Laurie R. King Virtual Book Club discussion

At BoucherCon this year, I volunteered to be the panel set-up for a panel titled "The Bucket List". I wasn't all that interested to begin with, but it ended up being a great panel, in which some industry veterans shared their picks as must reads for different sub-genres within mystery.

I took notes, so I thought I'd share their picks. Though I think I'll do it in a few posts so they don't get quite so long. And that'll leave room for discussion!

So to keep it all in a moving conversation...what do you think of the selections? Agree absolutely or think they're totally off-base? And are their any sub-genre essentials that you would have picked instead as best representative?

Okay, first sub-genre is...

The PI Novel
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Concourse by S.J. Rozan
The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley

Other notable authors/series:
Sue Grafton/alphabet series with Kinsey Milhone
Ross Macdonald/hard-boiled PI Lew Archer 1950s series
Mickey Spillane/"alcoholic gumshoe" Mike Hammer 1940s noir series.
Robert B. Parker/Spenser series (Boston PI; no first name; 1970s)

Personally, I always find PI novels very hit or miss. Mostly because I don't particularly like hard-boiled detectives or noir writing very much. Maybe that's why my favorite PI is Isabel Spellman from The Spellman Files. Or a new favorite is Val McDermid's kick-ass Kate Brannigan series. Oddly, I can't think of any male PIs that I actually like.

But maybe there is a difference between a "PI Novel" and a novel with a PI?

I do like S. J. Rozan's series but I have to say that Concourse was one of the most depressing books I ever read and put me off reading more for several years. Good but depressing.

Dina wrote: "I do like S. J. Rozan's series but I have to say that Concourse was one of the most depressing books I ever read and put me off reading more for several years. Good but depressing."

It seems like so many books that are voted as "must reads" end up being that way: good, but depressing. Like the only way you can write a meaningful story is to be way too serious. I can name about two books that talked about deep issues while keeping the story mostly fun and upbeat and both are by Christopher Moore.

I was a faithful reader of Robert Parker, but somewhere along the way he stopped doing any serious plotting or character development, at least in the Spenser novels, and I found I was reading them exclusively for the snappy dialogue. And toward the end, even that got a little repetitive.

I still read Sue Grafton as they come out. An increasing charm of the series is that Kinsey is still in the 1980s or thereabouts (when Grafton began writing), making these sort of historical novels of the recent historical past.

Lenore wrote: "An increasing charm of the series is that Kinsey is still in the 1980s or thereabouts (when Grafton began writing), making these sort of historical novels of the recent historical past. "

Oh that's really interesting. I wonder how the first couple differ from the last couple. I would think that writing about a current era would be totally different than writing about the recent past. Keeping track of what you did and did not have, technologically speaking, back in the 80s. I wonder if trying to do recent past for a setting would be harder than a full-on historical novel with a time period you'd have to actually research.

I thoroughly enjoy all of Robert Crais' Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels and always look forward to a new one.

John.

I just read my first Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, and *loved* it. Dated, yes, but so colorful and intriguing, and delightfully twisty! Everything else in the sub-genre seems derivative by comparison. (Probably because it is.)

I used to like Grafton's alphabet series, but at some point they just got so... identical. I didn't like the character or the writing enough to keep reading the same story over and over.

Hands down, my favorite PI novels are Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series. I don't know why she doesn't get more attention. As far as the PI classification goes, there may be too much personal detail and family involvement so that many of her books could be classified simply as novels. The novels keep pace with the time they were written from 1978 to the present.

I've enjoyed the Spencer novels, especially where Hawk has a large part. For a while Parker was writing little more than novellas. I heard somewhere that he had financial problems and was just trying to turn out books.

I've also liked some of S. J. Rozan.

Erin, thanks for starting this interesting thread.

The PI novel has never been my favorite mystery genre, although it does seem to be what people who aren't readers think of when they think of mysteries. I, like Pat, really like the Sharon McCone series, although it is probably because the books encompass a good bit more life than just the mystery plot. I've also enjoyed the Spencer series, some of the early ones were terrific, but found myself reading the later ones more because of affection for the early ones and habit.

I've been volunteering at the library and have found myself enjoying some of the authors who have been around for a while: Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian, Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective" series, really enjoying the Spencer series (going way back to read the older ones before I allow myself to read the later ones and so glad I did.) Currently reading The Killing Man, Mickey Spillane...probably my least fav as I am having problems getting it finished and there isn't that much to it! Love Robert Crais as well, but he's taking a back seat to the other guys right now.

Taking a quite moment at work to post to you subgenre list #2!

"Traditional" Mysteries....
(aka. Whodunnits)

Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
A Place Of Execution by Val McDermid
Blackfly Season by Giles Blunt
The Three Coffins by John Dixon Carr

I was kind of surprised at the selections for this category given that everyone was picking old-timey classics for the PI novel. I would have expected maybe Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter to be on the list or Agatha Christie. And probably Wilkie Collins. I was going to say Holmes even, but I'm not sure that he really fits in the traditional whodunnits group (though I'm not sure where else he would fit either).

Perhaps there's just a lot more to choose from for "traditional" whodunnits and locked room mysteries.

Has anyone read any of these suggestions? And what would you have selected as a "must read" representation of the traditional mystery?

Erin - did they give a definition of a "traditional" mystery? or of any of the genres discussed?

I haven't read any of these, but long ago I read a good bit of Michael Innes and John Dixon Carr. Carr I think of as producing quanity more than excellence.

Karen raises a good question. Like you, Erin, I think of traditional as less recent. My list in aphabetical order by author would be

The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham
The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter
Pale Gray for Guilt by John MacDonald
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

Gaudy Night is one of the best books ever, and anything by Josephine Tey is guaranteed spectacular.

Yes, I had trouble deciding which Tey book to list. Bratt Farrar and A Daughter of Time are my favorites, but I think they are less traditional--whatever that means.

Karen: They didn't really give definitions for any of the genres, no. That's the one thing I found a little hard to follow, since everyone could really be defining the genres in their own way. Like my comment about whether a "PI novel" is different from a novel featuring a PI.

For "traditional," they did give the example of the standard Agatha Christie type whodunnit or the locked room mystery.

PatF wrote: "Yes, I had trouble deciding which Tey book to list. Bratt Farrar and A Daughter of Time are my favorites, but I think they are less traditional--whatever that means."

Because Daughter of Time is a retroactive solving of a mystery hundreds of years old, in which the detective work takes place in a hospital room and a library, it is DEFINITELY NOT a "traditional" mystery. Brilliant, though.

PatF wrote: "Hands down, my favorite PI novels are Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series. I don't know why she doesn't get more attention."

Yep, has me wondering as well. I gave up on the two English bookstores in town after I had to explain to them who
Marcia Muller
Linda Barnes
Laurie R. King
Linda Lippmann
are.

killing some time at the end of the work day...let's look at the bucket list for Thrillers (defined by the panel as "big spy and action suspense".

I've always really enjoyed thrillers because of the high suspense. I find it interesting that so many thrillers have such a high level of gore in them because you don't have to have gore to get suspense, but that's how so many authors tend to think, it seems.

Thrillers
Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas
Eye of the Needle by Kenn Follett
Killing Floor by Lee Child
The Shipkiller by Justin Scott
(I had a note that this one has poetic prose)
Rose by Martin Cruz Smith
(I starred this one for myself with notes "1920s england, coal mines/history, feminism, suspense" which sounds like it would interest a lot of those here on the VBC!)
The Tears of Autumn by Charles McCarrie

I'm really keen to read most of the books on this list. I've read Lee Child and Ken Follett (though not nearly as much as I ought to, since I really liked the one book I read, Jackdaws). I would add The Alienist by Caleb Carr, if I were going to pick out one thriller to recommend.

I would have The Alienist on my list too. Thrillers are not my favorites, and at some point I stopped reading sry novels. I wonder where Dick Francis would go? At one time I read all his books.