Melissa]

Just thought of another one:

No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

He's a great writer and I really liked this one. Kept me guessing all the way until the end. He writes a mystery series as well, that is very funny with great plots.

[Gail]

Robert Bernard is an excellent, prolific British author of non-series mysteries. Particularly good are "Death on the High C's", "School for Murder", and "Murder in Myafair". He's wel thought of, and I find his books pretty enteraining.

[Lorena]

I don't know if you've read Georgette Heyer's mysteries yet, but they all stand alone. There may be a character who was the main focus of one that gets a passing mention in another, but nothing that affects the plots. Each one has a different "sleuth." Classic '30s mysteries, but with characters a lot more flawed and sharply funny than, say, Agatha Christie's. (And by "flawed," I don't mean stupid...I mean more human.) I think they're all terrific.

[Patricia]

You are right on the Sandra Parshall books. I loved both and I guess I need to check her website and see if there's anything new coming up.

Pat R.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks all. It's Saturday morning here in Australia so I'm off to the local bookstore with ashopping list.

[Bluedaizy]

One book that has always haunted me and I don't believe it is a series is Multiple Wounds by Allan Russell.

I also liked Bascilica by William Montalbano. He's dead, so there won't be any more books from him, I'm really sorry to say.

Another book which is one of a two book series is Over the Line by Faye Sultan. Per Fantastic Fiction, "A thriller based on the case of a real-life American serial killer. This fictional reproduction follows the progress of Portia McTeague, a forensic psychologist assigned to the case of a dim but apparently harmless delivery boy who murders two elderly women in a sleepy South Carolina town." I read this years ago, but have never forgotten it.

[Audrey333]

I just finished Sleeping Beauty by Philip Margolin recently. It was pretty good. I also enjoy Harlan Coben's stand alones.

[Kathy]

I loved Val McDermind's The Grave Tattoo and Stef Penny's The Tenderness of Wolves.