English Mysteries Club discussion

It's a long story. I started this group in 2009 but then left Goodreads because of having so little time to participate fully and the group stayed here and grew! I signed back up to Goodreads this month and was delighted and overwhelmed to see the group had grown to over 70 members! And in less than a week - I'm back as moderator having all but begged (and I really do hope that's OK with everyone) and I'm quite determined to get people involved and turn this into a thriving online reading group.

By way of more introduction, my name is Sarah and after living England for the past nine years, I am now back in Kentucky, USA to be closer to my elderly grandmother and aging parents. I come by my love of crime novels and mysteries from my grandmother and my mother who are both avid readers of these two genres.

And so here I am - hoping that anyone who loves English-style mysteries will come along for the ride. For now - I've rearranged the discussion folders and archived some of the older threads to clean things up. And we seem to have a growing group of participants in our first Book of the Month (BotM) title which will be Dorothy L. Sayers' "Whose Body?" Please feel free to send me a friend request or private messages through the site and to post any and all questions and suggestions in the discussions boards.

Cheers!
~S~

Hi, Sarah - I think it's great that you have resumed leadership of this group, and I look forward to learning of new authors through your BotM reads. I am especially interested in English historical mysteries.

Hi Sherry - Thank you! I'm looking forward to all of it. So if you're interested in English historical mysteries...what are your favourites so far??? Always looking for ideas for next BotM titles! :-)
Cheers!
~S~

Here are some relatively recent favorites:
Charles Finch's series featuring Charles Lenox;
C.S.Harris's series featuring Sebastian St. Cyr;
C. J. Sansom's series featuring Matthew Shardlake;
Tasha Alexander's series featuring Lady Emily Ashton;
Deanna Raybourn's series featuring Lady Julia Grey.

Older favorites include Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, and William Monk series; and David Dickinson's Lord Francis Powerscourt series. And that's just a start, naming the ones that come right off the top of my head.

I'm also a sucker for anything about the Bow Street Runners (like Bruce Alexander's Sir John Fielding series) or anything involving Sherlock Holmes or characters from those stories (like Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series, or Carole Nelson Douglas's Irene Adler series.)

I've been reading English historicals for a long time, and I read quite a lot. And I'm always looking for new authors who write in a vein similar to those listed.

I'm taking notes - and you clearly have the head start! :-) Does this count...currently in my reading stack from the library is a book by Susanna Gregory called "A Plague on Both Your Houses" - apparently about a medieval physician called Matthew Bartholomew investigating murder and mayhem in his spare time. It looks like the 10th in the series. As a once-upon-a-time history major in college, I couldn't resist picking it up from the library. Of course - with your list and the back list of this author (and the other great recommendations on another thread)...I'll be busy for the rest of the year!

I really appreciate your list...will definitely be on the look out after the next batch of library books is done!
Cheers!
~S~

Actually, I think "A Plague on Both Your Houses" is the FIRST book in that series. I tried to get it from my library, but they don't have it :( A friend who works at the library told me that if a book isn't checked out for a year, they take it off the shelves and sell it. Dumb. Very dumb.

Oh wow! I got very lucky then! I had just glanced inside the cover to see the others in the series...and didn't even look at pub dates or anything. And yes - that is very dumb that there's such a short shelf-life on library books. I hate when that happens!

Any chance your library would be able to get it through inter-library loan from another library system? If they could in a copy, we could compare notes! :-)
Cheers!
~S~

If you want to find out all the books in a series, and their order, go to http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ You can look up an author, a book, or even a subject or character's name.

I would love to join you in reading it but 1) by the time my library got it you would be on book 7 in the series, and 2) I already have so many books in my TBR pile (including Little Women, which I'm reading with my granddaughter and her friend, and the second Harry Potter, which I'm reading with my grandson!) that I can't see over the top of it.

No worries! Feel free to make a suggestion for the next BotM reading and then maybe you can make a dent in your TBR pile! :-)

Oh - and I've bookmarked that website you mentioned so I can do my homework! Thank you for that!!! :-)

I use that website almost every time I put books on hold at the library. Glad you found it useful, too!

Welcome back, Sarah. My son & daughter live in Kentucky, also. My current reads are Louise Penny & Elizabeth George books. I absolutely love Peter Robinson, Reginald Hill & Simon Beckett, also. Billie