Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 910188 times)

Steph · « **Reply #8040 on:** March 16, 2016, 10:19:42 AM »

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Pull up a comfortable chair and join us here to talk about mysteries and their authors.
We love hearing what YOU enjoy and recommend!

Links:
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Stop You're Killing Me

Discussion Leader: JoanK

I do like McLeod.. She never fails to set up some wonderful situations.
Spent most of yesterday trying to get the rest of my stuff for taxes.. Ihave pipe lines and they are exampt from normal stuff, and I still cannot make the site diegorge my K1,, keep giving me nonsense stuff. Sigh.. So I will h ave to call.

mabel1015j · « **Reply #8041 on:** March 16, 2016, 01:13:25 PM »

I've just finished one of the free ebooks from Amazon - "Friday Edition" by Ferrendelli. It was slow getting started but turned out to be an interesting mystery about a woman alcohlic who is in denial about her drinking even though she had lost a job because of her drinking. When her sister, an assisstant district attorney who had acknowledged her alcoholism a few years before, dies, Samamtha Church has to look deeper at her sister's death and her own life. She now writes for a weekly publication, thus the "Friday" in the title, and is supported by the editor to investigate her sister's death and her own life.

Jean

JoanK · « **Reply #8042 on:** March 16, 2016, 05:41:24 PM »

Got Friday edition on kindle, but my search for mistletoe mysteries got many pages of results, and I got tired of looking.

Steph · « **Reply #8043 on:** March 17, 2016, 08:39:29 AM »

For some reason, I think that Mistletoe Mysteries is quite old and was a collection of short stories..if that helps.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8044 on:** March 17, 2016, 10:27:59 AM »

You are absolutely right, Steph. I must have had this book for near on 25 years without getting around to it! That is why the paper is very brittle and has turned ecru in color. And yes, it IS a collection of Christmas mystery stories by famous authors, starting off with one by herself, which I enjoyed immensely. Then a Peter Lovesey, a Mary Higgins Clark, a Sharyn McCrumb, an Isaac Asimov, and so on and on. I believe there are 14 in all.

JoanK · « **Reply #8045 on:** March 17, 2016, 03:39:10 PM »

Sounds great!

Steph · « **Reply #8046 on:** March 18, 2016, 08:23:50 AM »

I am sure I read it many years ago. but I rarely keep books except for a very few authors.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8047 on:** March 19, 2016, 01:13:56 PM »

Have just made a brand new, for me, discovery, and am betting most of you have not known about him, on the grounds he has never, to my memory, been mentioned in here. I will make an exception for Steph, because she owned her very own Book Store.

I told you I am reading a short story anthology Charlotte MacLeod put together, and a story I have just started is by Bill Pronzini. Never heard of him. Turns out he has written FORTY (40) novels about a detective WITH NO NAME! That's right! The world of mystery writers and mysteries and crime novels calls his the Nameless Detective Series! Woo Hoo! Who knew? Not I! Oh, and he is married to Marcia Muller! Now no doubt you ALL know her mystery novels.

Let's hear it for new discoveries, however old they may be! He has also written more than 300 short stories and put together just one whole lot of anthologies.

Tomereader1 · « **Reply #8048 on:** March 19, 2016, 03:03:24 PM »

I have read almost all 40 of Pronzini's "No Name Detective" series. Love it! and Marcia Muller, too.

nlhome · « **Reply #8049 on:** March 19, 2016, 07:50:10 PM »

I'm reading one of Marcia Muller's books right now, and I just finished one by her and Billl Pronzini, a Quincannon and Carpenter book "The Body Snatchers Affair." I do like the Nameless Detective series as well, but I haven't read any recently.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8050 on:** March 19, 2016, 10:38:21 PM »

Well how wrong could I be!

Impressed no end that bothTomereader and nlhome know this author.

Steph · « **Reply #8051 on:** March 20, 2016, 09:12:42 AM »

I like Marcia better, but have read The Nameless detective and he also loves to put together short story collections.. Not too crazy about the Quincannon stuff.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8052 on:** March 20, 2016, 10:08:37 AM »

I have always known about Marcia, and in fact still have some of her books which I have not yet read, but he is brand new to me. I knew you would know of him.

JoanK · « **Reply #8053 on:** March 20, 2016, 04:34:17 PM »

I haven't read all of Pronzini's, but a number. To me, they vary a lot in quality, but the best are very very good. The same goes for those he and Muller write together.

JoanK · « **Reply #8054 on:** March 20, 2016, 04:42:16 PM »

Maybe I'm just in a negative mood. I have to take back my recommendation of Michael Stanley's books about Botswana. I got two more from the library: abandoned one from boredom, and slogged through the other. Too long (over 450 pages) and slow. In the last (A Carrion Death) all the characters were evil, killing each other off, so it's hard to care who's left.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/michael-stanley/

nlhome · « **Reply #8055 on:** March 20, 2016, 10:10:24 PM »

Joan, I tried to read A Carrion Death and did not like the characters and did not get very far into it. I thought it would give a different perspective of Botswana, and I did read up a bit about diamond trade and mines, but it just didn't seem worth my time.

Steph · « **Reply #8056 on:** March 21, 2016, 08:41:42 AM »

After Gone Girl, if in the first 50 pages, there is noone to like, I toss it.. life is too darned short.

JoanK · « **Reply #8057 on:** March 21, 2016, 05:54:12 PM »

NLHOME: I agree. It gets worse, not better. Sorry I misled you.

Steph · « **Reply #8058 on:** March 22, 2016, 09:01:26 AM »

Almost finished with a Robert Crais.. This one is Scott and Maggie( the dog), Joe Pike and Elvis all rolled up together. a Bit scattered, but anything about Maggie is worth it.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8059 on:** March 22, 2016, 12:28:14 PM »

Well, I finished MacLeod's anthology of short Christmas stories, Mistletoe Mysteries, and resolutely took myself back to the living room shelves full of old, never read paperbacks and grabbed a Charlotte MacLeod called The Convivial Codfish. Should be fun. Also brittle paper turned slightly ecru in color. Published in paperback in 1985!

The problem is, I used to buy every single author I loved in paperback just as soon as a particular title came out that way. I haunted a couple of bookshops, one of which specialized in paperbacks, so as not to miss anything. The result is, since I have kept on buying all of these years, more books than I can possibly read in the time allotted me.

But at least I can make a dent in these real oldies. They are, after all, also goodies, and by some of the masters of this particular art.

JoanK · « **Reply #8060 on:** March 22, 2016, 05:38:43 PM »

That sounds great. Like discovering buried treasure in your bookcase.

I used to love to haunt used bookstores. unfortunately, I've developed a great sensitivity to mold. It affects my library use too. A lot of their books look new on the outside but are moldy inside. I got quite sick trying to read one anyhow.

nlhome · « **Reply #8061 on:** March 22, 2016, 09:10:41 PM »

I like to try authors I am not familiar with, so I didn't feel misled. Joan. Now I know. Like Steph, I don't have time to waste on something that doesn't catch my interest in a reasonable time.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8062 on:** March 22, 2016, 10:46:12 PM »

I have a huge allergic reaction to mold as well, Joan. I even react to a little bit of mildew. For this reason, I have had to be very careful about where I live and, of course, how I do my housekeeping from day to day. I frequently wash my shower curtain and add quite a bit of Clorox to the washer while it is going.

Steph · « **Reply #8063 on:** March 23, 2016, 08:49:45 AM »

Mold bothers me, but a little mildew.. no.. However I have to be careful in my thrift shop shopping, since many of the books seem to have been owned by smokers and that does bother me.
The Codfish is a very very funny book. I remember laughing a lot in that one. She is a really good writer.

ginny · « **Reply #8064 on:** March 24, 2016, 06:44:14 AM »

I am really enjoying Mary Page's trip down memory lane with these books. I used to love to read Charlotte McLeod and that old Mistletoe Mysteries really was a good book, Mary Page...Now when you're talking about The Convivial Codfish I suddenly realized I never read that one, somehow. So I'm going to go see if I can find it.

Another really older excellent writer of cosy mysteries was Corinne Holt Sawyer. She wrote the retirement center mysteries.

She started writing them when her mother, I believe, went to a retirement center on the coast.. Sawyer was a professor of theater or something like that I think at Clemson University and she wtote about seniors as sleuths living in a place called Camden Sur Mer. I thought they were just delightful. Or at least I found them so years ago. She obviously knows the subject very well. I really like the spirit in the books and I never read one I didn't like, they were all very good, but I was really startled just recently to read an article askng whatever happened to her? I wish she'd write more books.

It turned out she did write one more, apparently called Bed, Breakfast, and Bodies, or something like that ....but it's never been published. She's retired now, long retired, and lives in California. I hope she's still alive, but she didn't want to allow them to put it out in paperback first she wanted it in hardback. I think a lot of her books are/ were in large print and when they refused to do that, she wouldn't let them publish it.

Imagine. And for fans of Corrine Holt Sawyer to know there's another one out there somewhere is very exciting, but in Edit I just looked her up on Goodreads and it is in print since 1999! They don't give a cover for it it's just blank. I don't believe I read that one, I'm going to see if I can find it somewhere.

The first title in the series was The J Alfred Prufrock Murders. Really good book.

I don't think it's available anymore. I looked on Amazon and although her other books, i think there are 8 in all, all have colorful covers and were selling for a penny because they are way out of date, that one has some kind of a cover indicating it's a reprint of a book long out of print.

So I think your old yellow pages are actually treasures! Somewhere in this house I've got her first book. I don't know where it is but I'm enjoying this walk down memory lane of books and authors we've enjoyed, and thnk i will try to find it and read it again.

Steph · « **Reply #8065 on:** March 24, 2016, 08:43:21 AM »

I loved Charlotte, but not so much the Corrinne Sawyer..They were a bit too cozy for me. Another writer,. who died some time ago was Virginia Rich.. Food mysteries and probably was the first one to do it. She only did a couple, but they were wonderful.

jane · « **Reply #8066 on:** March 24, 2016, 09:34:58 AM »

The author I devoured many years ago was Helen MacInnes, a Scottish-American Librarian who, I think, set the gold standard for espionage and intrigue. I just looked her up and she was married to a classics scholar who was also a MI6 agent. She died in 1985, but I see many of her works are still available, even as ebooks. [Wikipedia says one of her books was required reading for Allied intelligence officers going to help the French Resistance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_MacInnes ]

MaryPage · « **Reply #8067 on:** March 24, 2016, 10:19:21 AM »

Okay, if it is fun for you, and it sure is for me, I'll check on some of the authors whose mysteries I have long ago purchased so as not to miss, and then stowed away:

Simon Brett, Mary Higgins Clark, Margaret Truman, Barbara Vine, Elizabeth George, Marian Babson, Gail Bowen, Robert Barnard, Peter Abresch, Michael Allen, Anne Perry (wow! I have a LOT of her books!), Dennis Lehane, Elizabeth Lemarchand, Richard and Frances Lockridge, Peter Lovesey, Sharyn McCrumb, Ralph McInerny, Mary McMullen, Kate Morgan, Barbara Michaels, Sara Paretsky, Barbara Paul, Iain Pears, Elizabeth Peters (also Barbara Michaels?), Emily Brightwell. That does it for what is facing front; there are 4 more rows of paperbacks in the shelves BEHIND these! The cleaning ladies DID get them out of order! Well, they are from San Salvador, and it probably never occurred to them that they were in there alphabetically. At least they got them back on the same shelves!

JoanK · « **Reply #8068 on:** March 24, 2016, 04:17:09 PM »

Wow, Mary. A lot of those are still publishing.

GINNY: thank you thank you. I remember those mysteries, and have been looking for them, but couldn't remember the authors name. Here is the whole list.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/corinne-holt-sawyer/

I remember her especially because she said that there is an area by the sea in Southern California that is the perfect place for Seniors to live. Now I am living in that very area, in a senior community similar to the one she writes about (although not on the sea: 10 minutes away). Ever since I moved here, I've been looking for those books.

Steph · « **Reply #8069 on:** March 25, 2016, 08:35:22 AM »

hmm Gail Bowen.. a name I simply cannot remember at all, there are a few others that only wrote one or two.. If the Dennis Lehane books are the first of what he wrote, they are good, but possibly more violent than you would like. A really good author though.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8070 on:** March 25, 2016, 08:57:09 AM »

I think I only have the one Lehane, but of course I cannot be sure of that unless I dig into the two back rows on two large shelves. It is titled DARKNESS TAKE MY HAND and was first published in paperback in 1997. I would have bought it because of a good review.

The Gail Bowen also seems to be an only. It is THE WANDERING SOUL MURDERS and was published in paperback in 1993 in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Bowen

JoanK · « **Reply #8071 on:** March 25, 2016, 03:48:57 PM »

MaryPage: no, Gail Bowen has written over a dozen books and is still writing.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/gail-bowen/

MaryPage · « **Reply #8072 on:** March 25, 2016, 04:19:08 PM »

Oh, I knew that, Joan. I meant that it seems to be the only one of her books that I have on hand unread as yet.

Steph · « **Reply #8073 on:** March 26, 2016, 08:46:43 AM »

Darkness is good as if all of Lehane.. I am deep into another polygamy book, this on a granddaughter of the LeBaron family.. Not very far, but am convinced her mother was nuts. They lived worse than animals and the second husband abused them all, but it didnt matter because they were all going to rule on another earth when they died. Sigh..

JoanK · « **Reply #8074 on:** March 26, 2016, 06:07:57 PM »

UGH! Life is hard enough without making it harder.

Saw a video on TV about a man who miraculously survived almost certain death. Afterwards, he was interviewed. he said "Now, I don't have time to argue. I only have time to love and do good things."

MaryPage · « **Reply #8075 on:** March 26, 2016, 08:23:23 PM »

My sentiments. We are one species, and ideally we should concentrate on the things we have in common, and not upon our differences. To love all others and do good works sounds like a properly dedicated life to me!

Steph · « **Reply #8076 on:** March 27, 2016, 09:11:47 AM »

I read a lot of the mormon polygamy stuff because it is so clear to most women, that the founder of the religion simply was greedy about women. Noone married at leat 15 women each one younger who is not simply being ruled not by brain, but a lot further down.

MaryPage · « **Reply #8077 on:** March 27, 2016, 12:50:41 PM »

If it were my job to council an alien as to the guiding principles of our planet, I would tell them that First, FOLLOW THE MONEY. Always follow the money. And Second, consider the deep sexual impulses. I would confide in them that the human search for sexual gratification erases all Sense from our calculations. It is as though our brains go into hibernation.

Steph · « **Reply #8078 on:** March 28, 2016, 08:55:13 AM »

Finished my non fiction grieving over the stupidity of some women.. so need something light.. So ready to start is:" Night of the Loving Dead" by Casey Daniels.. Sort of mystery.... weirdness and a lot of silliness.. Just what I need.

Frybabe · « **Reply #8079 on:** March 28, 2016, 09:18:11 AM »

MaryPage, you just gave me my morning laugh.

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Author Topic: Mystery Corner ~ 2 (Read 910188 times)