Mystery / Suspense

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graveflower

Well-Known Member
Jun 28, 2008
77
19
Kansas
Lately I have been enjoying a good murder mystery suspenseful thriller. I have read the Gillian Flynn Novels, Dark Places was okay but the other 2 (Gone Girl and Sharp Objects) were pretty much stinkers. I've liked the Tami Hoag books I've read, but had a hard time enjoying the Kay Scarpetta books (can't remmeber the author) James Patterson used to be a quick fun read, but his books bore me now, they are gross.

Any suggestions? There is a lot out there to choose from and I don't have a lot of time to read, so I like to use my reading time on good books!

Thanks in advance.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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I agree with Tana French. Check her out. The Likeness, Broken Harbour, In the woods, Faithful place. I like Peter Robinson. Canadian Author but his crimesleuth The Cop Alan Banks works out in Yorkshire. Not any town but in villages close to the moors. I also like Linwood Barclay. His books are more of the kind common-man-suddenly-finds-himself-in position-when-nobody-believes-and-must-find-out-puzzle-himself. Perhaps more thriller than crime but they are good. And why not read some of Americas founding fathers of crime. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald. Great crimeauthors all of them. Of course they belong in the private eye-era of crime but they are still good. Nowadays everyone is either part of the force or connected to it.
 

skimom2

Just moseyin' through...
Oct 9, 2013
15,683
92,168
USA
I agree with Tana French. Check her out. The Likeness, Broken Harbour, In the woods, Faithful place. I like Peter Robinson. Canadian Author but his crimesleuth The Cop Alan Banks works out in Yorkshire. Not any town but in villages close to the moors. I also like Linwood Barclay. His books are more of the kind common-man-suddenly-finds-himself-in position-when-nobody-believes-and-must-find-out-puzzle-himself. Perhaps more thriller than crime but they are good. And why not read some of Americas founding fathers of crime. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald. Great crimeauthors all of them. Of course they belong in the private eye-era of crime but they are still good. Nowadays everyone is either part of the force or connected to it.

Thank you, Kurben--it is Tana French :) I enjoyed her books quite a bit.
 

krwhiting

Well-Known Member
Jan 5, 2015
258
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57
...Mickey Spillane for hard-boiled detective fiction....

Great stuff. Also Raymond Chandler, Thomas Harris (it was reading the Hannibal trilogy that got me back into reading King after a 22 year hiatus), P.D. James, G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown series), Ellis Peters (Brother Cadfael series), Umberto Eco (Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose are two of the best suspense stories I've read), Dashiell Hammett, and Dorothy Sayers (Peter Wimsey books).

Kelly
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
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If one like mysteries Ellery Queen has written some good ones. The problem with him was that he wrote so much that he is quite uneven. He also goes through different phases in is authorship. But i liked "Cat with Nine Tails" about a serial murderer in New York. This was before every book was about somekind of serialkiller. Then of course if we jump the Atlantic there is some good ones. The Classic Crimequeens Christie ,Sayers, James and Rendell. I really like Michael Gilbert (Smallbone Deceased, Death of a Favourite Girl, Death in Captivity, Close Quarters and many others. Philip MacDonald (The Nursemaid who Disappeared, The List of Adrian Messenger, R.I.P., X. versus Rex). More modern ones are Denise Mina and Elly Griffiths or perhaps Rennie Airth
 

danie

I am whatever you say I am.
Feb 26, 2008
9,760
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Tara French is very good, and Robert Galbraith is as well

Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay. Michael Connely if you like police stuff. I liked Gone Girl, but thought her other books weren't up to much.

I forgot Linwood Barclay! He is a Canadian writer on a par with Coben for sure.
Yay! I just downloaded a Tana French and a Linwood Barclay book this week.
I can recommend Mo Hayder, John Hart, Robert McCammon, & Joe Hill for some great reads.
 

Blake

Deleted User
Feb 18, 2013
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The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper. I'm just getting up to where McGee is going too get 'stuck-in' to David Broon. Which is not David Boon, the former Australian test cricketer- and supposedly my fourth cousin, on my mum's side- who held the record of most cans of beer drunk in a flight between Sydney and London on the way to the Ashes in 1985? I think he drank 57 cans of Fosters and VB, and when you take in account the altitude factor, that's like 65 cans.
 

graveflower

Well-Known Member
Jun 28, 2008
77
19
Kansas
I like Patterson now but did not enjoy him years ago lol. Do you read Martha Grimes...she is American but writes some british based mysteries. She is one of my favorites. I would say the best out there today is Harlan Coben. His books are amazing.
Thank you! I will look into these...I had red some Harlan Coben years ago, honestly had forgotten about him.
 

Tuco

Member
Oct 18, 2014
19
92
For something more modern, Harlan Coben is great and so is Walter Mosley.

For the classics, John D. MacDonald has already been mentioned. I also enjoy Tony Hillerman quite a bit. Agatha Christie is always a fun read. You can't go wrong with Lawrence Block.

I'm not sure where to draw the line between "mystery/suspense" and outright crime novels, but you owe it to yourself to read Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake. Also check out Hard Case Crime, who published The Colorado Kid and Joyland. I own probably three dozen of their books or more. I haven't gotten around to reading every one of them yet, but I've been very satisfied with everything I have read and hope to complete the collection someday.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
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Well, for good mystery in an oldfashioned style check out Ellery Queen. He had several phases so he is a bit uneven but his best are really good. Cat with many tails is a good one. A modern good author is the canadian writer Peter Robinson whose books take place in Yorkshire, england. Ruth Rendell is very capable mixing more straight mysterys with psychological thrillers. She is the birthmother of the genre so to speak. Also writes under the name Barbara Wine. Going in her direction is Frances Fyfield. good stories that often has a rather horrid touch. Takes up subjects sometimes that makes you doubt the human soul. She is more contemporary than Rendell who is rather old now. Current mystery writers worth noticing are Reginald Hill and Denise Mina.

All US-readers interested in crime ought to read the great four in american crime. Chandler, Hammett, John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald. A very good author in the rather specialised field historical crime is Steven Saylor. His Roma Sub Rosa series takes place in Roman during the end of the Roman Republic when such historical figures as Cicero, Caesar, Pompei and Crassus plays bitparts.
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
44,082
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Well, for good mystery in an oldfashioned style check out Ellery Queen. He had several phases so he is a bit uneven but his best are really good. Cat with many tails is a good one. A modern good author is the canadian writer Peter Robinson whose books take place in Yorkshire, england. Ruth Rendell is very capable mixing more straight mysterys with psychological thrillers. She is the birthmother of the genre so to speak. Also writes under the name Barbara Wine. Going in her direction is Frances Fyfield. good stories that often has a rather horrid touch. Takes up subjects sometimes that makes you doubt the human soul. She is more contemporary than Rendell who is rather old now. Current mystery writers worth noticing are Reginald Hill and Denise Mina.

All US-readers interested in crime ought to read the great four in american crime. Chandler, Hammett, John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald. A very good author in the rather specialised field historical crime is Steven Saylor. His Roma Sub Rosa series takes place in Roman during the end of the Roman Republic when such historical figures as Cicero, Caesar, Pompei and Crassus plays bitparts.
Ruth just passed away at the beginning of this month, Kurben.
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
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sweden
Ruth just passed away at the beginning of this month, Kurben.
Yeah, i remember now. Well, she will always live in her books. I don't the psychological thriller, so common nowadays, would have got off the ground without her. She both built the plane and wrote the manual in how to do and now her inheritors, like Frances Fyfield among others, keep it flying.