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The Greatest Detective Author of All Time
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Ruth Callderford
Ruth Callderford

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.

Replies

Daniella Jewel
Daniella Jewel

May-30-2005 16:45

Definitely love the Poirot mysteries- so probably Agatha Christie!

Lady Grey
Lady Grey

May-30-2005 16:48

Martin Scott (Thraxas)
Isaac Asimov, (Black Widowers series and The Union Club mysteries)
Simon R Green (Guards Against ... series)

Blaise Joshua
Blaise Joshua

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.

Lady Grey
Lady Grey

May-31-2005 02:20

Or Wilkie Collins who wrote one of the first. (The Moonstone)

Ms Cevasco
Ms Cevasco
Well-Connected

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..

Blaise Joshua
Blaise Joshua

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.

jstkdn
jstkdn
Well-Connected

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.

Mike Paradinas
Mike Paradinas

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.

jstkdn
jstkdn
Well-Connected

May-31-2005 13:33

YES that's it! Very creepy indeed.

Brina 21
Brina 21
Sleuth About Town

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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