Category: Personal

What a time-consuming yet fruitful project this turned into. When I started looking back at my long-term reading log for the 6 Degrees of Separation meme, I discovered a lot of authors and/or series that I had begun to enjoy in the past but had not kept up with more recently. Many of these authors and series I discovered back in the early days of recorded books, which were called books on tape back then because they came as a series of cassettes in a cardboard box that we mailed back when we were done with them so that we could order more. Back then our daughter was swimming competitively, and we spent lots of time in the car driving to and from swim meets. I therefore went through a lot of recorded books.

Eventually CDs replaced cassette tapes, and then the CDs gave way to downloaded audio files. Those changes combined with the end of my daughter’s swimming meant that I listened to fewer audiobooks. That was when I lost track of many authors and their next publications.

There are a few authors whom I’ve followed faithfully and have read every one of their books in some format (printed book, ebook, or audiobook):

• Michael Connelly  
• John Sandford 
• Harlan Coben  
• Tana French 
• (formerly) Sue Grafton

The list below (ordered alphabetically by author’s last name) comprises authors whose works I’ve lost touch with over time. Only a few of them are authors I gave up by choice because their novels no longer worked for me. So unless stated otherwise, assume that I haven’t read these authors recently because of this most cruel fate for book lovers:

So many books,

So little time.

Kate Atkinson

I first learned about Kate Atkinson back in 1997 when my library book group read and loved her debut novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I next read Case Histories for another book group, the introductory novel of her Jackson Brodie series, in 2006. Over the intervening years I’ve read a couple more of Atkinson’s novels but none of the Jackson Brodie series. There are now four more, which I’m looking forward to reading after rereading Case Histories.

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Alan Bradley

One of the series that I dropped on purpose is the Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley.

I know I’m in the minority here, because a lot of people love this series. But after reading the first novel in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, I had no desire to read any more. I like a good child narrator, but little Flavia just annoyed me right from the beginning.

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Edna Buchanan

I’ve missed Edna Buchanan. In fact, I thought she might have died until I recently came upon this article. Now in her early 80s, she’s still a fixture in Miami but hasn’t published a work of fiction since 2011, a fact that explains why I’d heard nothing about her for a while.

Buchanan first made a name for herself by reporting on crime for Miami newspapers. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her newspaper work in 1986. I discovered her back in 1992 when I read her nonfiction work The Corpse Had a Familiar Face, a compilation of cases she’d reported on. But I most enjoyed her crime novels set in Miama featuring reporter Britt Montero.

For a further look at Edna Buchanan, see the New Yorker profile by Calvin Trillin from 1986.

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James Lee Burke

My husband and I both love Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series, which we discovered in the mid 1990s, in our heyday with books on cassettes. I’ve listened to seven Robicheaux novels, but I have some catching up to do, since the series is now up to 11 books.

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Sarah Caudwell

Sarah Caudwell was the pseudonym of British barrister Sarah Cockburn. She wrote her four-book Hilary Tamar series over the course of 20 years.

Reminiscing about Sarah Caudwell in Mystery Scene Martin Edwards writes, “Sarah Caudwell’s books are admittedly an acquired taste. . . . Readers who crave penetrating social comment or in-depth characterisation in their mysteries should look elsewhere.”

I read both the first (Thus Was Adonis Murdered) and the last (The Sibyl in Her Grave) books in this series but never felt compelled to read the two middle ones. What I remember most about them is that they never reveal whether Hilary Tamar is a man or a woman. This is harder to accomplish than it might seem. Imagine having to construct every sentence so as to avoid using either he or she—and to do so without having the sentences sound awkward or unnatural. 

According to her publisher, Penguin Random House, Sarah Caudwell died in 2000.

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Patricia Cornwell

I initially liked Cornwell’s series featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. But I quit that series after book #9, 1998’s Point of Origin because, as Kay Scarpetta became more shrill and self-centered, the story lines also became more improbable. According to Patricia Cornwell’s website, she has published 14 more Scarpetta novels since Point of Origin. She also has two additional series and a bunch of other books, but I won’t be reading them.

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Stephen Dobyns

I discovered Stephen Dobyns back in 1994 when I listed to a book (on tape) from his Charlie Bradshaw series, all of which contain Saratoga in the title. The series comprises 10 novels published between 1976 and 1998, plus an 11^th book published in 2017. These are entertaining mysteries featuring a former police officer now working, by choice, as a private investigator. One of the recurring themes is Charlie’s mother’s complaints that he should get a real job and his attempts to convince her that he’s a PI because he WANTS to be. These mysteries features some of the quirkiest yet most lovable minor characters you’ll ever meet.

I also have to mention Dobyns’s stand-along novel The Church of Dead Girls, an unflinching depiction of mob mentality couched in a murder mystery. And his novel Cold Dog Soup is, no kidding, about the weirdest yet most engaging novel I’ve ever read.

Dobyns is also well known as a poet and a writing instructor.

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Earl Emerson

Earl Emerson was a firefighter in Seattle, WA, for 32 years. He began publishing mysteries and thrillers in 1985. I discovered him when our daughter entered the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, the city where Emerson was born. He’s the author of two series—the Thomas Black series and the Mac Fontana series—as well as several stand-alone novels. His books have won several awards. 

More information about Emerson and his books is available on his website.

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 G.M. Ford

I discovered author G.M. Ford at about the same time I became aware of Earl Emerson because both lived in Seattle. (But according to Ford’s current publisher, Harper Collins, he now lives in Oregon.) I’ve read a few of Ford’s 

Leo Waterman novels, which feature a fiesty private detective living and working in Seattle. Ford’s first published book, Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca? (1995) introduced the Waterman series and was nominated for three mystery awards. There are currently 11 Waterman novels, of which I’ve read only a few, but I have several more waiting on my Kindle.

Ford also writes the Frank Corso series, which is now up to six novels. In addition, he has published three stand-alone novels.

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Sue Grafton

Like just about every other mystery fan, I loved Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series. I usually preferred the audiobook format of these novels because I liked hearing a spoken version of Kinsey’s quirky voice.

In detective series, the authors have to balance a certain inevitable sameness — we read these books for the comfortable familiarity of hanging with someone we know — with a need to keep things fresh. Sue Grafton made a dramatic change midway through the alphabet with her Kinsey Millhone series; the books became significantly longer, and less private-eye caper than nuanced psychological thriller, employing a variety of narrative voices (not just Kinsey’s). I liked the change, for the most part, but I heard from readers who didn’t.

Moira Macdonald

Unfortunately, Sue Grafton died in December 2017, after the publication of “Y” is for Yesterday. She had planned to name the next book “Z” is for Zero, but complications from cancer treatment prevented her from doing much work on it. After she died, her family stated that, for them, “from now on, the alphabet ends with Y.”

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P.D. James

I first read some of P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh series back in the early 1990s, although I didn’t read them in order. These novels use most of the classic mystery plot devices but rely on well-developed characters to hold the reader’s attention. Her Inspector Dalgliesh is an introspective, deeply moral character. The last of the 14 Dalgliesh novels, The Private Patient, was published in 2008. I hope to read the rest of this series.

James also wrote two novels featuring Cordelia Gray, a young private detective, and a few stand-alone novels, which you can read about on the author’s website.

P.D. James died on November 27, 2014.

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Jonathan Kellerman

I discovered Jonathan Kellerman’s series featuring clinical psychologist Alex Delaware back in 1992, with the fifth book in the series, Time Bomb. I’ve read eight of these books, but, as the series is now up to book #34, I have a lot more to look forward to. I have #10, The Web, on my Kindle now.

For more information about Jonathan Kellerman and his books, see his website.

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Ed McBain

Salvatore Albert Lombino (born in 1926) legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952. For more than 50 years he was a prolific writer of fiction, screenplays, and television episodes but is probably best remembered for his fictional 87th Precinct series, 55 novels published under the pseudonym Ed McBain between 1956 and 2005. This series set the standard for what would develop into the genre of police procedural fiction.

The 87^th Precinct novels are set in the fictional city of Isola, a thinly disguised version of New York City’s Manhattan. Although several characters appear in many of the novels, the focus is always on the squad as a whole rather than on individual detectives as they work to solve crimes.

In addition to crime fiction, Evan Hunter published science fiction and wrote many film and television scripts under several names before his death in 2005.

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Val McDermid

I also discovered Scottish crime writer Val McDermid on tape. She currently has four series going, but I’ve only read (or listened to) several from the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series. This series features clinical psychologist Tony Hill working with detective Carol Jordan to solve crimes by getting inside the mind of the criminal. With the next installment of the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, How the Dead Speak, due out in the U.S. on 12/3/2019, I have some catching up to do here.

I should also mention McDermid’s stand-alone novel A Place of Execution, which is so good I’ve read it twice.

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Denise Mina

Back in 2001 one of my book groups read Garnethill, Scottish writer Denise Mina’s first novel, which won the CWA John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. Since then, I’ve been aware of Mina’s subsequent publications and the prominence they have brought her. According to just about everyone, her fame is well deserved, so I should try to catch up with her work.

Her complete publication list appears on her website, along with other information about the writer and her career.

Update: Why We Love Denise Mina’s Mysteries

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Marcia Muller

I discovered Marcia Muller back in 1996, when I got interested in contemporary portrayals of female detectives. Edwin of the Iron Shoes, the first novel in Muller’s Sharon McCone series, was published in 1977. McCone therefore preceded both Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone and Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, both of whom were introduced in 1982 (Milhone in “A” Is for Alibi and Warshawski in Indemnity Only).

Back in 1996 I read the first two Sharon McCone novels. According to Goodread’s Sharon McCone page the series is now up to more than 30 books, with the most recent, The Breakers, having been published in 2018.

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Sara Paretsky

Along with Marcia Muller and Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky revolutionized the portrayal of women detectives with her V.I. Warshawski series.

I’ve read several of those novels, but by no means all. Paretsky lives in Chicago and is an outspoken critic of efforts to silence women’s voices and to take away their rights. More information about both her fiction and her nonfiction is available on her website.

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Ann B. Ross

I discovered Ross’s Miss Julia series back in 2000 when my library book group read the first novel, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind. Miss Julia is a Southern widow of a certain age, with a sharp tongue and crazy friends. I should read more of these books now that I myself have attained a certain age.

More information is available on the author’s website.

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Minette Walters

When I realized that I hadn’t heard anything about Walters, including any new publications, I went looking and found this article in The Guardian dated May 8, 2017. According to the article, Walters helped create the genre we now know as the psychological thriller with “an unbroken run of bestsellers from 1993 [that] ended abruptly in 2007 with her last crime novel, The Chameleon’s Shadow.” Walters attributes this long break to burnout over writing crime fiction. The article heralds Walters’s shift to historical fiction with the publication (in November 2017) of her first novel in 10 years, The Last Hours, about the Black Death.

I love to innovate and, while it pleases me greatly that I’ve helped create the genre of psychological crime fiction, I’d be going against my nature if I didn’t look towards different horizons.

Minette Walters

A look at my reading database and Minette Walters’s website reveals that I’ve read the first seven of her novels, so I have many more—including a few of her early psychological suspense and several more recent pubications—to look forward to.

I particularly recommend her first novel, The Ice House, and her third, The Scold’s Bridle. 

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Stephen White

I discovered the Alan Gregory series by Stephen White back in the early days of books on tape. I listened to the first eight books in this series featuring clinical psychologist Alan Gregory but then lost touch with the series as technology changed and books on cassettes transitioned to audiobooks for download. Finding book #9, The Program (2008), recently on sale as an ebook reminded me of this excellent series.

A recent check of Stephen White’s website revealed that his latest novel, Compound Fractures, is the 20^th and final installment of the Alan Gregory series. But White assures his fans that he can’t imagine himself not writing. He’s currently working on the development of two television dramas and has several ideas for novels bouncing around in his head.

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Stuart Woods

I don’t remember exactly what lead me to author Stuart Woods, but I know I discovered him back in those heady days of books on cassette tapes. I have first-hand knowledge of four of his series:

1. Will Lee series 

I very much enjoyed Woods’s first novel, Chiefs (1981), based on a family story. This novel became the first in the Will Lee series.

2. Stone Barrington series

After Chiefs, I started reading Woods’s series featuring former NYPD detective now turned lawyer Stone Barrington. I began with the first novel in this series, New York Dead (1991). I read several more of the books in the series but eventually stopped because the stories became progressively more and more outlandish and just plain silly.

3. Ed Eagle series

I’ve read only the first book, Santa Fe Rules, in this series featuring New Mexico lawyer Ed Eagle.

4. Holly Barker series

I’ve also read only the first book, Orchid Beach, in this series.

Woods also has three more series, which you can read about in Liberty Hardy’s article A Definitive Guide to All of Stuart Woods’ Series. But the Stone Barrington series, now at more than 50 books, is obviously the author’s baby. The other series are all much shorter, and many of their main  characters appear at least tangentially across more than one series.

Stuart Woods has also written several stand-alone novels, of which I’ve enjoyed several. For more information, including a downloadable PDF checklist of all Woods’s books listed by series, see his website.

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© 2019 by Mary Daniels Brown