Mystery Authors R and On

My books to read list is teetering on the top edge of eight pages. Part of the problem is that I get to read various professional review journals as part of my job and I subscribe to Bookmarks (“For everyone who hasn’t read everything.”) It’s actually Bookmarks’ fault that my crime fiction list is so long. Just now I added “Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks” to it after reading a review of Children of the Revolution. Which reminded me I never completed my list of mystery authors. So, let’s get that party finished.

28. Michael Robotham

I’ve read two Robotham books and but I started his Joseph O’Loughlin series in the middle, which never makes me happy. I really enjoyed book six– Say Your Sorry – but I liked Bleed for Me (book 4) a little less. I’m not totally sold on a clinical psychologist solving mysteries (his family and medical problems seem a little too much), but Robotham is a former journalist and I do like the way he writes. So, I have plans to either start at the beginning (Suspect) or go on to no. 7 (Watching You). (London.)

29. Charles Todd

I really, really like Charles Todd’s Inspector Ian Rutledge. Heck, I might even love him and I want him to find happiness. This is surprising because I don’t seek out historical fiction, and this series is set in the period just following World War I. Inspector Rutledge is suffering from shell shock and believes the ghost of an ex-solider is with him constantly. He has no modern CSI team to help him solve crimes, but he gets the job done anyway. I could do without the cliche of having his superior officer hate him (and I’m tired of the voice in his head too). Still, I grab each new novel as soon as we get it in. I have not yet read Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford series (she’s a crime-solving nurse post-WWI) and probably won’t. (FYI, Charles Todd is a pseudonym for a mother-son writing team. Crazy, right? My sons would scoff at that idea.) Start with a Test of Wills and see if you aren’t hooked. (England.)

Now we have to leave our beloved alphabetical order to discuss writers I’ve started reading since I began these posts years ago.

Linda Castillo

I’m so sorry I read Linda Castillo’s first Amish crime novel. I'm doubly sorry I read a second one. I don’t want to read any more. 

Clare Donaghue

Here’s something sad: I gave four stars to Donaghue’s Never Look Back, the first book in the DI Mike Lockyer series, and I remember none of it. Worse, the book was published this year. Let’s hope I remember enough before the next book comes out. (London.)

Anne Holt

Anne Holt is a former lawyer, but her older books are a bit hard to get a hold of. I hope to read all of the Hanne Wilhelmsen novels someday. Until then, I’m enjoying the series she has starring Police Commissioner Adam Stubo and his wife Johanne Vik (a profiler). Adam is a jolly old soul and Johanne is neurotic, but they make a nice pair. Stubo worked with Wilhelmsen, so this new series picks up once Wilhelmsen retires. (Norway.)

Asa Larsson

I’ve read the first two books in Asa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinnson series and I plan to read more, but the premise so far has been strange. Rebecka is a lawyer who keeps getting mixed up with murders at churches in the far, far northern part of Sweden. There’s only so many murders at churches in a sparsely populated area of Sweden one person can really be involved in. Right? (Sweden)

And, finally, some series I'm thinking of starting: J.A. Dance's Ali Reynolds; Paul Doiron's Mike Bowditch; Denise Mina's Alex Morrow; Nick Oldham's Henry Christie; Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks. And the list keeps growing. Thank goodness I work in a library and not a book store.