mystery and crime

  • Beyond Tea & Crumpets: Gritty Brits on DVD

    Think of British TV mystery and you may conjure up images of teacup wielding dowager sleuths, peering through the foxgloves at some suspicious goings on about the Village green. Lord Peter Wimsey and Miss Marple. Arsenic and tweed. But there’s a whole other side to British Crime – a tough contemporary side where hardened detectives battle it… Continue reading

  • Crime: Imagining Jack the Ripper

    Whitechapel, London, 1888 Would Sherlock Holmes identify Jack the Ripper using his astute powers of deduction? Arthur Conan Doyle never put Holmes on the Whitechapel set, but Lyndsay Faye pits the pipe-smoking, cognitively-advanced detective against the Ripper with disastrous results in her novel Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John… Continue reading

  • G is for Goodis, Dark Prince of Noir.

    I know – you were thinking G was for Grafton, but as the Kinsey Milhone series already made an appearance in a recent post on the most prolific female detectives, I get to resume my Alphabet of Crime with one of my all time favorites: David Goodis. Close your eyes and think of “Noir.” What do you see, hear, feel?… Continue reading

  • Crime: Evil under the Rising Sun.

    Watching the cherry blossoms burst forth and fade always makes me think of Japan. But my Japan is not a place of samurai, ninja and serene Zen temples. The Japan I think of is lit by neon rather than a rising sun. A place of tailored suits, leather jackets, discos and hostess bars, a place where… Continue reading

  • Crime: If You Like Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series.

    In his 1950 essay The Simple Art of Murder, Raymond Chandler outlined the character of the modern detective, in words fit to quote at length: “…down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. … He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual… Continue reading

  • Crime: If You Like Boardwalk Empire

    I just finished season one of Boardwalk Empire, Martin Scorcese’s series set in prohibition era Atlantic City, and am dying for more. I love good immersive TV experiences (and saving money with library DVDs), but in the end you’re as bereft as if you’d just finished a satisfying long novel. So I put together a couple of… Continue reading

  • Crime: William Faulker, detective?

    This week, I’m loitering in the F’s in my alphabet of crime, because I’ve got an axe to grind. Recently, Atlantic Monthly added its voice to the endless, senseless eyebrow maneuvers (highbrow/lowbrow) that persist in the foothills of the culture wars, in a piece by Maura Kelly called A Slow-Books Manifesto. The gist of the piece is to get more… Continue reading

  • Crime: Four Felonious Frasers.

    In publishing it has always been called the “mid-list” – that amorphous body of works that don’t get the attention of heavily promoted bestsellers. It is the vast majority of what gets published, and in the mystery section of any good bookstore or library, it is the source of untold riches. Working my way through my alphabet of… Continue reading

  • Crime: E is for Evanovich? Prolific lady sleuths.

    “You know what I really love a book to have?” she asked me. “No, what?” “About 20 sequels!!” We were counting through Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books, but she’d already read all 18, and was getting desperate. In fact, she’d also been through our If You Like Janet Evanovich list, and looked through a few other library’s lists as well.… Continue reading

  • Crime: Mad Dogs and Estleman

    Advancing through my Alphabet of Crime, I pause at the E’s to share a couple of the best hardboiled mystery writers around: Loren Estleman and James Ellroy. The use of the term “hard-boiled” to describe fiction – borrowed from an early 20th-century expression for experienced tough guys – may date from February 17, 1929 when the New York Times… Continue reading

  • Crime: If you like J.A. Jance mysteries …

    Most of the J.A. Jance fans I know have a deep affinity for J.P. Beaumont, the Seattle detective who lets us see just enough of his personal life to make him real, then brings us right back to a tight focus on the case. We love his smart, brooding character; we’re crazy for the Seattle setting and we… Continue reading

  • Crime: The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton

    Last week I talked about E.C. Bentley’s singular mystery Trent’s Last Case, which was dedicated to his old friend G.K. Chesterton; now that I’ve reached the C’s in my alphabet of crime, it seems only fitting to revisit Chesterton’s singular thriller, The Man Who Was Thursday, itself dedicated to Bentley. Although mystery fans will best… Continue reading

  • An Alphabet of Crime: Margery Allingham

    I made a couple of New Year’s resolutions involving crime this year: to start up a regular weekly crime column here in ShelfTalk, and to alphabetically read my way through the mystery section at the Central Library, two authors/letters each month. My colleague Linda has done this twice, up to the letter G anyway, and so I… Continue reading

  • Finding a Hit Man at your Public Library

    The seasoned professionals at your library pride ourselves on helping our patrons with their every need. We are highly skilled at cleaning up messes and tying up loose ends, at rubbing out your troublesome irritations, and making problems go away. So we have a certain grudging admiration for the skilled operators seen plying their deadly… Continue reading

  • A Cat-alog of mysteries

    Mysteries that feature cats are pure catnip to cat lovers. Here are some favorite authors. Marian Babson always includes a cat that is central to the plot. Sally, the little stray cat in The Company of Cats, was rescued by Arthur Arbuthnot, but after Arthur is murdered, Sally finds herself in grave danger from his greedy relatives as she has inherited… Continue reading

  • Let’s talk about “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter”

    Beginning December 1, Book Chat (the Library’s virtual book discussion group) will discuss Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, the story of a childhood friendship marred by misunderstanding and suspicion. Silas, the African-American child of a single mother barely making it, and Larry, the white son of a coarse, loud braggart, were close friends despite living… Continue reading

  • Who is Fantômas?

    “Fantômas.”                 “What did you say?” “I said: Fantômas.”                 “And what does that mean?” “Nothing…Everything!”                  “But what is it?” “Nobody….and yet, yes, it is somebody!”                  “And what does the somebody do?” “Spreads terror!” A century ago, these words unleashed reign of terror upon the literary world which continues to this day. It was… Continue reading

  • MISSING

    They say the first 24 hours are the most crucial when trying to locate a missing person. These stories don’t have that luxury… I was originally drawn to the book Claire Dewitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran because the story takes place in New Orleans and I have a certain fascination… Continue reading