Marilyn's Mystery Reads

About Marilyn

I have come, most regretfully, to the realization that I cannot read every mystery novel ever published.

This insight came to me a few days ago as I looked at the shelves in my study.  I counted seventeen books that were sent by publicists in hopes that I would review them.  I looked at another shelf that held three library books that I chose after I had read reviews of them by other bloggers.

Then I looked up my library account and saw that I had eighteen books “frozen,” waiting for me to be picked up on my next trip to the Needham Library.  The Minuteman Library System allows you to choose books you want to read, reserve, and then freeze them until you are ready to unfreeze and read them.  It’s a wonderful system except that I can’t stop myself from adding just one more mystery to my list of requests.

So I took a deep breath and did the unthinkable, at least for me.  I chose the six novels that had been on my frozen list the longest, pressed cancel, and voilà–the books were gone.  I felt terrible for a few minutes, longer if I’m being honest.  What if the best book of the year was one I had deleted?  How would I ever know what I’d missed?

As many of my readers know, I’ve been teaching courses on mysteries and crime novels for a number of years at Brandeis University’s adult education program.  Each semester several program members tell me they’d like to take my course but can’t imagine reading the number of books, that number being eight, I assign during the ten week course.

My flippant answer is that of course they can, they only need to eliminate the unnecessary things in their lives to free up more reading time–cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc.  We laugh, but there is a grain of truth in what I tell them.  Although in our busy schedules it can be challenging to put aside a certain amount of time each day for reading, it can also be very rewarding.  Sometimes we get so busy with the mundane things in our lives that we forget to leave time for the things we most enjoy.

Starting in September I’ll be teaching WHODUNIT?:  MURDER IN ETHNIC COMMUNITIES, and the books I’ve chosen take place in Orthodox Jewish, Native American, Black, Hispanic, Mormon, Chinese-American, and Amish communities.  As the time for my class draws closer, I’ll let you know what the specific books are.  Perhaps you’ll put aside time every day to read along with us.

Marilyn

The spring semester at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) begins in just over two weeks, and I’m preparing to teach WHODUNIT?:  Murder Most British.

As most mystery fans are aware, there has always been a competition between the admirers of the American author Edgar Allan Poe and his French creation and those of the British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his English detective as to which author should be credited for introducing the world’s first consulting detective.  Since this will be a course on British authors, you can probably guess into which camp I belong.

Although Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin arrived on the literary scene first, today he is a figure mostly forgotten, a footnote in detective fiction.  Not so with Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who is as well known today as he was more than a century and a quarter ago when he made his first appearance.

In this semester’s class, we will begin our reading adventure with two quintessential British mystery writers.  We will first read Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and four of his short stories–A Scandal in Bohemia, The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Final Problem, and The Empty House.  Next will be two Agatha Christie classics–The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a novel that broke all the rules of traditional mystery writing when it was published, followed by And Then There Were None, its plot featuring characters stranded in a remote location and being killed one by one.

From there we will move into more contemporary times.  In Let the Dead Speak by Jane Casey we will read about a developmentally delayed teenager in England; Garnethill by Denise Mina features poverty and a dysfunctional family in Scotland; Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham takes readers to Wales to explore a detective with an almost unknown and often fatal illness; and The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville and Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty, both dealing with The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

WHODUNIT?:  Murder Most British begins on February 26th.  If this course sounds like your “cup of tea,” you are most welcome to read along with us.

Marilyn

Now it’s time for my “best of” list for 2023.  There were so many mysteries/thrillers published this year that perhaps you are thinking that you’ve missed a couple you would have enjoyed reading.  In selecting what to read next, you may wish to consider my choices for the best crime novels of the year.

My selections are split almost down the middle, with eight novels taking place in the United States and six abroad.  As I wrote in my 2022 list of the best of that year, mysteries are no longer limited, and actually haven’t been in quite a while, to the United States and England.  It’s a world-wide phenomenon.

Crime fiction readers know that there’s more to such novels than simply the story, important as that is.  There are the characters (protagonist and villains both), the setting, and the writing that make an for  outstanding book.  But especially in recent years, the issues of the “real world” have joined these other aspects of crime writing as the significance of racial inequity, domestic violence, and acts of war make these books not merely excellent reads but encourage us look more deeply into the society in which we live.

These topics and others as well are evident in all of the novels I’ve chosen, some highlighting more than one of these concerns.  And rather than limit mysteries/thrillers to the escapist category that some critics assign them to, to my mind they show the relevance of such books in our world today.

THE FAVOR by Nicci French (England), THE MURDER BOOK by Thomas Perry (U. S.), A DEATH IN TOKYO by Keigo Higashino (Japan), THE DARK EDGE OF NIGHT by Mark Pryor (France), SMALL MERCIES by Dennis Lehane (U. S.), DEADLOCK by James Byrne (U. S.), THE BITTER PAST by Bruce Borgos (U. S.), THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE by Craig Johnson (U. S.), EVERYONE HERE IS LYING by Shari Lapena (U. S.), ASHES IN THE SNOW by Oriana Ramunno (Poland), RED QUEEN by Juan Gómes-Jurado (Spain), REYKJAVÍK by Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Iceland), AN HONEST MAN by Michael Koryta (U. S.), ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S. A. Cosby (U. S.).

All these novels were reviewed on this blog, so I hope you’ll go back and check out the authors/countries that pique your interest.  Every one listed is a winner and well worth your time.

All my best wishes for a wonderful 2024.

Marilyn

Although it’s still mid-August, September isn’t far off, and that means the beginning of the school year at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).

The coming semester will be the thirteenth time I am teaching a WHODUNIT? course on mystery novels.  It’s also a longed-for return to in-person teaching, as during the past several semesters at BOLLI, classes have been on Zoom.  Although I’m grateful for the technology that allowed my classes to continue during the pandemic, I’m looking forward to seeing students in “real life” rather than in two-inch squares on my computer.

This term I’ll be teaching MURDER IN SCANDINAVIA, a course that combines four mysteries I taught in 2018 and four new ones.  (The books I taught previously have an asterisk next to the titles in the list below.)  Using the term Scandinavia broadly, including two countries that once belonged to the countries of present-day Scandinavia but now have achieved independence, my students will be reading novels that take place in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

The list is:  THE HANGING GIRL* by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Denmark), SNOW ANGELS* by James Thompson (Finland), HOLY CEREMONY by Harri Nykänen (Finland), THE UNDESIRED* by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir (Iceland), THE DARKNESS by Ragnar Jónasson (Iceland), NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT by Dennis B. Miller (Norway), WHO WATCHETH by Helene Tursten (Sweden), and THE ICE BENEATH HER* by Camilla Grebe (Sweden).

As is not unusual in Scandinavian mysteries, these books are dark.  Many, although not all, of the protagonists are brooding and depressed, a combination perhaps of the cold weather and the horrific crimes they are called upon to solve.  But even in the darkest novels there is hope and resilience, both for the detectives as well as those impacted by the murders.

Some of these authors will be familiar to class members and to readers of this blog, and others will be unfamiliar; one of the best parts of teaching and writing is introducing readers to authors they haven’t read before.  And perhaps you will be introduced to a writer who is new to you.  If that’s the case, just think of all the wonderful mysteries by that particular author yet to be read.

As always, I invite you to read along with us, beginning with THE HANGING GIRL on September 18th.  My best wishes for the rest of the summer.

Marilyn

This month begins the thirteenth year of Marilyn’s Mystery Reads.  It’s hard to believe that I’ve been blogging about mysteries for such a long time.  But the books just keep on being written and published, and I just keep on reading them, and by now blogging about my favorites seems to be something I need to do.  Plus the positive feedback I’ve received over the years inspires me to keep writing.

Speaking of continuing to do something I love, I’ll be teaching my twelfth course at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) starting later this month.  My topic for the spring semester is WHODUNIT?:  DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS, taken from Raymond Chandler’s essay about the type of man (remember, this was written in 1944) who is a private investigator.

But times have changed, and women as well as men are walking these streets, aware of danger but determined to bring justice to those who have been wronged.  The women protagonists are as tough and skilled as the men, and the cases that clients bring to them are as difficult and dangerous as those faced by Philip Marlowe (Chandler), Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett), or Lew Archer (Ross Macdonald).

During the ten week course, we’ll be reading the following eight books, which feature both male and female protagonists and were written by male and female authors: Hard Time by Sara Paretsky, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James, The Bitterroots by C. J. Box, Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman, The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald, The Last Place You Look by Kristin Lepionka, Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais, and Come to Grief by Dick Francis.

Some of these authors will be familiar to class members, and others will be unfamiliar; one of the best parts of teaching these courses is introducing mystery readers to authors they haven’t read before.

As always, I invite you to read along with us beginning with Hard Time on March 6th.  Perhaps you too will be introduced to a writer who is new to you; if that’s the case, just think of all the wonderful mysteries by that particular author yet to be read.

Marilyn

Best movies, best television shows, best podcasts.  Now it’s time for my list of best mysteries of 2022.

As always, my choices for the best of the best are a mix of domestic and foreign mysteries, police procedurals and private detectives and amateur sleuths.  Interestingly though, and for the first time, more than half of the fourteen books take place either partly or totally outside the United States.

That statistic definitely speaks not only to the increasingly important role that mysteries/thrillers/crime novels play in today’s publishing business but also to how widely the genre has reached across the globe.  Certainly, even ten or fifteen years ago a grouping such as this would have consisted almost exclusively of American mysteries, with perhaps a British one or two completing the list.  But notice the various countries that have a place on my list now.

THE GATEKEEPER by James Byrne (Algeria/United States), GIRLS WHO LIE by Eva Björg Egisdóttir (England/Iceland), LOOK CLOSER by David Ellis (England), SILENT PARADE by Keigo Higashino (Japan), PORTRAIT OF A THIEF by Grace Li (United States/China), THE DYING DAY by Vaseem Khan (India), GONE BY MORNING by Michele Weinstat Miller (United States), THE SHADOWS OF MEN by Abir Mukherjee (India), DO NO HARM by Robert Pobi (United States), DIE AROUND SUNDOWN by Mark Pryor (Germany), THE LEFT-HANDED TWIN by Thomas Perry (United States), KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Raybourn (England/Europe/Caribbean), COLD AS HELL by Lilja Sigurdadóttir (Iceland), NINE LIVES by Peter Swanson (United States).

All of these novels, not surprisingly, are reviewed on this blog.  I invite you to take a peek at my reviews; hopefully, you’ll be intrigued enough to read one, several, or even all of them.  I promise that regardless of the book(s) you choose, you are in for a treat.

Wishing you a happy holiday season and a wonderful 2023.

Marilyn

“It was a dark and stormy night” is one of literature’s most famous opening lines.  So when I decided to write an About Marilyn column featuring great first lines in crime fiction, I naturally turned to Google to find the author of this sentence.

That proved to be a mystery in itself.  The name Edward Bulwer-Lytton came up most often; it was the opening line of his 1841 novel Paul Clifford, a mystery that takes place during the French Revolution.

Two other authors whose names and books came up in the Google search are Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time (1973) and Washington Irving’s satirical piece A History Of New York (1809).  I’m pretty certain that Ms. L’Engle wasn’t trying to take credit for a line that was written more than a hundred years before her book was published, but it’s difficult to know whether Bulwer-Lytton was aware of Irving’s sketch, as copyright laws and the ability of written works to travel across the ocean were definitely different in the 19th century than they are now.

As both Bulwer-Lytton and Irving are no longer around to argue their respective cases, I’m going to say that the line’s authorship is one of those puzzles that may never be solved.  However, below are some outstanding first lines of crime novels whose authorship is not in doubt.  All credit to Greg Levin at his blog http://greglevin.com/scrawl-space-blog.

Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write. — A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell

The last camel died at noon. — The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge. — Darker Than Amber by John D. MacDonald

It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. — In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming

I feel compelled to report that at the moment of death, my entire life did not pass before my eyes in a flash. — I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

Gordon Michaels stood in the fountain with all of his clothes on. — Banker by Dick Francis

Granted, a great opening line or hook does not necessarily make a great story.  But it certainly can whet the reader’s appetite and make her/him continue reading.  To (somewhat) prove my point, I’ve read and enjoyed five of the six novels listed above; The Key to Rebecca is the only one I haven’t read.  And I’m pretty sure that if I’d picked that book up at a bookstore or at my local library and turned to the first page, I would have continued reading.

Wishing you a wonderful summer, filled with mysteries to enjoy.

Marilyn

I wanted to open this About Marilyn column with a heartwarming quote about winter.  That’s difficult for me, as winter is my least favorite season, but I thought I’d try.  I’ve chosen two quotes that actually do resonate with me.

The first is from Murray Pura, a writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  That’s a province where the average January high is 14 degrees, the average low is 4, and as I write this column it’s -4!  Mr. Pura must have a warm heart because here is his quote:  “If winter helps you curl up and more, that makes it one of the best of the seasons.”  I am assuming he means curl up with a good book, a sentiment made clear by the English writer Ben Aaronvich:  “In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.”

And as I write this, Massachusetts is getting ready for a major snowstorm, with up to 24 inches of snow possible!

So whether you like the winter or are dreaming of spring, here is the list of the books I’ve chosen for my tenth WHODUNIT? course at BOLLI, the Brandeis University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

The topic is “An Historical Mystery Tour,” and we’ll be starting in the fifth century B. C. E. and continuing to the 20th century.  An historical novel is one considered historical from the author’s point of view–in other words, before she/he was born, her/his personal pre-history.

As always, we’ll read eight books during the ten week course.  These are the novels in the order we’ll read them:  The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby (Greece in 480 B. C. E.), Roman Blood by Stephen Saylor (Rome in 80 B. C. E.), The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters (12th-century England), Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart (18th-century China/Tibet), A Simple Murder by Eleanor Kuhns (18th-century United States), The Inheritance by Charles Finch (19th-century England), March Violets by Philip Kerr (1930s Germany), and The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indriason (1940s/present Iceland).

In the class (via Zoom) we’ll be thinking about life as it was decades, even centuries, ago.  In this world-wide tour we’ll explore similarities and differences between the countries and time periods we are visiting and our own.  We’ll look at how people in a variety of historical periods have been influenced by their history, culture, political structure, technology, and social behaviors.  So I hope you’ll read along with us.

One more thing:  I’m about to start my twelfth year writing Marilyn’s Mystery Reads.  I love writing the reviews, and I hope you enjoy reading them.

Marilyn