Marilyn's Mystery Reads

About Marilyn

How fast the summer flies by!  It’s almost time for school again, at least at Brandeis University where I teach courses on mysteries in the BOLLI program.  My class, which starts on September 14th, will discuss SISTERS IN CRIME, women authors writing about female protagonists.

Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle are credited as being the “fathers” of the mystery novel.  But what about the “mothers”?  Do any of these names sound familiar–Metta Victoria Fuller Victor, Catherine Louise Perkis, Mary Elizabeth Braddon?  They are women who wrote mysteries in the second half of the nineteenth century but who are virtually unknown today.

In SISTERS IN CRIME, we will read novels by the women who followed these early pioneers.  How are the books of today’s female authors different from books written by male authors?  Do women have a unique perspective that comes across to readers?  We’ll start by reading Agatha Christie’s murder mystery that introduces Miss Jane Marple, an unmarried Englishwoman in a small village in 1930, and end with Deanna Raybourne’s novel featuring four British assassins who find themselves out of work.  What has happened to female protagonists in the nearly 100 years since the first Miss Marple mystery?

To give you a sense of the differences between the women, their professions, and their locations, here is our reading list:  The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie, as mentioned above, takes place in a small English village featuring an unmarried woman; J is for Judgment by Sue Grafton takes readers “across the pond” to read about a twice married and divorced private investigator; A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller, in which the heroine is the district attorney in a small West Virginia county; The Last Place You Look by Kristin Lepionka features a world-weary private investigator with family problems; Echo by Tracy Clark, in which a Chicago police detective must put aside her private issues to solve a murder case; The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves finds us once again in the British Isles with a tough police detective; Last Seen in Havana by Teresa Dovalpage takes us across the ocean once again in search of the truth about the death of a woman’s mother; and Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourne, in which four female assassins are very reluctantly facing the end of their careers.

I hope you will join me and the members of my SISTERS IN CRIME class and read along with us.

Marilyn

Have you ever wondered why an author stops writing a mystery series?

Since I started writing this blog, I have become more aware of the sudden end to a series I’ve been enjoying, and I’ve thought about why the series ended as it did.  I imagined a few scenarios:  the author simply has run out of creative ideas; the author can no longer find a publisher interested in continuing the novels; readers are not buying the books in the quantity they did before; the author dies.

But what happens to the readers who want the series to continue?  They may experience what AI calls “post-series depression,” a term that was unfamiliar to me but succinctly captures the let-down feeling that I imagine we’ve all experienced at one time or another.  According to the site Medium, it’s “the sadness felt after reading or watching a really long series or story. The bitter feeling when you know the journey is over, but you don’t want it to end.”

A similar term I found online is “book hangover,” a sense of loss when a series ends.  What happens to the characters that you’ve spent so much time with?  Is there a book heaven where they can meet and talk about their adventures?  Or do they simply disappear forever?

Two of my favorite authors wrote several mysteries in a series, then left me hanging when they stopped writing.  One is Julia Keller, author of the Bell Elkins books that feature a female prosecuting attorney in a small town in West Virginia.  Ms. Keller began in 2012 with A Killing in the Hills and ended with The Cold Way Home seven years later.  A lot happened to Bell during that time, but the last novel ended, in my opinion, without a satisfying conclusion.  After a major discovery about her past, how will she cope with this new information?  Her world has been rocked, and readers don’t know how she will handle it.

Another author who left me with a serious case of post-series depression is Harry Bingham.  His Fiona Griffiths novels feature a young detective in the Cardiff, Wales police department who suffers from Cotard’s Syndrome, a rare psychiatric disorder in which an individual holds a delusion that they are dead, do not exist.  I had the pleasure of corresponding with Mr. Bingham several times, and I was under the impression that a seventh book was “in the works.”  Sadly, that apparently is not the case, and it appears as if I, along with thousands of other readers, will never know Fiona’s future.

This is in contrast to the Nero Wolfe and Spencer books.  Years after Rex Stout’s death, Robert Goldsboro was given permission to continue the series; the same is true for the Robert B. Parker books, which have been continued by several authors.  Do I enjoy these novels as much as those written by Stout and Parker?  No, but other readers may feel differently, simply glad to be reading about their favorite detectives.

Do authors owe the readers of their books a satisfying conclusion to their novels?  I do realize that this is not the most pressing problem one can have, and there is no one right answer to this issue, but I’m sure I’m not alone with my “post-serial depression.”  I’d be interested to know your feelings about this.

Marilyn

February marks an anniversary of the Marilyn’s Mystery Reads blog.  It’s sixteen years since I started writing this weekly review of books, with side forays into Author Appreciations, Golden Oldies, and more topics related to the mystery genre.  So many books, so many opportunities to share my thoughts and opinions with readers who enjoy crime fiction, mysteries, and thrillers.

Now on to another February topic, information about the Spring semester course I’ll be teaching at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) which begins on March 2nd.  It’s titled WHODUNIT?:  DETECTIVES WITH DISABILITIES, and it encompasses both physical and emotional issues that impact the protagonists of the novels.  Here’s the list with a brief description of the disability that each detective faces:

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (the protagonist has an artificial leg due to a war injury); Odds Against by Dick Francis (a jockey becomes a private investigator due to a crippling hand trauma that ends his racing career); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (the protagonist is a teenage boy on the autism spectrum); Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham (the detective suffers from Cotard’s Syndrome, a mental illness in which the sufferers believe they are dead); Blood on the Tracks  by Barbara Nickless (a railroad detective suffers from PTSD); After She’s Gone by Camilla Grebe (a police profiler is fighting dementia); Little Black Lies by Sandra Block (a psychiatric resident faces her own emotional trauma); City of Windows by Robert Pobi (a retired FBI agent with multiple physical handicaps is called on to solve a series of crimes).

One of my favorite things about mysteries is the places they take readers.  To quote Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”  This spring we’ll be reading novels in various locations in the United States, Wales, England, and Sweden, so even if this winter’s snow and ice has you housebound, you’ll still be able to travel the world via these novels.

I hope my brief descriptions of these mysteries pique your interest and that you will read along with us.  My sincere thanks for reading my blog, and do write to me and let me know if you’ve read and enjoyed the books I’ve recommended.

It’s time for my list of the best mysteries published this year.  As always, there were so many excellent crime novels that came out in 2025 that it’s hard to choose among them, but I’ve picked a baker’s dozen, including one with an asterisk.

As has been true for the last several years, my choices range geographically around the world–the United States, Ukraine, England, Ireland–and various time periods–today, pre-World War II, the medieval period.  Both women and men are protagonists and villains, and both women and men are the authors featured.

A number of these books discuss topics that are so timely in today’s world–racism, ageism, anti-Semitism, for example–that one can hardly consider crime fiction as escapism.  Also interesting is that on my list are authors who have written many mysteries as well as authors who published their first book this year.  Following are my choices:

HAVOC by Christopher Bolen; CHAIN REACTION by James Byrne; EDGE by Tracy Clark; HER MANY FACES by Nicci Cloke; TOO OLD FOR THIS by Samantha Downing; MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH by Ariana Franklin*; THE QUEEN OF FIVES by Alex Hay; NEMESIS by Gregg Hurwitz; THE DEEPEST FAKE by Daniel Kalla; MIDNIGHT BURNING by Paul Levine;  HANG ON ST. CHRISTOPHER by Adrian McKinty; HOTEL UKRAINE by Martin Cruz Smith; THE MAILMAN by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The reason Ariana Franklin’s novel has an asterisk following it is because it was published in 2007.  I had never heard of the author until I serendipitously found it on a shelf in my local library, and I was struck both by the title and the cover art.  It’s great when that happens, just another reminder of how many wonderful mysteries there are yet to be discovered.  And if you’d like to send me a list of your favorites published in 2025, I’d be delighted to read it.

All my best wishes for a happy holiday season and a wonderful 2026.  And please do keep reading.

Regards,

Marilyn

Now that the summer is almost over and my course is going to start on September 8, it’s time to let you know what I’ll be teaching this fall at the Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (BOLLI).  It’s titled WHODUNIT?:  MURDER IS EVERYWHERE.

The class will be reading eight novels that I chose both to highlight countries on several continents and to explore the differences between the various types of protagonists.  These books showcase police detectives, private investigators, and amateurs who find themselves involved in crimes.  We’ll discuss how the differences in their roles play a part in the investigations.  Do police officials make better crime solvers because of the weight of their governments behind them, or are private individuals (licensed or amateur) more efficient because they are not bound by laws and official statutes and thus have more freedom to investigate?

We start with The Dry (Jane Harper), which features an Australian police officer returning to his home town in the Outback to attend a funeral and then becomes involved investigating the murders of a family that he knew from childhood.  In Finding Nouf (Zoe Ferraris), we go Saudi Arabia to follow a desert guide looking for a missing woman.  Next it’s Tokyo; in Newcomer (Keigo Higashino) we learn how an experienced police officer has his own unique methods of solving a crime.  In  Whip Hand (Dick Francis) we’ll read how an English champion jockey becomes a private investigator after suffering a life-altering injury.  We will come face to face with anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner hatred in Québec in A Deadly Divide (Ausma Kehanat Khan).  In The Mist (Ragnar Jónasson), a policewoman tries to break through the anti-female feelings of her fellow officers by looking into a missing person case in an isolated Icelandic village.  The Kind Worth Killing (Peter Swanson) starts with two strangers on a plane from London to Boston plotting the murder of the man’s wife.  And we’ll complete our course with Norwegian by Night (Derek B. Miller) which tells the story of an elderly man who moves from the United States to Oslo to live with his granddaughter and her husband and finds himself protecting a young boy from foreign killers.

I hope I’ve piqued your interest and that you’ll read along with my class as we come to the painful truth that yes, MURDER IS EVERYWHERE.

Marilyn

This month marks fifteen years since I started my weekly mystery blog.  I’ve reviewed over 700 books and have written pieces about current releases, Past Masters, Golden Oldies, and my opinions of various aspects of mysteries under the title About Marilyn, which you are reading right now.  I’ve enjoyed every minute of writing.

One of the things I like to do is to let readers know about another interest of mine.  I’ve been attending wonderful classes on topics including music, art, and history for more than twenty years at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) and have been teaching courses on mystery fiction there for more than a dozen years on topics including “Murder in Massachusetts,” “Murder She Wrote,” and “Historical Mysteries.”

My spring semester course, which starts next month, is entitled WHODUNIT?:  A STUDY IN SIDEKICKS.  Anyone who has read the Sherlock Holmes stories certainly understands the importance of sidekicks.  But what exactly is their role?  Since not every thriller or detective novel has a sidekick, why do some authors incorporate them into the plot and others don’t?

Is the sidekick there to provide assistance to the detective, to give the reader a look into the investigative process, to add humor to the narrative, and/or to have someone in the novel who is willing to do what the protagonist can’t or won’t do?  Finally, what is the importance of the sidekick in each mystery that we’ll be reading, and how would be story be different without him/her?

Here is the booklist for this term:  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I Know a Secret by Tess Gerritsen, The Wanted by Robert Crais, A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane, Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson, Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee, Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas, and Ghost Hero by S. J. Rozan.  We’ll start in the Victorian period and end in today’s era, and we’ll be moving from England to India to the United States.

I invite you to read along with us and think about the questions I posed above.  I promise you truly excellent reading.

Best,

Marilyn

Now is the season for the “best of” lists.  Best films, best recordings, best television shows–you’re familiar with all of those.  But here’s the list you’ve really been waiting for–my list of the best mysteries of 2024.

The trend of mysteries that take place outside the United States and England continues, which I think is a great thing.  One of the pleasures of reading books in any genre is the fun of learning about a place you may never have lived in or visited.  If you’ve never been to France, Japan, or Cuba, here’s your opportunity to learn about them and perhaps put them on your bucket list, though I’d suggest without the murders.

My choices are in alphabetical order by author’s last name

DARK RIDE by Lou Berney,  ECHO by Tracy Clark, LAST SEEN IN HAVANA by Teresa Dovalpage, THE BEST LIES by David Ellis, IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME by Alex Finlay, THE SLATE by Matthew Fitzsimmons, THE FINAL CURTAIN by Keigo Higashino, LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED by Jeff Hoffman, HUNTED by Abir Mukherjee, NOTHING BUT THE BONES by Brian Panowich, A BLOOD RED MORNING by Mark Pryor, WORDHUNTER by Stella Sands, and DEATH IN THE DETAILS by Katie Tietjen.

I would have liked to include even more novels, but there are already a “baker’s dozen.”  Each and every book I’ve blogged about this year is worthy of having been included, so you can scroll through my reviews; if you’ve missed a couple or more, here’s your second chance. It’s never too late to curl up and read a great mystery.

All my best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a happy 2025.

Marilyn

The summer is almost over, and that means it’s time for another term at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).  This will be my fifteenth semester leading a course featuring mystery novels.  Each course goes under the title WHODUNIT?, and then the specific title of the term’s course follows.  For Fall 2024 it’s WHODUNIT?:  MURDER IN ETHNIC COMMUNITIES.

We will read eight mysteries during the ten-week course, with time during the first and the last meetings to think about mysteries in general, what draws readers to them, and what types of protagonists we prefer.  I’ve included amateur sleuths, private investigators, and police detectives in this semester’s mix, and although all the novels take place in the United States, the communities are all different.

This is the list of the mysteries we’ll be reading:  The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman (an Orthodox Jewish community in Los Angeles); Invisible City by Julia Dahl (an Orthodox Jewish community in New York City); The Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison (a Mormon community in Utah); No Witness but the Moon by Suzanne Chazin (a Hispanic community bordering New York City); Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo (an Amish community in upstate New York); Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman (two Native American reservations in New Mexico); August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones (a Black/Hispanic neighborhood in Detroit); and Family Business by S. J. Rozan (a Chinese-American community in New York City).

Although no two of the novels’ sites are the same, ranging from the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and New York City to the small towns of Utah and New York, there are many commonalities between these groups.  In our class discussions we’ll find and discuss both the differences between these places and their similarities.

I hope you’ll join us as we criss-cross the country and learn more about the people and locations that make up these ethnic communities.

Marilyn