Mystery In Vermont

When it comes to mysteries, Archer Mayor has put Vermont on the map with his excellent Joe Gunther series.  Here is a sampling from other writers about crime in Vermont.

Don Bredes - Hector Bellevance is town constable in his hometown, Tipton, in northeast Vermont.  In Cold Comfort his brother, Spud, becomes the suspect when a neighboring couple is found shot to death in their home. Hector teams up with Wilma, a local reporter, to solve the case.

B. Comfort - You’ll probably have to ask for Green Mountain Murder on inter-library loan.  The copy is old and ‘well-used’, but it is a fun read.  Ski area developers, drug dealers, antique thieves, Act 250 and stolen goods in a barn on Rt 7A south of Arlington all combine to make you feel right at home.  I really enjoyed it.

Melissa Glazer - Fictional Maple Ridge, Vermont, is the home of the pottery shop owned by Carolyn Emerson. In A Murderous Glaze, a body is discovered in her shop and she appears to be the main suspect. The characters could use further development, in my opinion, but if you want a quick, enjoyable, light cozy for a cold evening it would fit the bill.


Anna Salter - Forensic psychologist Michael Stone is featured in Shiny Water.  She lives and works in Vermont but there isn’t a lot of “local color” in the book.  It is not a cozy. Two children are murdered. The book has a lot of information about the sexual abuse of children and its treatment (or lack thereof) in the courts. In fact, I skipped several paragraphs throughout as the character got on a soap-box.  It is an important topic, but I often felt it was too heavily handled.

Sarah Stewart Taylor - In O’ Artful Death an unusual gravestone on a woman’s grave leads Boston art historian Sweeney St. George to Vermont.  While solving the mystery of what happened to the young woman in 1890, and who sculpted the unusual headstone, she becomes involved in two present-day murders.
Barbara Bretton - Chloe Hobbs is owner of a knitting shop in the small, magical (fictional) town of Sugar Maple. The novels are cozies, almost more a romance than a mystery.  There is a dead body and a handsome policeman sent to investigate. They are light and fun.  Try Casting Spells.

Virginia Winters - How often have you heard,  “Don’t judge a book by its cover”?  This is a case in point.  I would NEVER have taken this book of the shelf to read if I hadn't wanted to review it for the library's newsletter.   Murderous Roots has a dreadful cover, fortunately, the story is much better.  Dr. Anne McPhail, a Canadian doctor, is searching for her ancestral roots in Vermont when a body is found in the library.  Lt. Adam Davidson of the Culvers Mills police department, along with the rest of his crew, is on the case.  I think the author, or publisher, had in mind to make Dr. McPhail the central character.  It doesn't come across that way. Lt Davidson is the real central character.  And, he would be the character to continue with if it should become a series.

R. A. Harold - Heron Island takes place in 1903, just before a planned visit by President Teddy Roosevelt. A murder occurs on the Vermont island retreat where “Teddy” will be staying.  Is the murder a plot by anarchists intending to assassinate Roosevelt, or was it driven by personal motives?  It’s 500 well written pages and contains interesting things that I didn’t know about Vermont’s history.

Kate George - Moonlighting in Vermont is another cozy with romance thrown in. Bella MacGowan is a very likeable heroine. She works at the local newspaper and moonlights at a local five-star hotel. While working at the hotel she discovers a body and becomes the chief suspect.

John Vibber - Shadow on Cant-dog Hill takes place in the Northeast Kingdom. The parts describing why people live here are beautiful. Reviewers talk about twists, turns and red herrings, but I had it figured out before I reached the half-way point. Tighter editing would have made this a much better read; the last two chapters were unnecessary and should have been omitted.  P.S. A cant-dog is part of a cant-hook, used in logging.

Mysteries That Are A Little Bit Unusal

Here are some mysteries a little on the weird side. You can find most of the books in this column in your library, but some of them you may need to request on Inter-Library Loan.

Jasper Fforde – The Tuesday Next series are sort of sci-fi, sort of alternative universe (it is possible for a human to move in and out of books and change things) and definitely mystery. In the first of the series, someone is trying to kidnap Jane Eyre and Tuesday must stop it.  It is a very original series with a literary twist.

Jasper Fforde – The Jack Spratt series takes place in an England where nursery rhyme characters exist alongside regular folks. In The Big Over Easy did Humpty fall? Or was he murdered?

Nury Vittachi – CF Wong is the Feng Shui Detective in Singapore. His assistant, Joyce, is a British-Aussie teenager. It’s a light series with cultural, language and age differences adding to the fun.

Jim Butcher – The Dresden Files features Harry Dresden, the only wizard with an ad in the Chicago Yellow Pages. Think Harry Potter meets Sam Spade. It’s a great series. Butcher left us hanging in suspense in his last book so everyone is eagerly awaiting the next one to find out what happened to Harry.

Dave Duncan – Alfa Zeno is apprentice to Nostradamus in an alternative history Venice. Mystery, assassinations, witchcraft and black magic describe this series.

Lillian Braun – She writes a series featuring that Halloween animal - cats. Another author to try if you are a cat fan is Carole Nelson Douglas. Her characters are Temple Barr and her cat, Midnight Louie.

Douglas Adams – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is sci-fi and very much a mystery. It is very funny, more so than the Hitchhiker series.

Donna Andrews – Turing Hopper is an AIP (Artificial Intelligence Personality). She has a couple of humans do the leg work for her. If you feel your computer has a mind of its own you should enjoy this series.

Eva Garcia – Vinny Rubio is an undercover dino-human Velociraptor in Los Angeles. Of course he is “undercover”, what dino-human wouldn’t be?  Of course it is set in LA.

Mike Resnick – The Fable of Tonight series begins with Stalking the Unicorn.  John Justin Mallory is a detective in the “noir” style, but his universe goes just a little weird when he is approached by a short green person (who turns out to be an elf) and is asked to track down a missing unicorn.  John Justin is every detective that every graced the pages of pulp fiction.  The books are 100% fun. The other books in the series so far are Stalking the Dragon and Stalking the Vampire.

I am Moving

I've been having some problems with my posts.  So I have started another blog page at


http://booksmoviesandgames.wordpress.com/

I'd love for you to join me there until I can get this to work!  

Holiday Mysteries

People have asked why they couldn't register as a "follower" and I don't know.  I've made a few adjustments to the settings and hopefully it will now work.

Our Sleuths Have To Work Over the Holidays

Holiday mysteries often seem to be shorter and lighter than regular mysteries; even so I think you will enjoy this group. Take a break from your own holiday mayhem and enjoy a good read.

1.  Aunt Dimity’s Christmas by Nancy Atherton – A nameless man collapses on Lori’s driveway as she prepares for the holiday. Aunt Dimity and the local Catholic priest help her solve this good solid mystery with a quiet touch of holiday spirit.

2.  A Christmas Promise by Anne Perry – Here is a story that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. Not one of her series books, it still takes place in Victorian England. Our two sleuths, in this mystery for adults, are Gracie, aged 13, and Minnie, aged 8.

3.  Chanukah Guilt by Ilene Schneider –This is a great introduction to Rabbi Aviva Cohen in South Jersey.

4.   Christmas Is Murder by CS Challinor – Rex Graves is a Scottish barrister in this new series. It is a very well-done “Clue” meets Agatha Christie. Can’t give away the plot, but it is another “English country house” mystery well worth the read.

5.  Death of a Cozy Writer by GM Malliet – “Hard-boiled” mystery fans might think the idea of a cozy writer’s demise is long overdue! This first book in a fairly new series is a refreshing addition to the “English country house” mystery genre.

6.  Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie – Lots of families play a game together over the holidays but they don’t all end with a murder.  There goes Poirot’s quiet holiday.

7.  A Highland Christmas by MC Beaton – Hamish Macbeth has a mystery to solve over the holidays, but this time it isn’t murder.

8.  Kissing Christmas Goodbye by MC Beaton – This is considered by some to be the best in the series of Beaton’s other famous sleuth, Agatha Raisin. It’s a delightful “cozy” for the holidays.

9.  The Midnight Before Christmas by William Bernhardt – This is a non-series mystery from a writer usually associated with courtroom drama thrillers. It is definitely NOT a “cozy”. It IS action from start to finish. Setting it against the holidays gives it more of a “noir” feeling than if it were set at another other time, I think.

10.  Tied Up In Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh – A baffling mystery (as all mysteries should be) in the typical “English country house” genre. Inspector Alleyn’s wife has a major role in this one snowed up in an isolated country manor whose household staff contains no less than five “rehabilitated” convicted murderers.

 

Banned Books Week Is Coming Up

I was just at the Library putting up a display for Banned Books Week.  Be sure to visit your local library and see what they have going on....

It is always amazing to see some titles that people have challenged and had removed from shelves, especially at schools.

Titles such as:  Where's Waldo, Little Women, Fahrenheit 451 (that's irony if there ever was), the Merriam Webster Dictionary, and  Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? are among some of the most unexpected titles.

I have to admit that there are some books that make you wonder why they were ever printed in the first place.  Many are so repulsive.  BUT! The first time you  allow a book to be censored you have started down the slippery slope to tyranny.  The slogan of this year's week is "Think For Yourself and Let Others Do The Same."  To my mind it is the perfect slogan for the entire year.  If I am allowed to have a book removed from a library or bookstore shelf because of language, sex or violence my neighbor must be allowed to have a book removed because it speaks of God, of freedom, of democracy.  There is no stopping it once started.

 

Mystery Board Games - Part of the "Everything Else"

Books, Movies and Board Games...  you can never have too many.  And if you have them life can not be dull or boring.  And if you don't include them in your life, I am convinced, you leave yourself open to stress and all its side effects of ill health - physical and mental.

Since I have started putting the mystery column in I began thinking about all those mystery board games in my collection.  I have at least 30 (the ones I can see without too much moving stuff and not including the spy types) and after thinking it over I would have to say that CLUE is still our favorite. 

For the Holmes fans, I must say that I have 5 Sherlock Holmes games, made by different companies and including a card game.

Here's the list:
Sherlock Holmes (5)
Sleuth
Mr. Ree
Whodunit
Alfred Hitchcock's Why
Where There's A Will
Who Stole Ed's Pants
Mystery Express
Murder on the Orient Express
Philip Marlow Detective GAme
Outrage
Mystery on the Nile
Mystery in the Abbey
Mystery Rummy
Kojak the Stakeout Game
221B Baker Street (4 versions)
Clue (at least 7 versions)
Clue Master Detective
Clue Museum Caper
Kill Dr Lucky (a mystery in reverse)
Totort: Nactexpress
Crime Club
Crime Solvers
Murphy
Scotland Yard

There's the list - sometime it would be good to have a mystery marathon and play them all... While I said that CLUE is our favorite I would put Mystery of the Abbey, Kill Dr. Lucky, and Mystery Express as other favorites.

Policemen To Combat Wits With - more mysteries

These are strictly American policemen and women at work. These books are not "cozy", in fact some have quite graphic violence.

Suzanne Chazin - With a twist on regular police stories, her series stars Georgia Skeeham, a fire marshal in NYC.  I held my breath and turned the pages as fast as possible.  These are non-stop excitement.


Patricia Cornwell - When it comes to forensics any list worth its salt has to include Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta and also Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan.


Jeffery Deaver - Well known for his Lincoln Rhyme series he now has a new heroine, Kathryn Dance, a brilliant interrogator and body language expert with the California Bureau of Investigation.  She first appeared in the Lincoln Rhyme book, Cold Moon, and I was hoping we would see more of her.


Tony Hillerman - This Grand Master of mystery writing has 18 books (and they are all great) featuring his two characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Navaho tribal police officers.  Some books feature one or the other and many feature both.


JA Jance - She has three different characters, but my favorites are JP Beaumont, a Seattle policeman and Joanna Brady, a sheriff in Arizona. In two of her books they even work together.


JA Konrath - The Jack Daniels series.  "Jack" is a female Lt. in the Chicago Violent Crimes Division.  She's hard-nosed, has gray in her hair and is a good read.  All the books have titles of drinks. The first in the series is Whisky Sour.  Start there.


Archer Mayor - If you live in Vermont and you like mysteries surely you are reading the Joe Gunther series already.  If you don't live in the Green Mountain State these books will make you want to visit.


Ed McBain - McBain started his 87th Precinct series in 1956 and the last was published just after his death in 2005.  They are considered THE definition of the "procedural" due to the accuracy of the police work described.  They are dead-pan and violent.


Colin Wilcox - Here is a very good "procedural" writer.  His character, Frank Hastings, is a co-commander of the SFPD Homicide division.  Wilcox is not as well known as many current "hot" authors, but his books are solid.


Stuart Woods - Woods has many non-series books that seldom disappoint and a series character Holly Barker, a former military police commander and now a police chief in a small Florida town.

By the way - did you know that September is the National Get A Library Card Month?  Your local library will have books by these authors, and if they don't they will get them for you on InterLibrary Loan.  Use your library!

"Cozy" Mysteries

Amid all the back-to-school rush who has time for a complicated mystery? It is the perfect time for a "cozy", one of those mysteries in which murder is considered an aberration, an accident, in a world that is basically benign. Here are ten good writers.

Nancy Atherton - The Aunt Dimity series with Lori Shepard, an American, and her unexpected benefactor, Aunt Dimity, who happens to be a ghost. Their association begins when Dimity bequeaths her cottage in England to Lori. They are light-weight mysteries, but very delightful.


Dorothy Cannell - Ellie is a great heroine (detective). The books are tongue-in-cheek, laugh-out-loud fun, English country manor type mysteries.


Dorothy Gilman - The Mrs. Pollifax series. Mrs. Pollifax is a lively grandmother and CIA agent.


Carolyn Hart - Her books feature a South Carolina mystery bookshop owner and a crazy supporting cast in the Death on Demand series.


Carol Anne O'Marie - The Sister Mary Ellen series. While Sister Mary Ellen, in San Francisco, and her friend are nuns of "retirement age" they are very modern, humorous and likable. Unfortunately they seem to attract dead bodies.


Elliot Roosevelt - Featuring his mother, Eleanor, the First Lady.


Ian Sansom - A fun series featuring a Jewish vegetarian from London who is a bookmobile librarian in Northern Ireland. If you would like to read a book that makes librarians laugh give this one a go.


Alexander McCall Smith - He writes two series, the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency about a lady of "traditional size" in Botswana, and the Sunday Philosophy Club series featuring Isabel Dalhousie in Scotland. In both of these series, the mystery is not the main point of the book, but rather the characters themselves.


Josephine Winspear - She writes the Masie Dobbs series which could also appear in a historical mystery list as they take place during the 1920 - 30's in London.


Patricia Wentworth - Her series features Miss Silver in London, who reminds one of Miss Marple (although she appeared before Miss Marple) or Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Allen. Wentworth wrote from the late 1920's to the 60's and the books reflect that style.

Time has really gone quickly!

I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted.   Will promise to do better from here on in. One thing that I have been asked to do is to include all my mystery lists.  I have done about a dozen so far and will begin to get them onto the site right away.

AGPC Convention

My last mystery column was on novels set on board ships. A good list, done as I was getting ready to set sail myself and I fully intended to read several of them while on board. The AGPC (Association of Game & Puzzle Collectors) (www.agpc.org) Convention was held on the Navigator of the Seas cruise to Cozumel and Belize. Did I get any reading done? Nope. Between very interesting talks and workshops, the good food, and the sea air I fell asleep anytime I wasn't standing up!.