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Who should you have read but haven't?
Thursday, August 15, 2013
What Crime Fiction Writer Do You Keep Meaning to Read?
For me, Denise Mina. She wins all the awards (Old Theakston the last two years)
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and I keep meaning to read her. Have even started one or two of her early books and found them a bit hard to get into. I do not persevere much, demanding immediate accessibility to the world of the book.
Who should you have read but haven't?
Who should you have read but haven't?
Jo Nesbo. I have the books, but haven't gotten around to read it.
ReplyDeleteGreg Rucka - Atticus, Mickey Spillane - Hammer, Hakan Nesser.....3 for starters!
ReplyDeleteGeorge, I'm reading his first book now - THE BAT. It was jsut published here for the first time after a half dozen of his later ones so our timing is right.
ReplyDeleteI tried Denise Mina, Patti but just way too dark for me.
A partial list:
Louise Penny
Stephen Booth
Ann Cleeves
John Lawton
Zoe Sharp
Ace Atkins
Timothy Hallinan
Peter May
Tana French (got her first book)
Of course, there is no guarantee I will like them if I do read them, but I'll try. And there are definitely others.
Jeff M.
Haven't read Nesbo either. Phil read one.
ReplyDeleteNor Rucka, Cleeves, Hallinan, Sharp, Lawton. Really liked the one Penny I read and loved the May and three of the French books. Read one Ace Atkins but not the new stuff.
THE BLACK HOUSE by May is amazing. Can't wait to read LEWIS MAN.
Patti - That's the thing. There is never enough time to read it all! I keep meaning to read some of Jack Vance's work besides his 'Ellery Queen' stuff. Still haven't... :-(
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMegan Abbott. I still haven't read one of her books, though I've been meaning to. I just very rarely read crime fiction, although I generally enjoy it when I do.
ReplyDeleteI read Chesbro's BONE (which I liked a lot, as far as I can remember at this late date) and his Roberk Frederickson short story collection, IN THE HOUSE OF SECRET ENEMIES.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading other Scandinavians and little things I read somewhere I was expecting the Nesbo book to be dark, but so far (despite the murder of course) it is anything but. Perhaps the fact that it is set in Sydney rather than Oslo helps, or maybe I haven't reached the dark part.
Jeff M.
Contemporary:
ReplyDeleteKarin Fossum
Timothy Hallinan
Linwood Barcaly
Lisa Brackmann
The Oldies:
Raoul Whitfield
Paul Cain
Lenore Glen Offord
Robert Reeves
Really liked TRUST YOUR EYES by Barclay.
ReplyDeleteReally liked TRUST YOUR EYES by Barclay.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks about Paul Cain. I picked up his novel, whose title escapes me, when I read that Raymond Chandler extolled Cain's work.
ReplyDeleteTwenty pages in there were already enough indistinguishable characters to give me a headache, and I gave it up.
Ken Bruen.
ReplyDeleteLove the jack Taylor series!
ReplyDeleteFAST ONE. Paul Cain. No time for certain things.
ReplyDeleteDitto on Jack Taylor but I must admit his Brant & Roberts series is a guilty pleasure. I also liked TRUST YOUR EYES, though it was a little long.
ReplyDeleteI really like Whitfield's Jo Gar stories (originally as by Ramon Decolta). Crippen & Landru published JO GAR's CASEBOOK a few years back.
It's been 30 years since I read Cain's FAST ONE so don't remember much, Al. You might prefer his shorter stuff in SEVEN SLAYERS.
Jeff M.
I have Charles Willeford, Bruse DaSilva, Craig Johnson, and Saniel Woodrell are all on my TBR list, but I haven't gotten to any of the yet.
ReplyDeleteRaymond Chandler.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of burned out on crime fiction, to be honest.
P.D. James, Mary Higgins Clark, and Elizabeth George.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I'm amazed at how many of the authors already listed that I have read. Barbara read (the UK edition) of HTE BAT and liked it, but not one of the others.
ReplyDeleteFor my answer to the question, Saul Bellow, Flannery O’Connor, Jose Saramago, William Aird, Cyril Hare, Wilson Tucker and that's just after a quick glance at the shelves.
I tried listening to a Linwood Barclay novel and the narrator was awful.
ReplyDeleteI read a Greg Rucka shoot-em-up spy novel and enjoyed it.
For me there are a million of them, but the one that just popped into mind is Rob Kitchin. I read his blog frequently, and I even have one of his books, but I just haven't gotten to it yet.
ReplyDeleteJosephine Tey. I've nearly all her mystery novels, but haven't read one of them till this day. Always end up picking something else.
ReplyDeleteI keep telling myself I'm going to read some of the popular Scandinavian mystery writers--but another book always seems to pop up and drag me away.
ReplyDeleteDeb
Loads of them - especially American male authors. Robert B Parker, Ed McBain....honestly the list is endless. I think my dislike of the few American authors I read - Hammett et al - put the idea in my head that they were all the same. I really should do something about this mental block
ReplyDeleteGood question! What US writers would you like? The answer would depend on which British Orwell Australian writers you like.
ReplyDeleteDeb, you could try Sjowall & Wahloo, the originals of all the Scandinavians who have followed.
ReplyDeleteJeff M.
My ability to imagine someone liking "Ed McBain" that much more than Hammett is limited. But I suppose there are those who like Michael Avallone better than either.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of the Avallones of the world, I'm still nagged by the notion that I'm confusing Rucka with someone else who writes prose and comics scripts...in fact, I probably owe Rucka an apology thus.
I was, indeed, conflating Greg Rucka with Brad Meltzer...who wrote some of the worst prose I've ever seen professionally published in this one story/long excerpt I found in one magazine or another (I think at the end of a recent comic book, in fact, and not in the tradition of the mailing permit vignettes that Patricia Highsmith and Mickey Spillane wrote in the 1940s--the Metzger wasn't even That good), and I sure hope it was the worst he's ever allowed to escape.
ReplyDeleteApologies to Rucka on two counts!
Meanwhile, as I noted before:
George Chesbro would be one I've been meaning to get to. Kit Reed's work as Kit Craig, as well.
As with Jeff and most of us, among many others. Including, I suppose, Rucka.
Patti my problem is I suppose I don't know where to start with American male authors. The non-American male authors I really like include Alan Glynn, Adrian McKinty, Peter Temple, Garry Disher, Deon Meyer, Geoffrey McGeachin, Reginald Hill, Adrian Hyland, Johan Theorin, Domingo Villar, Andrea Camilleri.
ReplyDeleteI don't really expect you to deduce from all of that the perfect American bloke for me to start reading but you've prompted me to write my own post about this subject
Bernadette, I'm not really sure what to suggest, but I really like your list and I will benefit from picking up some of the writers on it that I don't know yet.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this post is too belated for Bernadette to read it but if she is already reading Peter Temple and Deon Meyer she's reading a couple great dudes, American or not.
ReplyDeleteVictor Gischler is a favorite of mine.
Bernadette, I'm with you on Meyer, Hill and Camilleri. A few suggestions - Steven F. Havill (New Mexico, by the border of Mexico), Archer Mayor (Vermont), Bill Crider (Texas).
ReplyDeleteJeff M.