Mysteries!

[louisa05]

Ah, Five Orange Pips! Thank you, Doris - my brain just can't be bothered with numbers... (It took me ages to learn my own ID number, because... my brain just didn't care! And phone numbers can suddenly disappear from it - including my own! Sigh... it can be rather frustrating at times... )

I can't learn numbers, either. It must be something in our brains. I constantly forget our phone number. My husband knows a phone number by heart forever if he dials it once, so he cannot comprehend how I can't at least remember our landline number, my cell phone or his cell phone. Before phones could save numbers, I was constantly looking them up.

 

[Scrufflet]

I avoid any mysteries dealing with torture or frightening children. Love the humorous mysteries. Evanovich cracks me up!

I took one of hers to Mexico one time and started to snort on the beach. I had a group around me laughing in no time!

 

[LRK]

I can't learn numbers, either. It must be something in our brains. I constantly forget our phone number. My husband knows a phone number by heart forever if he dials it once, so he cannot comprehend how I can't at least remember our landline number, my cell phone or his cell phone. Before phones could save numbers, I was constantly looking them up.

Yes, when doing maths - I'd check a number three times or so, before copying it - and I'd still get it wrong sometimes! I daren't even learn my mother's mobile/cell number... lest I'd get it mixed up and forget my husband's! (Sigh... ) My brain seems to think it's quite sufficient to translate any number into "a lot", "a little", "a long way off", "high", "low" or whatever it may be...

 

[Scrufflet]

merrywidow raises an interesting point - humourous mysteries. I tried to see how many I could think of. Janet Evanovich for sure, Christopher Brookmyre's earlier stuff (but black humour). After that, I'm stumped. Anyone else come across other writers? Perhaps a vacuun that needs to be filled!

 

[merrywidow]

Tamar Myers "Magdalena Yoder" series are amusing & I smile a lot reading Rita Lakin's Gladdie Gold books.

 

[dorispulaski]

Some of the old Georgette Heyer mysteries have their funny side, but some not.

Evanovich does them well!

 

[skatedreamer]

Tamar Myers "Magdalena Yoder" series are amusing & I smile a lot reading Rita Lakin's Gladdie Gold books.

Tamar Myers' "Den of Antiquity" series is fun, too! Here's a link from goodreads.com:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/42169-den-of-antiquity

I've never read Evanovich; she sounds great. Will check her out based on everyone's recommendation.

 

[LRK]

Lindsey Davis' Roman mysteries - starting with "The Silver Pigs" - are definitely humourous.

Also, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Michael Innes, John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson, Rex Stout... all have their fair share of humour.

 

[Scrufflet]

Tamar Myers "Magdalena Yoder" series are amusing & I smile a lot reading Rita Lakin's Gladdie Gold books.

Thanks! Those names are new to me.

 

[Scrufflet]

Tamar Myers' "Den of Antiquity" series is fun, too! Here's a link from goodreads.com:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/42169-den-of-antiquity

I've never read Evanovich; she sounds great. Will check her out based on everyone's recommendation.

With Evanovich, I know some love Grandma Mazur, but I love Lula! No spoilage here; you're in for a treat!

 

[Scrufflet]

Lindsey Davis' Roman mysteries - starting with "The Silver Pigs" - are definitely humourous.

Also, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Michael Innes, John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson, Rex Stout... all have their fair share of humour.

Hmm... Guess I have to go back to the oldies. I'm getting tired of serial killers and raped women, both of which seem to dominate so much writing. The only serial killer I have ever had any fondness for is Helena on Orphan Black but that's a TV show so not really relevant here.

 

[merrywidow]

I'm currently reading Christmasmysteries & can recommend "Mrs.Jeffries & the Mistletoe Mixup" by Emily Brightwell (light,cozy,Victorian) & "Dude on Arrival
" by J.S. Borthwick (holiday mayhem on an Arizona dude ranch.)

 

[gkelly]

merrywidow raises an interesting point - humourous mysteries. I tried to see how many I could think of. Janet Evanovich for sure, Christopher Brookmyre's earlier stuff (but black humour). After that, I'm stumped. Anyone else come across other writers? Perhaps a vacuun that needs to be filled!

Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr mysteries ("The Burglar Who...") come to mind.

I tend to prefer lighter mysteries, intellectual puzzles and likeable characters.

Sometimes I appreciate darkness if part of an honest exploration of the dark side of human interactions, which inherent in police work for example.

But I don't like gore and brutality just for shock value. As Scrufflet says, I can do without focus on rape and serial killers. Or terrorists or hostage takers for that matter.

 

[GF2445]

I used to read tonnes of Agatha Christie Novels- so good

 

[LRK]

Rex Stout: "And Be a Villain" - His coffers having been depleted by taxes, Nero Wolfe finds himself compelled to look around for a case to solve (he'd much rather sit around reading poetry). He decides upon a case where a guest on a radio talk show was poisoned during live broadcast.

ETA - Note: Oh, I'm always to be found on the less graphic side of any spectrum.

 

[LRK]

Anthony Horowitz: "Crocodile Tears" - The 8th in the YA series about reluctant teenage spy Alex Rider.

Speaking of Anthony Horowitz, I'll digress a little into the visual medium, if I may. As happenstance would have it we (my husband and I) have also been watching Foyle's War - which was created by none other than Horowitz, who also has written many of the episodes - all four in S1, which is what we've seen so far. It has been excellent, and I warmly recommend it to any fellow British mystery lovers who haven't seen it yet.

 

[LRK]

Margery Allingham: "Hide My Eyes" (Published in the US as "Tether's End", I believe.) - This is one of the later Albert Campion books.

Mr Campion was a tall thin man in his early fifties, with fair hair, a pale face, and large spectacles, who had cultivated the gentle art of unobtrusiveness until even his worst enemies were apt to overlook him until it was too late. He was known to a great many people but few were absolutely certain about what it was he actually did with his life. In his youth he had often been described as 'the young man come about the trouble', and nowadays he was liable to mention deferentially that he feared he was becoming 'the old one come with it', but now, as then, he was careful never to permit his status to be too accurately defined.

Superintendent Charles Luke's superiors want Campion to have a word with him - he's taken it into his head that various seemingly unrelated crimes spread over several years are the work of one man.

'That idea of Yeo's about me trying to revive Havoc or the Reddingdale multi-murderer is absurd,' he said. 'This chap isn't a fraction like either of them. Havoc had got out of touch with the peace-time world in jug and the Reddingdale chap was a bore with a blood-lust like Blue Beard or Christie, but this man is different. He's almost refreshing. He's got a brain and he's got nerve and he's not neurotic. He's perfectly sane, he's merciless like a snake, and he's very careful - doesn't like witnesses or corpses left behind.'

Luke is, of course, right. That is not a spoiler, as this is the kind of book where the reader knows more about what is going on than most of the characters, including the detectives. Creepily atmospheric.

 

[skatedreamer]

Anthony Horowitz: "Crocodile Tears" - The 8th in the YA series about reluctant teenage spy Alex Rider.

Speaking of Anthony Horowitz, I'll digress a little into the visual medium, if I may. As happenstance would have it we (my husband and I) have also been watching Foyle's War - which was created by none other than Horowitz, who also has written many of the episodes - all four in S1, which is what we've seen so far. It has been excellent, and I warmly recommend it to any fellow British mystery lovers who haven't seen it yet.

Completely agree! :thumbsup: Foyle's War is wonderful -- well worth watching (ouch, lots of w's there...)

 

[LRK]

Completely agree! :thumbsup: Foyle's War is wonderful -- well worth watching (ouch, lots of w's there...)

Adore alliteration.

 

[NanaPat]

Another author of amusing mysteries is Carl Hiaassen. Or "the Florida guy" as I thought of him before I could remember his name. His books are more unisex than Janet Evonovich's, which I would think would appeal mostly to women.