Appointment With Agatha discussion

Within the mystery genre, there are a lot of themes that pop up again and again - some of them would include things like: country house mysteries, mysteries in transit (planes/trains/ships), inverted mysteries (where the reader knows the murderer but the investigator doesn't), summer/hot weather mysteries, winter/holiday mysteries.

I've been thinking for a while about putting together themed lists as a resource for this group, to help readers find the kind of mystery that they might be looking for at a given moment. This will hopefully help us identify some of the less well-known authors and their books as fitting into a theme. This might also create a resource for buddy reads.

Since we are heading into the wintry/holiday season, which is, in and of itself a theme (and one that I am very fond of) I'm going to create a thread to collect that type of mystery.

We don't necessarily need to limit these lists to only books published prior to 1971, since they are a resource for people who likely just generally enjoy mystery fiction. So, if there is a book that you've read that fits, even if it is a bit newer than our group reads, feel free to add it with a note that it's a more recent publication. If you've enjoyed it, give us a bit of a pitch, if you didn't like it but feel like other readers might fare better with us, let us know that as well!

If you have other types of mysteries that you love that you are always looking for, drop me a comment and I'll open a thread!

Edit: Looking back over my folders, I see that I made a very limited attempt at this a year ago with a thread about murders that happen on trains/boats/ships. Time to reinvigorate the discussion!

what a great project!

We could probably think of the BLCC anthologies as our topical guide -- the topics represented in short fiction are (broadly) also representative of the novels of the era. In addition, the various chapter headings of The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. In no particular order:

* The "Great Detectives"
* Country house mysteries
* Village settings
* Christmas mysteries
* London settings
* Courtroom settings
* "The Travelling Detective"
* Locked room mysteries
* Inverted mysteries
* Social satires / humor
* School / academic settings

... etc.!

Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) wrote: "We could probably think of the BLCC anthologies as our topical guide -- the topics represented in short fiction are (broadly) also representative of the novels of the era. In addition, the various ..."

Yep!

And of course, any of our members who haven't had the pleasure of reading Martin Edwards' two major non-fiction works - the Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books mentioned above & The Golden Age of Murder - are in for a real treat once they acquire them!

Christine PNW wrote: "And of course, any of our members who haven't had the pleasure of reading Martin Edwards' two major non-fiction works - the Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books mentioned above & The Golden Age of Murder - are in for a real treat once they acquire them!"

Hehe. So very true ...! :)

I’m always looking for more dinner party mysteries or anything with old manor houses filled with secret passages. I’m not sure if these are the types of topics you are looking for, but I thought I’d throw it out there