if you find Dan Brown tedious, like I do

[tigereye]

here's a great link to more skilled mystery and suspense writers. Every time he writes another book, I say, oh my god, why don't they read Ian Pears, or Reginald Hill, or Michael Dibden....


http://italian-mysteries.com/IPap.html

[virgogal]

1. Lawrence Block is my fave.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Boy, for years and years,

Block's turned them out. He's wonderful, and I'm not a big fan of mysteries...............

[tigereye]

3. hmm, never read anything by him

I like literary and academic mysteries that mix wry cultural and political commentary or satirical slants with criminal investigations.

What are his books like?

[virgogal]

4. The Scudder series is contemporary NYC based private eye

with some profound insights tossed in.

The Keller and Rhodenbarr series can be downright funny.

He has written other things,but I never cared for them.

He is a Grand Master and desrves the honor.

[Rob Gregory Browne]

7. Block is definitely one of the best. nt

[sspeilbergfan90]

5. Thanks for the links

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Ooh, Iain Pears and Reginald Hill! And others!

Iain Pears wrote one of my favorite books of all time, a historical mystical mystery called An Instance of the Finger Post. It takes place in 17th century England, and the basic plot is that an Oxford don dies mysteriously and his maid is accused of poisoning him.

But the story is told FOUR times by four different characters, all with different personalities and prejudices. Along the way, you learn a lot about 17th century England. Highly recommended for anyone interested in European history, social history, history of science, history of religion, or just clever writing.

I love Reginald Hill's books and have already pre-ordered the next one. His characters are two Yorkshire police detectives, Andy Dalziel, an overweight, hard-drinking, dialect-speaking older man with a hilariously raunchy way of expressing himself, and his younger, university-educated partner, Peter Pascoe. If the names sound familiar, that's because the A&E network showed a few of the British TV adaptations in the 1990s.


Simon Brett's Charles Parris novels are probably out of print now, but if you can find them, they're a lot of fun. Parris is a hard-luck middle-aged actor, not so much washed up as never made it big in the first place. He's reduced to bottom-feeding jobs in show business, and he's prone to self-sabotage, but he can solve mysteries. If you've ever had any connection at all with community theater, radio stations, TV production, or advertising, you will recognize the wickedly drawn characters who appear in these mysteries.

Oh, and getting back to Italy, no account of mysteries set in Italy can be considered complete without the Venice-based novels of Donna Leon, featuring Commissario Brunetti. The plots often have to do with art, music, or history.

[Orrex]

8. I find Brown less tedious than the media frenzy that surrounds him

His work strikes me as utterly formulaic and conventional, and the ideas he foists upon his readership have been explored at length by other writers with greater skill who've nevertheless been completely overlooked by the media blitz.

[hippywife]

9. Because sometimes people

read various authors and genres for various reasons at various times. Sometimes something simple, easy to read, and fast-paced helps take ones mind off the day or crises in one's life.

I've read one book by Pears, The Dream of Scipio. I read books of varying genres and level of reading skills and comprehension. I found it pretty dull, but I read it through to the end.

Not everything appeals to everyone else at the same time, or sometimes ever.

I find it fortune that people do read, even if they don't read what I would choose.

[Flaxbee]

10. Donna Leon for a great Venice-based mystery series;

and Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series is very good, if intense.

For a long drive home I picked up a book on tape by Daniel Silva called "A Death in Vienna"; apparently it is part of a series involving a retired Mossad agent - turned art restorer named Gabriel Allon. Not bad. Not sure how the CD version compares with the books, but seems a decent enough thriller / mystery.