December GenreCAT: Mysteries

A broad definition of a mystery story is a one in which a detective character, whether an amateur or a professional, has to solve a crime. Solving the crime consists mainly of identifying who committed the crime and why they did it: who had motive, means, and opportunity?

In contrast, in thriller or suspense stories, which may sometimes be shelved alongside mysteries, the reader generally knows who is committing or planning to commit a crime, and the story is primarily about the central character racing against the clock to catch the criminal or prevent the crime from happening. Authors in this vein include Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Helen MacInnes, and Patricia Highsmith. Thrillers may have an element of espionage as well, such as in works by John le Carré and Len Deighton.

I haven't read deeply enough to ascertain where the label "crime fiction" fits into this scheme, but I'd consider it to be a catchall term that describes both mysteries and thrillers.

Some may also distinguish between "detective fiction" and "mystery fiction", but I think most mystery stories these days feature a detective of some kind, so that distinction is not particularly useful to us for this CAT.

Mysteries, or crime novels, or detective stories, come in a variety of subgenres. There's something to suit just about every taste.

Golden Age detective stories were written between the world wars, generally in England and the United States. The British Library Crime Classics series publishes many authors who wrote during this time, and American Mystery Classics publishes U.S. authors from this period. The Queens of Crime (Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh) published many of their works during this period.
There is also a sizeable literature of Golden Age–influenced mysteries by Japanese authors, known as honkaku, which Pushkin/Vertigo have been translating more of recently.

Hardboiled or noir followed the Golden Age, being especially popular in the mid-20th century. These novels usually feature a private investigator solving crimes and getting into fights and other kinds of trouble. They tend to be U.S.-based detectives, such as Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Lew Archer. Noir authors also tend to be American: for example, Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, and James M. Cain. But there are more female authors in this genre than you might think: check out the Library of Congress omnibuses featuring women crime writers of the period. The American Mystery Classics imprint also publishes works by female authors that fit these criteria.

Impossible-crime or locked-room mysteries feature a crime that is seemingly impossible. A person is found dead in a locked room, no way in or out, and all suspects are present and accounted for in the moments of the murder. In addition to figuring out whodunnit and why, the detective also needs to explain how the crime was committed. John Dickson Carr is considered to be the master of these types of stories. You'll find other ideas for locked-room mysteries in the March 2021 MysteryKIT.

Police procedurals focus on either individual police officers or a team of police officers solving cases. They may solve recent cases or cold cases. Some series that fit this mould are the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French, the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin, and the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain (which is arguably the originator of the subgenre).

Cozy mysteries usually feature an amateur detective solving a crime with or without the help of the police, although some cozy series do feature police officers as protagonists (e.g., Hamish Macbeth, Armand Gamache). Most of the violent action happens off-screen. The amateur detectives come from a wide array of professions, and sometimes animals are involved in solving the case (the August 2021 MysteryKIT covered cozy mysteries featuring animals). Many titles contain outrageous puns. I don't read a lot of cozy mysteries myself these days, but I do enjoy Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series and Mary Jane Maffini's Camilla Macphee series. You can find hundreds of other series at cozy-mystery.com.

Historical mysteries are mysteries that take place in a historical setting. What constitutes "historical" is up for debate, but anything set about 60 years or more before the book was written is a good rule of thumb. Historical mysteries often feature amateur detectives, especially in eras before the invention of modern police forces. Some series I have enjoyed include Ambrose Parry's Raven and Fisher series set in 1850s Edinburgh and Amy Stewart's Kopp Sisters mysteries set in the U.S. in the 1910s and 1920s. The November 2021 MysteryKIT covered historical mysteries, and the Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards, listed below, contains a category dedicated to historical mysteries.

Here are a few crime fiction awards lists that give me book bullets:
The Agatha Awards
The Anthony Awards
The Edgar Awards
The Dagger Awards
The Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence (formerly the Arthur Ellis awards)
The McIlvanney Prize (for Scottish crime fiction)

You can also find a much more comprehensive list of crime fiction awards at Omnimystery.com.

Happy sleuthing!

Also, if you do the Wiki thing, the link is here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/GenreCAT_2021

I set aside the last book in the Martin Beck series for this challenge: The Terrorists, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, translated by Joan Tate. And of course I've read it already.

I hope to be visiting my parents for Christmas this year, after being unable to last year because of the pandemic. If I am there, I will most assuredly be raiding my parents' mystery shelves, especially for Louise Penny's second-most-recent book, All the Devils Are Here.

My online reading group's December choices are The Throne of Caesar, the last chronologically in Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa Gordianus the Finder series, and Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis from her Flavia Albia series, both of which of course also fit the MysteryKIT's December theme of mysteries set in Ancient Greece and Rome.

My book for the Alpha Kit "Q" will fit in here also: The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn.

>4 dudes22: I'm also planning on one by Quinn for AlphaKIT and for here:

To Fetch a Thief

In addition to that one, of course what I read for MysteryKIT will also fit:
The Thieves of Ostia / Caroline Lawrence.

If I'm lucky, I'll also get this third one in:
Murder at Monticello / Rita Mae Brown

Mysteries and crime stories are one of my favorite genres. So far I am planning on reading The Complete Steel by Catherine Aird, The Knife Slipped by Erle Stanley Gardner, and An English Murder by Cyril Hare. I will most likely be reading a police procedural or two as well.

Oops! I posted in the wrong thread!

My MysteryKIT selection will fit here too. I am reading selections from The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits.

I have the next book in the Ruth Galloway series to read, so I hope to get to that.

I have book 1 in this mystery series since 2014. Time to read Blood and Justice: A Private Investigator Mystery Series by Rayven T. Hill.

I'm planning to read A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny and A Beautiful Poison by Lydia Kang. The Kang will be a quick read and the Penny will probably take me all month to read.

I'm planning on Richard Osman's The Man Who Died Twice. The first book in the series was really enjoyable, so I'm hoping this one will live up to it!

I read Murder Most Fowl by Donna Andrews as well as selections from The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits by Mike Ashley

I have finished Grimms Morde which I had planned for the November mystery KIT. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. This was a great read with the Brothers Grimm doing some sleuthing in Kassel in 1821.

COMPLETED Cruel Habitations by Kate Charles

My review:

11 years ago the unidentified body of a young woman was found in Westmead. Now Jackie Darke comes to Westmead from the Cambridgeshire fens looking for her estranged sister after the death of their father.

Quiet but compelling mystery exploring issues of family relationships and infertility.

I read Denial by Beverley McLachlin.
The author is a former supreme court judge in Canada. Her first legal mystery was just ok and I expected this one to show some improvement, but it was not to be. McLachlin's writing is flat, pedestrian, missing the quality that would lift it up. The plot is ok, but the novel just didn't do the job for me. The dreary cover is a good fit.

COMPLETED The Man By The Sea by Jack Benton

My review:

When a client asks Slim Hardy to tail her husband who she suspects is having an affair when he disappears every Friday afternoon, he finds that all the husband does is stand on a deserted local beach and read out loud. However, it appears that that stretch of beach is reputed to be haunted by a girl whose body was found there, and there have been other deaths since.

The story was creepy and atmospheric on the whole but although it was supposed to be set in Lancashire, transatlantic elements, such as the town having a police chief, kept pulling me out of the story.

Brother Cadfael's Penance by Ellis Peters

I've been putting off reading this, the last of the Brother Cadfael series, but I'm glad I finally did take the plunge. Without spoilers: Brother Cadfael finds himself having to leave his duties in order to assist in brokering a peace between Empress Maud and King Stephen. There's also some unfinished business from previous books that is being addressed, so don't read this until you've read the previous entries. Nice swan song.

The Library of Lost and Found / Phaedra Patrick
4 stars

When librarian Martha is left a book with an inscription appearing to be from her grandmother - who died three years before that inscription! - she must find out what is going on. Her parents had told her that her grandmother, Zelda (who never got along with Martha’s father, but she and Martha were two peas in a pod) had died. Not only that, the book consists of many stories that Martha herself had written when she younger; Martha hasn’t written since her grandmother died. This leads to the uncovering of many family secrets.

I really enjoyed this. I listened to the audio, and I thought it was done well. I did lose a bit of interest in the stories that Martha had written (but “stories within stories” tend to do that with me… not usually interested, I skim). I did find the rest of it – the family relationships and secrets interesting, though I did guess at one of them, but that didn’t take away my enjoyment of the book.

Nonfiction mystery - what happened to the Franklin Expedition?

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition / Owen Beattie, John Geiger
4 stars

This book first looks at the Franklin Expedition in the mid-1800s to find the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his entire crew of 129 people and two ships disappeared. In the years following, others set out to find them or some clue as to what had happened. In the early 1980s, Owen Beattie, a forensic anthropologist, and a team of others set out to the graves of three of the expedition members on Beatty Island to dig them up to do autopsies to see if that would tell them what had happened.

Surprisingly, I found the second half more interesting than the first. I guess all of it was potentially interesting to me, but I was surprised to be more engrossed in the parts as the modern-day scientists dug up the graves to find extremely well-preserved bodies and to read the details of their testing and what they found. Be warned that there are photos of the bodies that were dug up; of course, there are other interesting photos, as well.

>20 LibraryCin: That brings back memories. I worked with Owen Beattie and others on the team, when he wrote this book. The book came out in the UK a year before the publishing date in Canada so I had my mother mail a copy to me. When he signed my book it was the first time he'd seen a copy. He was also a fascinating lecturer.

>21 VivienneR: Wow, that must have been so interesting! Were you at U of A at the time, then?

>22 LibraryCin: Yes, I was at the U of A at the time, my favourite job.

Murder at Monticello / Rita Mae Brown
2 stars

This is the third book in this series. The pets in the series understand the humans and provide commentary amongst themselves, though the humans are unable to understand the pets. In this one, a skeleton is found, dating back to 1803, and it appears that the person was hit with something on the back of the head and murdered, so the townspeople are digging through history to see if they can figure out what happened. Part-way through the book, one of the current-day characters is also murdered.

I’m surprised I came up with a coherent summary, but I think it’s fairly accurate. That being said, I just wasn’t interested in what was happening in the book; when I lose interest, I skim and miss much of the goings-on. I assume both murders were cleared up at the end, but I couldn’t say for sure. The animals are somewhat cute/amusing, but even then, not always. I will not be continuing the series.

I've read God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen by Rhys Bowen for both the GenreCAT and RandomCAT this month. Although this is the most current in the Royal Spyness Mysteries, I read it because I wanted to read a Christmas mystery. I found the first half of this book very slow going, but really enjoyed the second half when more was happening. The title is a play on words from the hymn, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; however, the title reflects the story since several royal gentlemen are murdered by the same person. There are a number of suspects, but I did not expect the culprit until near the end of the story. I prefer Ms. Bowen's Molly Murphy mysteries featuring an immigrant to New York City over these Royal Spyness mysteries which feature Lady Georgiana Rannoch who is connected to the British royalty although the British history is interesting.

This is perfect, and a great way to cozy up with a mystery. I have several Agatha Christie volumes, and probably a couple of police procedurals sitting on my shelves. The Agatha Christie would be re-read(s), given that it's been a few decades since I last sat down with these particular volumes. But all the better to remember this Golden Age!

>21 VivienneR: Honestly, Vivienne, not to be a Fan Girl, but SQUEEEE!! How exciting! What a great story, and what an amazing book. And so glad you got to be a part of its research and publication.

Currently reading A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

I've finished The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn.

I have finished Three hands in the fountain which was an unintentional re-read and slightly disappointing.

As so often happen, plans change and so I am not reading either book that I originally had set aside. So far this month I have read An English Murder by Cyril Hare, Not Dead Yet and Dead Man's Time by Peter James and Dead Run by P. J. Tracy.

I am reading Xmas Marks the Spot by Kris Pearson

I read cozy mystery, featuring Agatha Raison, Kissing Christmas Goodbye by M.C. Beaton. Christmas and mystery.

Currently reading a book of essays about the genre, rather than a book in the genre, Murder in the Closet, edited by Curtis Evans.

The Overnight Guest / Heather Gudenkauf
4.5 stars

Current day: Wylie is a true crime writer who has left her son with her ex-husband to head to an isolated rural area where she has rented an old farmhouse to be able to better concentrate on her writing. On a cold, blizzardy, freezing-rain/snow-filled night, she finds a little boy curled up in the snow outside the house. She brings him in to warm him up, but he’s not talking as to how or why he was there.

2020: 12-year olds Josie and Becky are best friends, but tragedy strikes when Becky stays overnight one night. The farmhouse then houses two murdered people and two people have disappeared. Josie is the only one who managed to get away.

Timeline unclear initially: a mother and daughter are kept locked in a basement, with an abusive man/father coming to visit occasionally.

Wow, this pulled me in right away and I wanted to keep reading! Unfortunately, for me, I was reading before bed (twice) and especially the first night, I had a hard time getting to sleep! (Which, really, in a thriller or horror book, is a good thing!). All three storylines were appealing to me, and the author brought them together very well.

>31 DeltaQueen50: that happens to me a LOT.

>31 DeltaQueen50: >36 fuzzi: Likewise

I have read The Ides of March by Lindsey Davis, the first book in the Flavia Albia series. It is a mystery set in Rome in 89 AD. The author wrote a previous series featuring Flavia's father, Marcis Didius Falco and I plan to read the first in that series too. In this book Flavia, a young widow, has taken up her father's profession of investigator. My only problem with the book is that I didn't like the Flavia character. She is a determind investigator who takes reckless chances and I grew rather tired of her.

COMPLETED A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

My review:

Inspector Chen is assigned to look into the contacts of Xing Xing, a corrupt official who has fled with his ill-gotten gains to the United States in an attempt to claim political asylum.

Although I enjoyed the previous books in this series, I didn't really get on with this one and often found myself making excuses not to pick it up. I don't think I will be continuing with the series.

COMPLETED A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

My review:
Inspector Chen is assigned to look into the contacts of Xing Xing, a corrupt official who has fled with his ill-gotten gains to the United States in an attempt to claim political asylum.

Although I enjoyed the previous books in this series, I didn't really get on with this one and often found myself making excuses not to pick it up. I don't think I will be continuing with the series.

COMPLETED A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon

Anton Palook is shot on stage while dancing the role of Petrushka in the ballet of the same name. Inspector Quill is assigned to investigate the murder.

Not as funny as I remember from reading it as a teenager but still very enjoyable.

Starting Death in the Fifth Position by Edgar Box (aka Gore Vidal)

COMPLETED Death in the Fifth Position by Edgar Box

My review:

A dancer falls to her death when the wire she was suspended from is severed. The company's assistant publicity officer investigates because the police's main suspect seems to be the dancer's understudy, his girlfriend, and he had unwittingly handled the pair of shears which served as the murder weapon.

Competently enough done but doesn't really have the spark I've always enjoyed with Gore Vidal.

COMPLETED Murder in the Closet, edited by Curtis Evans

My review:

A look at mystery writing from the 1880s to the 1960s in which characters can be read as gay or lesbian. Some of the essays are more convincing than others. I've added some of the books discussed to my TBR list but for the most part they were by authors I was already aware of.

Currently reading Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

I've read a second mystery for the month, Mrs. Pollifax Pursued by Dorothy Gilman

COMPLETED Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Read The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis for both the MysteryKIT and this

I've just finished reading The Red Carnelian by Phyllis A. Whitney. This particular mystery had too much terror for my tastes.

I re-listened to The Strangler Vine (Avery & Blake #1; by M.J. Carter; narrated by Alex Wyndham) - Historical Fiction set in India, 1837: The British East India Trade Company wields power & force on the subcontinent, bringing jurisprudence, religion and order to millions of people who aren’t really looking for subjugation. William Avery, a young, naive and debt-ridden Captain, is tasked with accompanying the recalcitrant polyglot, Blake on a mission to find a controversial poet who happens to be adding to the tensions simmering between the native Indians and the British... This is a spy thriller/mystery with adventure and a touch of melodrama. The audiobook narrator reigns in his natural exuberance (cf Edward III: The Perfect King by Ian Mortimer) but does a great job of embodying the characters and telling the story. I originally listened to this in 2019 when I was reading/listening to books at a near-record pace and I'm glad I took the opportunity to re-visit this book in particular. There's something to said about devoting a little more mental time & energy to a book. Upgraded my rating on this one from 3.50 stars to a solid 4.0 stars :-)

The Homecoming / Andrew Pyper
3.5 stars

Aaron, his mother, and his two sisters, Bridge and Fanny, are brought together at an isolated lodge/acreage(?) to be read the will of their father/husband, who had a fairly secret life, of which neither his kids, nor his wife knew much about. It turns out he was worth millions, but to be able to inherit this fortune, all four must stay at this lodge/acreage for 30 days with no contact with the outside world. They agree, but there are more surprises (and scares) to come.

I was reading this often while distracted. I really feel like I would have “enjoyed” the scary atmosphere of it more, had those distractions not been there. One thing I didn’t like, though, was that not everything was revealed to the reader at the end (unless I was distracted when it was?). Not everything I read needs to be tidied up at the end, but it seemed Aaron knew about it - it just wasn’t revealed to the reader, and I would have liked to have known what that little tidbit was. There were definitely some surprises I would not have guessed at.

Currently reading A Printer's Choice by W. L. Patenaude, a cross between SF and mystery.

I've read five mysteries so far this month:
The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay (3.5*)
Close Quarters by Michael Gilbert (3.5*)
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (5*)
Carson's Conspiracy by Michael Innes (3*)
The Turquoise Shop by Frances Crane (3.5*)

While shopping for his Christmas book, Murder on a Winter's Night jumped into the basket and refused to return to the shelf. My excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Several of these I had read before, but it was an enjoyable read by a variety of authors.

I managed to get to this month's MysteryKIT. I am reading Vox Populi by Alex A Zudor for a second mystery this month.

To Fetch a Thief / Spencer Quinn
4 stars

When an elephant and her handler go missing from a circus, it is cancelled to the disappointment of PI Bernie and his son, Charlie. However, since Bernie shows up before he knows about the cancellation, he chats with the police detective who is there to find out more. Later on, Bernie (and his dog Chet, whose POV the book is from) are hired by the handler’s partner (and the circus’s clown) to find out what happened, since the police are treating this as the handler simply having taken the elephant to get away from the circus.

I really liked this one. As always, it’s fun (and sometimes humourous) to read from Chet’s perspective. This one was extra interesting to me with the animal welfare/cruelty angle of circuses.

COMPLETED A Printer's Choice by W. L. Patenaude

My review:

When the victim of the first murder on a space station is a disguised priest, Father John McClellan, former Marine and programmer, is sent "upside" from Earth to investigate.

I found McClellan's back story a bit heavy going at times, but the main story, with its exploration of moral choices, sentience, and guilt and innocence, was fascinating. I don't know if the author has another book in the works but I look forward to it.

COMPLETED The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

My review:

Classic Sherlock Holmes novel which mixes all the things we love about him with the more than questionable attitudes of the time.

Such a Pretty Smile / Kristi DeMeester
4 stars

Young girls are disappearing and turning up dead and mutilated, as if from an animal. Lila is 13-years old and didn’t have many friends at school, until Macie took her under her wing. Unfortunately, Lila begins to hear things that don’t seem to be there. Lila’s mother Caroline, an artist, has been hiding her past from her daughter. A past that involved something in New Orleans where Caroline had lived with Lila’s father, Daniel.

The story is told from the points of view of both Lila (in 2019) and Caroline (2019 and 2004), but the chapter names tell us whose POV and when, so easy to follow. I really liked this. There were definitely some heart-thumping moments, though at the same time, it was a bit tricky to picture some things. I do need to add a warning that this is horror - there are some violent and gruesome scenes.

I did end up reading The Man Who Died Twice, which I thoroughly enjoyed! I also read Mavis Doriel Hay's The Santa Klaus Murder, which was fine but a bit lackluster.