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Meet the Authors of Summer's Biggest Mysteries
It's always the perfect time to lose yourself in amystery or thriller...but there's nothing like summer to curl poolside with a page-turner, or two, or three.
To help you sleuth out a new read, we asked the authors of eight of this summer's most anticipated mysteries and thrillersto tell you about their new books and share their best recommendations for the perfect whodunit.
Be sure to check out the new books from genre favorites includingRiley Sager,Megan Miranda, andS.A. Cosby. Meanwhile The Silent Patient'Alex Michaelides is back with his second novel, andT.J. Newman arrives with her first thriller. We’re confident that these writers will help you solve the mystery of what to read next.
Be sure to add the books thatpique your interest to yourWant to Read shelf!
To help you sleuth out a new read, we asked the authors of eight of this summer's most anticipated mysteries and thrillersto tell you about their new books and share their best recommendations for the perfect whodunit.
Be sure to check out the new books from genre favorites includingRiley Sager,Megan Miranda, andS.A. Cosby. Meanwhile The Silent Patient'Alex Michaelides is back with his second novel, andT.J. Newman arrives with her first thriller. We’re confident that these writers will help you solve the mystery of what to read next.
Be sure to add the books thatpique your interest to yourWant to Read shelf!
Riley Sager, author of Survive the Night
Riley Sager:A movie-obsessed college student sharing a ride with a fellow student she met at the campus ride board begins to suspect he’s actually a serial killer. It’s 1991, so there are no cellphones, no GPS, and no easy way to escape. It’s less of a mystery and more of a thrill ride. I wanted it to have the feel of a car speeding down a highway in the dead of night.
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
RS:Sometimes an idea just taps me on the shoulder and says, “Hi! Here I am!� That’s what happened with Survive the Night. One day, a single sentence popped into my head�Film noir Little Red Riding Hood. I had no idea what it meant or what to do with it, but the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became with the idea of writing about a girl trying to get home who encounters the Big Bad Wolf.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
鳧:My perfect mystery needs to have a combination of complex characters and a plot that keeps you on your toes, told in a very memorable voice. I need to feel engaged with every aspect of the book.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
鳧:Every list of this kind must include Agatha Christie. It’s mandatory, because she was the queen of mysteries and because And Then There Were None pretty much gave birth to the modern psychological thriller. I also consistently enjoy the work of Megan Abbott and Megan Miranda. I’ve also been a longtime fan of Harlan Coben and adore the work of Stephen King.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
RS:I’m lucky enough to get a lot of the big upcoming mysteries and thrillers sent to me to read early. Of the ones coming out this summer, I’m a huge fan of The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Hunting Wives by May Cobb, and Hairpin Bridge by Taylor Adams. As for recent releases, I adored the creepiness of Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman and the complex emotions at the heart of The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave.
GR:For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
RS:I’m going to go with Tell No One by Harlan Coben. It’s one of the most gripping and addictive thrillers I’ve ever read. I defy anyone to start it and not finish it in a few days� time.
Ҹ:What real-life mystery do you think about?
RS: The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, mostly because it happened literally a few miles from my house. I’m fascinated by both the chilling nature of the crime and how it rattled—and obsessed—the entire nation. Almost 90 years later, people are still obsessed with it.
Riley Sager'Survive the Nightisavailable now in the U.S.
Samantha Downing, author of For Your Own Good
SD: For Your Own Good takes place at the elite Belmont Academy, where Teddy Crutcher has just been named Teacher of the Year. It’s about time, as far as he’s concerned. He knows how to teach, and, more importantly, he knows exactly what his students need to learn. If only everyone would just get out of his way and let him do his job...
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
SD: I was thinking about how much time kids spend in school and how scary it would be if one of the teachers is…off. The idea was to create a teacher who could, in theory, be out there teaching kids in a real school. Everyone is concerned with finding predators in schools—and rightly so—however someone like Teddy could slip through the cracks. I think that’s a terrifying thought.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery novel?
SD:It has to start with a compelling character. I don’t care if they are likable or unlikable; they just have to be compelling enough to make me want to read more. But more than anything else, I want to be so fully drawn into a book that all I care about is finding out what happens next. That’s a perfect book to me.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
SD: This is always tough because there are so many writers whose work I admire and love to read. For the all-time-favorite list, I have to include Daphne du Maurier, Gillian Flynn, Caroline Kepnes, Attica Locke, Megan Miranda, Jennifer Hillier, and Mary Kubica. But that’s just a few…I could name at least 20 more.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
SD: Again, I could write a long list…but these are some of my recent favorites:
You Will Remember Me by Hannah Mary McKinnon
You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes
Impostor Syndrome by Kathy Wang
Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan
The Dead Season by Tessa Wegert
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
SD: Anything by Ruth Ware. I think it’s impossible not to be pulled into her books.
Ҹ:What real-life mystery do you think about?
SD:My addiction to The Circle on Netflix is a mystery, but it’s probably better left unsolved.
Samantha Downing’sFor Your Own Goodwill be availablein the U.S. on July 20.
Alex Michaelides, author of The Maidens
Alex Michaelides: is a combination of Greek mythology, psychology, and murder. It’s a psychological thriller set at Cambridge University where there is a mysterious secret society known as the Maidens. One of the Maidens is found dead, which brings in our heroine, Mariana—a troubled group psychotherapist—because the murder victim was a friend of her niece.
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
AM: Three things kind of happened at the same time. In part, it started with Greek mythology, which is where my creative imagination very much lives. It also started with Mariana. She popped into my head as this sad, grieving woman who is going through her husband’s belongings, which is how we first meet her. That image came to me early on.
And lastly, I studied at Cambridge, and I always knew I wanted to write about it one day. It percolated in my head for years and finally became the setting for .
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
AM: I guess I’d look to Agatha Christie for examples of “a perfect mystery� because there’s no one better at the craft. It’s all about the art of setup, payoff, red herring, twist, reveal. There’s nothing in a Christie novel that is not relevant to the story later. As you get to the end of the novel, these bells chime in your head as you put it all together. So when I reference Christie, I’m looking at that mastery of plot, which I think is essential in any mystery.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
AM: When I was 16, I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt three or four times in a row. It’s a detective story set on a college campus. In a way, I wrote because I wanted to re-create the enjoyment I got out of reading that book, and the best way I know how is to write something new—something that I, as a reader, would want to read over and over.
And then, of course, Agatha Christie, as I mentioned already. One of the reasons I wrote The Silent Patient in the first place was because I had run out of Christies to read, and so I decided to write my own psychological detective story.
GR: What are some new mysteries you’ve been enjoying and recommending to friends?
AM: I don’t read a lot of crime fiction anymore—I mostly read literary fiction and psychology now—but I thought The Guest List by Lucy Foley was wonderfully atmospheric and kept me guessing to the very end.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what’s a good book to lure them back to the genre?
AM: Five Little Pigs is my favorite Agatha Christie novel, with an unguessable twist—and its brilliance made me want to become a writer. It has the most perfect construction of any detective story I ever read.
Ҹ:What real-life mystery do you think about?
[Editor's Note: The author chose not to answer this question. Mysterious, eh?]
Alex Michaelides’�The Maidensisavailable now in the U.S.
T.J. Newman, author of Falling
T.J. Newman: One hundred forty-four passengers on board a flight from Los Angeles to New York don’t know that 30 minutes before their flight, the pilot’s family was kidnapped. The only way the family will survive is if he crashes the plane. The story then follows the valiant efforts of the crew and passengers in the air and the FBI on the ground in their attempts to do the impossible.
GR: What sparked the idea for your book?
TJN:The concept for came to me at work. I was working a red-eye to New York (I was a flight attendant for ten years before this and wrote much of this book on the plane), and I was standing at the front of the cabin looking out at the passengers. It was dark. Everyone was asleep. And for the first time a thought occurred to me—their lives, our lives, were in the pilot’s hands. So with that much power and responsibility, how vulnerable does that make a commercial pilot? And I just couldn’t shake the thought.
So a few days later, I was on a different trip, with a different set of pilots, and one day I threw out to the captain: “What would you do if your family was kidnapped and you were told that if you didn’t crash the plane, they would be killed? What would you do?� And the look on his face terrified me. I knew he didn’t have an answer. And I knew I had the makings of my first book.
GR:What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
TJN:When I finish a chapter and think, “It will not be just one more chapter,� I know the book is on a whole other level. I don’t know if there’s a “perfect� mystery, but any story that makes the one-more-chapter lie feel blasphemous has to be close.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
TJN:I’m a sucker for Michael Crichton because he was my introduction to the genre, so there’s a lovely bit of nostalgia tied to his stories. Gillian Flynn, Stephen King, Lee Child never disappoint, either. And every book by Steve Hamilton I finish with an impressed head shake and breathless wow.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
TJN:I just finished The Last Thing to Burn, and bravo to its author, Will Dean, because I can’t remember the last time I hated a character as viscerally as I did Lenn. I’m also about to start Dark Corners of the Nightby Meg Gardiner—the third in her UNSUB series—which has always been at the top of my rec list, so I imagine that one will follow suit.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
TJN: November Roadby Lou Berney. It’s smart as hell and leaves you craving other stories that are that well-turned.
GR: What real-life mystery do you think about?
TJN:In the midst of Joe DiMaggio’s historic 56-game hitting streak in 1941 (literally in the middle of the game where he tied the record), his favorite bat—“Betsy Ann”—was stolen from the dugout. It was returned five days later, but the circumstances are…murky. I think about what happened during that week quite often.
T.J. Newman'Fallingisavailable now in the U.S.
Megan Miranda, author of Such a Quiet Place
Megan Miranda:The neighbors of Hollow’s Edge, a previously close-knit, idyllic community, believe they’ve collectively solved the case of the double murder on their street by using their doorbell cameras and security footage, leading to the conviction of one of their neighbors, named Ruby. But Ruby’s conviction is soon overturned, and she comes right back to Hollow’s Edge, sending the neighborhood into a tailspin, as they realize the true killer might’ve been among them all along�
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
MM:There were two different ideas I’d been thinking about that sparked the initial idea for Such a Quiet Place. First, I’d been fascinated by the idea of a group of neighbors collectively believing they could solve a crime by piecing together their individual evidence. I’d also been watching a lot of crime shows and documentaries, and at each resolution, I kept finding myself asking, What happens next?
Suddenly these two different ideas combined. This is very much the story of what happens next—after everyone believed the danger was behind them, the story is only just beginning.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
MM:I love reading a mystery where the resolution feels both surprising and satisfying, when you can feel the puzzle pieces sliding into place, and at the end you think, of course, but also somehow didn’t see it coming. I love when I want to turn back to the first page and experience it all over again.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
MM:This is a constantly growing list for me! But some of the names that I always recommend are Harlan Coben and Tana French.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
MM:So many! I’m a huge mystery and suspense reader, and this is yet another constantly growing list for me. A small sample of the books that I’ve been escaping into and recommending over the past year: Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier, Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson, The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
MM:There are so many different types of mysteries—it’s difficult to pick just one. I believe there are mysteries for every type of reader. For me, one of the books I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I read it last year is Long Bright River by Liz Moore. It was haunting, captivating, unsettling, surprising—all the elements of a great mystery read.
GR:What real-life mystery do you think about?
MM:I think about real-life mysteries ALL THE TIME. These are the questions that have always fueled my curiosity, from the large to the small. What was that noise outside at 2 a.m.? What are the mysteries inside other people, that have brought them to this moment? UFOs�.yes or no? For me, thinking about the small, everyday mysteries is often what inspires the spark for new ideas.
Megan Miranda’sSuch a Quiet Placewill be available in the U.S. on July 13.
Grady Hendrix, author of The Final Girl Support Group
Grady Hendrix: Final girls are the women who survive horror movies, and tells the story of what happens to these women after the end credits roll. In my book, these survivors are still meeting in a support group, decades later, all of them coping in different ways with the fact that when they were teenagers a masked killer murdered all their friends, then tried to kill them. Now it looks like it’s happening all over again, and someone’s picking them off one by one.
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest novel?
GH:There have been other books and movies about final girls before, but they treated them ironically or like some kind of campy meta-joke. I wanted to take them seriously. What would it mean if all your friends were murdered while you were still in high school? How do you go on living after the worst night of your life? What do you do with the rest of your life? And the answer is survive. As best you can. Even if your best isn’t very good.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
GH: I’m not looking for perfection in a book. I’m looking to read something I’ve never seen before. Sometimes an obscure oddity like The Little People(Nazi leprechauns) or Night Calls (a feminist-empowerment manifesto disguised as a serial killer book about a prank-calling murderer obsessed with a chandelier salesman named Chad) may not be good, but they’re definitely unforgettable.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
GH:As far as I’m concerned, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me should supplant Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood as the great American true-crime book.
Every few years, I reread Charles Willeford’s Hoke Mosely books because they suck me in with their totally flat affect that treats making a sandwich and getting shot with the same emotional intensity. But a lot of the writers I love turned in just one perfect book.
Diane Johnson’sThe Shadow Knows is stylishly surreal, and it impressed Stanley Kubrick enough that he hired her to write The Shining screenplay with him; Anne Rivers Siddons wrote one haunted house book, The House Next Door, but it’s perfect; and as far as I’m concerned, Thomas Harris only wrote two novels, Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
GH:I’ve been recommending Stephen Graham Jones� upcoming My Heart Is a Chainsaw because it works some of the same slasher territory as , only different. And Sarah Langan’s Good Neighbors, about a neighborhood driven berserk by a sinkhole, has some of the best-written teenage characters I’ve ever read.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
GH:I try to avoid luring people whenever possible because I’ve learned the hard way that it gets you in trouble. However, there are a few go-to books I always recommend. Elizabeth Engstrom’s When Darkness Loves Us contains two incredibly upsetting and beautifully written novellas, Joan Samson’s The Auctioneer is basically Stephen King’s Needful Things as written by Cormac McCarthy, and if you ever wanted to read the paperback original equivalent of One Hundred Years of Solitude, then you’re looking for Michael McDowell’s The Blackwater Saga. Also, come on, John Christopher’s is about Nazi leprechauns. You know you want to read it.
GR:What real-life mystery do you think about?
GH: Why would a leprechaun become a Nazi? Don’t they have enough problems already?
Grady Hendrix’sThe Final Girl Support Groupwill be available in the U.S. on July 13.
S.A. Cosby, author of Razorblade Tears
S.A. Cosby:Two fathers seek revenge and redemption as they rain down hell on the people who killed their sons.
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
SAC:I really wanted to examine the idea of unconditional love and what happens when we put conditions on said love.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
SAC:One that has a solution I don't roll my eyes at.
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
SAC:Gosh, how much time you got? [Lol] Dennis Lehane, Lee Child, Thomas Harris, Ed McBain, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley, Sue Grafton, Chester Himes, to name a few.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
SAC:I make everyone I know read Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier or Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett. I'm also a huge fan of the Ace Atkins Quinn Colson series.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
SAC:Anything by Megan Abbott or Rachel Howzell Hall...also Jo Nesbo fills the bill.
GR:What real-life mystery do you think about?
SAC: I'm a true-crime fanatic, and I grew up in Virginia, so the Colonial Parkway Murders terrified me as a kid and fascinate me as an adult.
S.A. Cosby’sRazorblade Tearswill beavailable in the U.S. on July 6.
B.A. Paris, author of The Therapist
B.A. Paris:A young woman, Alice, moves into a house in a gated community in London with her partner, Leo. She hasn’t been there very long when she discovers that her new home harbors a grisly secret. When none of her neighbors want to talk about it, she sets out on a mission to find out what really happened to Nina, the therapist who lived there before.
GR: What sparked the idea for your latest book?
BAP:I recently moved into an old cottage, some of which dates back to the 17th century, and began to think about its past inhabitants. I knew that some of them would have died in the house, and I was happy living with their ghosts. But then I began to wonder how I would feel if I discovered that one of them had been murdered—and that gave me the idea for The Therapist.
GR: What’s your definition of a perfect mystery?
BAP:One where I don’t guess who the murderer is!
GR:Who are some of your all-time-favorite mystery and thriller writers?
BAP:Agatha Christie will always be my all-time favorite. Her novels were the first thrillers I read; I spent a long, lazy summer reading my way through them when I was 12 years old. Although I didn’t know it at the time, they introduced me to the genre I would go on to write. Another favorite is Patricia Highsmith�The Talented Mr. Ripley is one of my top books. And Ruth Rendell, James Patterson, John Grisham—there are so many great thriller writers, I could go on and on.
GR: What are some new mysteries you've been enjoying and recommending to friends?
BAP: This year I’ve been recommending the fabulous We Begin at the End by Chris Whittaker and Don't Look for Me by Wendy Walker. Both have great female protagonists, and I was immediately drawn in to their incredible stories. Another novel I’ve been recommending is Daughters of the Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. Set in 18th-century London, the story of Caroline Corsham completely enchanted me.
GR: For someone who hasn't read a mystery in a while, what's a good book to lure them back to the genre?
BAP:Anything that will have them turning the pages�The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish would be a great choice. It tells the story of Jamie and Clare, a couple in their 40s who are friends with millennials Kit and Melia, and there are plenty of twists to keep the reader engaged until the very end.
GR:What real-life mystery do you think about?
BAP: The fate of a group of skiers in the Urals in 1959 has always fascinated me. Nine Russian skiers died in what has become known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident, and many theories have been put forward as to how they met their deaths, from a compelling natural force to stumbling upon a Soviet secret-weapon experiment to an attack by a yeti. But even after years of research, nobody really knows what happened to them.
B.A. Paris� The Therapistwill beavailable in the U.S. on July 13.
Don’t forget to add these mysteriesto your Want to Read shelf, and tell us which of these books you’re most excited about in the comments below.
Check out more recent articles, including:
36 Breakout Debuts of 2021 (So Far)
24 New Family Dramas to Keep You Turning the Pages
Readers' Most Anticipated Books of July
Check out more recent articles, including:
36 Breakout Debuts of 2021 (So Far)
24 New Family Dramas to Keep You Turning the Pages
Readers' Most Anticipated Books of July
Comments Showing 1-50 of 52 (52 new)
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Mike
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Jul 01, 2021 02:59PM
Fabulous Q&A with these authors!! Great article!!
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i always liked this Q&A blog for those mystery authors. hope you could do 1 for horror week as well.
Thanks for this! I have Falling by T.J. Newman on the way, and will pick up Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby as well very soon. Some of these books look very interesting, as did a few of the ones mentioned by the authors.
Thanks for this great Q&A. I got quite a few ideas for next reads!
Lots of additions to my TBR! From these authors and those they mentioned - thank you! =)
Thanks for this article. Many were already on my radar, and this helped me in my choices in what to pick up next.
Awesome article! I added several recs to my TBR list!
Thank you for the article. I decided to go for The Maidens and The Therapist because the authors are inspired by Agatha Christie and I love her books.
I highly recommend Falling, extremely good, amazing infact. Frode wrote: "Thanks for this! I have Falling by T.J. Newman on the way, and will pick up Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby as well very soon.
Some of these books look very interesting, as did a few of the ones ..."
You can request The Maidens from NetGalley, Im just awaiting approval 🤞 .... tried with The Therapist, but its already been archived 🤦♀�
Absolutely fascinating to have many book choices in common with these phenomenal authors! Thoroughly enjoyed reading these interviews.
What a great selection of interviews. Loved how most of them listed Agatha Christie as a major influencer! I've really got to start reading the old paperbacks I have of hers. Definitely adding all of their recommendations to my enormous and seemingly neverending TBR.
The Maidens and The Silent Patient blew me away!!!!
Fantastic article. A few more to add to my TBR pile. Great to have an insight into their inspiration.
Thanks so much! I now have several additional novels on my to-read list.
I loved this and now have more authors to read. Thanks
Thanks! I always love reading where authors get their inspiration from and what they enjoy reading. My TBR list just doubled.
Thank you! I found my next mystery read, The Therapist!!
Wonderful interviews! Thank you all so much for the great recommendations. Amazing authors! THE MAIDENS, FALLING, and THE THERAPIST, are next on my list to read. I will probably wind up reading all of them though.
Great interviews. I am looking forward to reading these books.
Wow! This article gave me a slight push to go back to thrillers and mysteries. I've never read Agatha Christie, but I def will now. Great article! :)
Tried to look up Night Calls that GH mentioned but could only find werewolf books. If anyone knows the author of the book he discribed, I would love to read it!
I very much enjoyed this article. I have several of these books and very much looking forward to them. I also found some new ones on this list to pick up!
I added so many of these amazing books to my TBR list. Thank you for bringing them to my attention. I really enjoyed this awesome article.
Enjoyed the way they got their ideas! A lot of good stuff!
Thanks for these interviews! Added a few more to my growing To Read list. Loved how you asked for recommendations: all-time favorites, new mysteries, books to lure readers back to the mysteries. :)
Great article, I really wanna read some of those books!
Great Q&A. I've added more books to my Want To Read list.To is good to hear what books the authors are reading and their all time favourite authors as well.
It's really helpful I enjoyed knowing about one of my favourite author🤘
This article is like a VIP backstage pass!!!! Grady Hendrix slays me AND he recommends Michael McDowell. I’m currently devouring The Final Girls Support Group and loving it so far.
Enjoyed this Q&A! Added several new books to the shelf. Thanks!
Enjoyed the Q&A. Added books I want to read too, Many thanks
Fantastic Q&A! Added many books to my TBR pile :)
I cannot wait to read Alex Michaelides: The Maidens. Alex read The Secret History by Donna Tartt three or four times in a row. He loved it so much I want to invest in that book too. If anyone else has read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, please let me know if it is as outstanding as Alex says, and I will definitely purchase it. He also thought The Guest List by Lucy Foley was wonderfully good, so if anyone else has read the Guest List, please also let me know how good it is. I just loved The Silent Patient, and wish so much I could meet this author. I also loved all the other author's comments and they gave me good reason to be interested in other books as well as their own. Thank you for your time.
Mike wrote: "Fabulous Q&A with these authors!! Great article!!"The real mystery here is how the best mystery writers in the US are so rarely mentioned, save by one or two writers.
Line for line, and, easily, for quirky hypnotizing characters, Patricia Highsmith is unsurpassed in depth, intelligence, surprises, and an utterly maddening sense of pace in such utter classics as Stranger On A Train, Cry of the Owl, This Sweet Sickness, Edith's Diary, People Who Knock On the Door, The Price of Salt ( later republished and made into the movie "Carol". There is NO OTHER
WRITER IN AMERICAN LITERATURE who understands MISOGYNY to the depths Highsmith does yet does not tell or belabor the disease, but so acidly and clear shows and lets it reveal itself in the great tradition of the best novels.
But along with Highsmith, there is hardly any mention of the fine work of Raymond Chandler, Chester Himes, David Goodis and others. And there is scant mention except for someone hurriedly referring to Jo Nesbo (bloodbath expert-) of the four or five top shelf Scandanvian crime writers including Arnaldur Indriasson of Iceland, Henning Mankell of Sweden, and Asa Larson and Karin Fossum of Norway. Most of the more modern American mysterey writes pale by comparison. They are about as subtle as a parking meter and exciting as a dead pelican. Even someone as talented as Sarah Paretsky and her Chicago insurance plots and gritty settings dont come close to the writers Ive previously mentioned.
There is an amazing wonderful Chinese writer Qui Xiaolong who has a series of 'Inspector Chen,homicide chief, of Shanghai novels that possess every ingredient one would want in a detective novel, plus a highly polished sense of humor. And, unlike many modern detective novels, he does not need buckets of blood and gore ( you listening, Nesbo?) to have a stunning book.
Ernie wrote: "Mike wrote: "Fabulous Q&A with these authors!! Great article!!"The real mystery here is how the best mystery writers in the US are so rarely mentioned, save by one or two writers.
Line for line, ..."
Ernie wrote: "Ernie wrote: "Mike wrote: "Fabulous Q&A with these authors!! Great article!!"The real mystery here is how the best mystery writers in the US are so rarely mentioned, save by one or two writers. Patricia Highsmsith, hands down, is the finest mystery writer in American Literature.NO ONE writes about the savageries of misogyny as she does ( without first chapter findings of dead women on beaches or buckets of blood and maimings). Her works such as Edith's Diary, This Sweet Sickness , The Price of Salt ( under the pen name Clare Morgan) are masterpieces along with her other astounding works such as Strangers On a Train, The Cry Of The Owl, People Who Knock On The Door ( about obssessed right wingers), and the four Tom Ripely novels involving the evolution of a suave ice-cool psychopath.
L..."
Also I. think only ONE person mentioned such great detective novelists as Chester Himes and Walter Mosely. Is it because they ar African American or is it because much of your readership lives such sheltered lives that they dont even KNOW who these people ARE?
Yes yes, Im being unfair, but to what extent is what I am saying, the truth. Part of the problem is that there are so few critics capable of understanding the depths of their works.
Also you mention very few other than American writers except Agatha Chrisstie (England, of course) Tanya French ( Ireland), Jo Nesbo (Denmark) and Louise Penny (Canada).
Are you completely oblivious to the thirty year ago revolution in the detective genre with the entrance of the Scandanvians? Here are some of the top mystery writers in the world: Arnaulur Indriadisson of Iceland; Henning Mankel of Sweden, Asa Larson and Karin Fossum of Norway. And there masters before them, particularly the legendary husbaand wife team Sjowall and ? who did about fifteen novels with a classically depressedd and brilliant aging detective. There was also a pretty good series from Holland by Jan Van Wetterling featuring a kind of hippy detective and an elderly pro Buddhist detective.
Also not many of your writes mentioned the great Raymond Chandler who could say more in one line than most of your writers' whole novels. Here's how Chandler described a slothlike police chief: "He had the personality of a paper cup." Adios.
Just read Sharon Bolton's The Pact, such a truly gifted writer & also never mentioned on your recommendations list.....why?Also finished The Therapist by Helene Flood a debut novel by a Norwegian writer w/ unique twists & turns plus a great ending.
Can't wait to read Louise Penny's latest novel part of the Gamache detective series, she's in a class of her own & Canadian.
Time to look beyond your US borders for well written mystery novels.
What about a nice mystery with lots of fun--even a "capoeira"--during the 1920s in the city of Rio de Janeiro? Finding Cristina
I am always so excited when you choose to do these articles. Thank you so much!
