Other Crime Writers

TuppenceBeresford

Do you read any other authors? I didn't read crime fiction at all until I discovered Agatha Christie but after reading Partners in Crime, I started reading the authors whose works the short stories are based on. I also read Dorothy L Sayers and Reginald Hill.

My top 5

1. I'm sure you can guess.

2. AEW Mason - one of the authors parodied in Partners in Crime. Exciting stories and very amusing dialogue.

3. Reginald Hill - very intricate plots, lively characters and I find it quite difficult to guess the murderer because I have enough to do remembering the strands of the plot.

4. Anthony Berkeley - I've only read one of his (Jumping Jenny) and I completely disagreed with the ending on moral grounds but I found the characters very likeable.

5. Arthur Conan Doyle - not so keen on the novels but I really enjoy the short stories and the Holmes/Watson relationship. 

Others:

Dorothy Sayers (great plots but I keep getting the characters confused) 

R. Austin Freeman (I find the science fascinating)  

Edgar Wallace (I loved the idea of it but found it boring to read about which I'm sure it my fault)

PD James (maybe I need to try her again - I read Death Comes to Pemberley which just didn't work for me as a Pride & Prejudice sequel)

GK Chesterton (some stories were really gripping)

I have Herbert George Jenkins on my bookshelf along with more AEW Mason and Anthony Berkeley. Plus ten Agatha Christie novels and six plays. I read a few other genres so it'll take me a while to read them all but I have a lot to look forward to.

Tommy_A_Jones

I Read Books by Betty Rowlands, Ann(e) Granger, Rebecca Tope, Simon Brett, David Roberts, Dick Francis, Dorothy L Sayers and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle aswell as Crime books by Mark Wallington and P. G. Wodehouse.

TuppenceBeresford

I haven't even heard of most of these writers - I'll have to look out for them.

I didn't know PG Wodehouse wrote crime books but I love his golf stories.

Tommy_A_Jones

I didn't mean to suggest Mark Wallington or P.G. Wodehouse Wrote Detective Fiction although Wodehouse did Write one Crime Short Story..

You could do worse than Read The others, They are Brilliant, I forgot to mention Dorothy Simpson whose Thanet Books are wonderful and her Books and those of Rowwlands and Brett aswell as Christie helped me when I lived somewhere I didn't like.

LeopoldoAtila

I have to say that, besides Agatha Christie, I'm not so fond of others crimes writers

Tommy_A_Jones

At least 2 3rds of what In read is Detective Fiction.

shana

Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G.C. Chesterton, Patricia Wentworth, P.D. James, George Simeon, Edgar Wallace and Wodehouse are some of the other crime writers whose work i have read.. I like the genre.

Tommy_A_Jones

Actually it is G. K. Chesaterton.

tudes

I read Dorothy L. Sayers, I like her, but I prefer A. C.
I'm very found Patricia Wentworth. Although, I've read only two books. It resembles Miss Marple's story.
I like Conan Doyle too, but sometimes I think he's kind of boring.
I tried P.D. James, but I didn't like very much. I have a problem with her endings.

ginestra

I like P D James. Her characters are  well depicted . A deep expert of human nature .

Moreover I have just read From doon with love by Ruth Rendell. I suggest reading it. I think it is her best novel.Interesting ending.

Tommy_A_Jones

I watched An Adaptation Of The Murder Room recently, Sadly Martin Shaw played Dalglish, I think Roy Marsden is a Better Dalglish, I have also read Death Of An Expert Witness, Devices And Desires and The one where a Vicar gets Stigmarta on his Hands, I found Patricia Wentworth Hard Going (I only read 2) and all 4 Holmes Novella's, I have only read one short story by Ruth Rendell, I am trying to read a Father Brown Book of short stories, I have read Murder Must Advertize by Dorothy L. Sayers, What are her Montague Egg Stories like?I am thinking of Reading one.

tudes

I'm trying to read a Father Brown too.

Tommy_A_Jones

Do You Find them Difficult? I do, I was Given one Book, Didn't get on with it now am trying to sede if I find them easier after seeing The Series, I read a story after a Poirot Novel, It is easier that Way with Labours of Hercule I found.

tudes

I don't know what it is. Unfortunately, in my country, the  TV (even cable) doesn't show the serie.

I think I'll put aside for a moment and try to read latter.

Tommy_A_Jones

What Country Is That? There Is not enough Dialogue is there in the stories?

anne.clough.3

Interesting what you are saying about the Father Brown stories.

I enjoyed the Tv series, so when I saw a couple of volumes of the stories going for free on Kindle recently, I downloaded them. I have not had a chance to read them yet.

I enjoy period mysteries, especially, medieval and Victorian.

I love Michael Jecks' Knights Templar series

Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series

Anne Perry's Thomas Pitt and William Monk series

For modern day crime I love Peter Robinson's Alan Banks series.

I will add more as I remember them.

Tommy_A_Jones

I had a Book of Ann Perry's stories, One Pitt and one Monk Story, They were OK but a bit above me, The Banks Series has put me off wanting to Read The Banks Books, I don't do Gritty, The Father Brown Series Series made me want to try again with the Stories, They are slow but my Heart lifts at the 1st mention of Father Brown.

anne.clough.3

Tommy, the tv series of Banks is inferior to the books in so many ways, but especially, characterisation.

If you like the "murder in the past" genre try "In a Dry Season". It is brilliant, in my opinion.

It's funny, but I do not count them as Gritty. Criminal Minds is Gritty.

Just shows how different people are.

I am still curious about the "Father Brown" stories. I guess it is the writing. I will have to start on them soon.

Tommy_A_Jones

I watched The Crime and Thriller Award Programmes and the Author of the Banks series said at one point when I was watching it (The Pilot or series 1) BANKS says "Throw the Ball, You Fetch it" and that felt uncomfortable to him because in the books apparently he never Pulls Rank, Are threy as Gruesome as the series portrays? Apparently The Writer tried to not  to make him Divorced but in the end he became divorced, I will look for In A Dry Season.

Good Luc with Father Brown, btw The Books are nothing like the series.

tudes

What Country Is That? There Is not enough Dialogue is there in the stories?

I live in Brazil and we don't have the series even in cable. In fact, I bought the book in UK, because here they don't publish these books anymore. I mean, Father Brown. Not Agatha Christie.
I think you're right. I miss the dialogues.

Tommy_A_Jones

I live in England, I love the series, very Different from the Books, which is why I read a short story Occassionally, would like to see more Adaptations though, only seen one other with an ASmerican called Bernard.

tudes

You're very lucky! We don't have none of these things here!

anne.clough.3

I watched The Crime and Thriller Award Programmes and the Author of the Banks series said at one point when I was watching it (The Pilot or series 1) BANKS says "Throw the Ball, You Fetch it" and that felt uncomfortable to him because in the books apparently he never Pulls Rank, Are threy as Gruesome as the series portrays? Apparently The Writer tried to not  to make him Divorced but in the end he became divorced, I will look for In A Dry Season.

Good Luc with Father Brown, btw The Books are nothing like the series.

Yes, Alan's character is so multi-layered in the books and Annie, in the books, is my favourite character yet I hate the way she is portrayed in the series.

"In a Dry Season" is actually the book where they meet. It was the first one of the series that I read and I loved both Annie and Alan.

I went back and read the others and at the beginning of the series, Alan and his family move to Yorkshire. The family are "intact" for the first few books, then his wife leaves him and ends up with another man, which is why Alan moves out to that isolated cottage that has such beautiful descriptions in the books.

Another thing I hate is the characterisation of Lucy in the first of the tv series. In the book she was a true psychopath, just as guilty as her husband, yet in the show she is made out to be more innocent and manipulated by him.

Also, at the end when she is about to be captured, she tries to kill her neighbour, the one who befriended her, but ends up going out the window, which is how she became a quadriplegic. I hated how in the next show, the one where she was executed ( I won't say murdered because she deserved to die) Alan goes on about her being bashed in prison which caused her injuries and how she was so innocent.

As for Gruesome, I do not find them overly so. I think the Kathy Reichs books are much worse. I cannot read the descriptions in them, yet have never had that problem with Peter Robinson. The crimes are bad but the descriptions are not as bad as others.

I am worried about Father Brown now.

ginestra

Father Brown is another "story" . I read  most of his works in the past. It is literature not just entertainment but now I do not feel like reading them anylonger.

 Dorothy Sayers should have been an  interesting woman but her Lord Wimsey does not belong to this world....perfect in everything he does ...rich..cleaver...a real lord/master...no no no.. Where are these men?:)

tudes

@ginestra, I love your comment about men just like Lord Wimsey !
)

ginestra

thanks tudes  

taliavishay-arbel

I like a lot of the authors some of you mentioned, as well as ellis peters, margery allingham and some others. However, I just came across an old writer - anna katherine green (late 19th and early 20th century) - several of her books appear in Gutenberg, and she has a character who can be seen as an earlier type of Miss Marple. Just finished the series of Violet Strange stories - kind of Victorian, but lots of fun. Definitely recommend!

Tommy_A_Jones

I shall look her up.

Anubis

I love reading anything and everything, but as far as mysteries go: Recently, I read The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green and liked it. For classic "golden age" mysteries, I enjoy S.S. Van Dine's stories. Written in the 1920s and 30s, each book had the title "The XXXXXX Murder Case", where XXXXXX was a six-letter word. The first two books in the series, The Benson Murder Case and The "Canary" Murder Case, were each based on real-life unsolved crimes. Today, these books are hardly known, but at one time they were so popular that they were made into a series of movies starring such folks as William Powell and Basil Rathbone. Francis Iles' Malice Aforethought is a good one, reminiscent of Columbo. I also like John Dickson Carr, although his stories are more "howdunnit" than "whodunnit". Also Ellery Queen. In modern writers, I like Donald Westlake, who combines mystery, suspense, and humour to good effect, and Peter Lovesey, who combines good-old-fashioned fair play mystery with modern sensibilities. 

Pankaj Goyal

I read John Grisham and Robin Cook. I have not read any book by Dorothy L Sayers so far. However, I am looking forward to read her books too.

P_Lombard

I just finished reading Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It had the potential to be a really great mystery novel (too bad Dickens died before he could finish it). Some other crime stories I really enjoy:

• Charles Dickens: Bleak House (one of the first detective novels ever written) and Barnaby Rudge (Grip inspired Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven")
  
• Edgar Allan Poe: "The Murders in the Rue Morge"
• Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (A strong, but somewhat uneven mystery novel [some sections are really strong, and other parts are not so great])
  
• Dorothy Gilman: Mrs. Pollifax Series (A phenomenal series of spy novels: really funny and fun to read over and over, again and again [especially the first 4 novels in the series])