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The Greatest Detective Author of All Time
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Ruth Callderford
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May-30-2005 14:35
Who would you nominate as the Greatest Detective Author of All Time? Sir Author Conan Doyle? Raymond Chandler? Agatha Christie? Please nominate your favorite in this thread.
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Lady Grey
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May-30-2005 16:48
Martin Scott (Thraxas)
Isaac Asimov, (Black Widowers series and The Union Club mysteries)
Simon R Green (Guards Against ... series)
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Blaise Joshua
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May-31-2005 01:44
Hmmm ... cheers Jstkdn. Your plethora of compliments is making me somewhat suspicious at the moment : o )
Well, I have no idea who the greatest detective author of all time is, but I know one person it's not: Patricia Cornwell. I read Postmortem and Body of Evidence for the first time a few months ago and, despite the accolade, I was spectacularly underwhelmed.
It's not an original recommendation, but of course I would probably be putting my votes on Sir Conan Doyle and Raymond Chandler.
Let's not forget Edgar Allan Poe either, credited as being the father of the modern detective mystery.
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Lady Grey
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May-31-2005 02:20
Or Wilkie Collins who wrote one of the first. (The Moonstone)
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Ms Cevasco
Well-Connected
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May-31-2005 03:09
Blaise, I have to say that Patricia C grows for every book you read. But, if your not into italian women who cut dead people up I can understand that..=) But I wouldn't exactly call her a detective author..
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Blaise Joshua
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May-31-2005 07:23
That's true Ms C: Scarpetta isn't actually a detective so perhaps the link is a bit tenuous. However, it follows the genre pattern but in a more procedural way. I thought the two books were well written, just not especially interesting.
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jstkdn
Well-Connected
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May-31-2005 10:15
I once read a book, of which I forgot the title, and the author. But it described a murder mystery, from the viewpoint of the victim (a young girl.) This may sound lame, coming back as a spirit. But I actually really enjoyed it. It started with how the murder happened, and who did it. And then onwards from there.
Quite a different twist. What was it called hmmm.
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Mike Paradinas
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May-31-2005 10:27
jstkdn--are you talking about "The Lovely Bones"? I read that book last year, very well-written, but definitely creepy.
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jstkdn
Well-Connected
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May-31-2005 13:33
YES that's it! Very creepy indeed.
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Brina 21
Sleuth About Town
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May-31-2005 14:31
On Cornwell, I agree with Blaise,although I liked her first books, after a while her super bad guy just got too unbelievable.
For series I still like Kinsey Milhone (the alphabet books) though its hard to imagine life before cell phones. (lol)
I liked John Harvey's series starring Charlie Resnick (haven't read his new ones), Ridley Pearson's Lou Boldt series.
A few stand-alones I liked were
Barbara Vine's Grasshopper (the idea of climbing power pylons and rooftops intrigues me)
Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett (probably because I've never been to Bangkok, but it seems cool)
There is one other whose name evades me about a woman who was kidnapped and held captive in England - she manages to escape, after figuring out that this same guy has imprisoned and then killed a number of other women - but nobody will believe her because she had kind of a rep. for being irresponsible. Really creepy - maybe somebody will figure out which one I mean.
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Blaise Joshua
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Jun-2-2005 03:25
I have a copy of 'My Lovely Bones' but I've never got round to reading it. On Jstkdn's recommendation, I now will : o )
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