Mysteries

One of my favorite genres is mystery. Here are some series that I think are particularly fine, in no particular order:

Favorites

Nero Wolfe Back to Top

An eighth of a ton of detective, he's walking catalog of the seven deadly sins: Sloth, Gluttony, and Pride top the list, but he has his bouts of Avarice and Envy, even Vanity (albeit not over his physical appearance), with Lechery practically the only one to which he's immune. And yet he remains one of the enduring and endearing figures of detective fiction, perhaps because of his flaws. While he's certainly larger than life, he's not better than life, and probably the first fictional detective who can't back up his brilliant deductions with a strong right-cross to the jaw, or cheerfully take a beating in the name of justice. It wouldn't even occur to him to do so: that's what Archie Goodwin is for. Archie is everything that the traditional hard-boiled detective is supposed to be: loyal, true-blue, compassionate, wise-cracking, able to take and give the rough stuff with the best of them--yet compared to his employer, he manages to be the everyday Joe and reader identification figure. Stout reinforces this by making Archie the first-person narrator of the books.

Sherlock Holmes Back to Top

If you don't know who Sherlock Holmes is, you would never have followed this link, except by accident.

Travis McGee Back to Top

Travis McGee, by John D. MacDonald, is a Florida beach-bum, who detects in between bouts of retirement, which he's taking in installments while he's young enough to enjoy it. He lives aboard his houseboat, The Busted Flush (so-called because he won it in a poker game), in the slip next to his friend--my favorite character in the series--Meyer Meyer, retired economist and owner of the houseboat Thorstein Veblen. How could you not like a guy who names his houseboat after the author of The Theory of the Leisure Class? My favorite parts of the Travis McGee series are the interactions between worldly McGee and philosophical Meyer. The prose is tight, the action fast-paced, and McGee is the kind of guy you wish really existed to help people in trouble. Unfortunately all of the books (which are named after colors: Deep Blue Goodbye, Pale Grey for Guilt, Bright Orange for the Shroud, etc.) are out of print.

John Dortmunder Back to Top

Dortmunder is the comic antihero of a series of caper novels, by Donald Westlake, several of which ahve been made into movies (The Bank Shot, The Hot Rock, and most recently the box-office bomb What's the Worst That Could Happen, which improbably cast the insufferable Martin Lawrence as Dortmunder). Dortmunder is something of a criminal genius, the original Man With A Plan, except that he never can catch a break. With his team of associates, the incorrigible Andy Kelp, the mountainous Tiny Belcher, the getaway driver team of Murch and his Mom, and various bit-players, Dortmunder steals, but can't seem to hold on to, everything from an entire bank (The Bank Shot) to an entire country (Don't Ask). My recent favorite is What's the Worst That Could Happen, which is basically Dortmunder vs. Donald Trump (except they don't call him that).

Bernie Rhodenbarr Back to Top

Another comic hero, Mrs. Rhodenbarr's little boy is an unrepentant burglar and bookstore owner whose habit of stumbling across dead bodies while committing burglary saddles him with the task of uncovering the murderers if he wants to stay out of jail; if he can finagle things so that he comes out ahead, so much the better. Lawrence Block is one of the few contemprorary writers of comic mysteries who can give Donald Westlake a run for his money. I would love to see them collaborate on a Dortmunder/Rhodenbarr team-up.

Gregor Demarkian Back to Top

One of my current favorite mystery series is Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian mysteries. Originally they were holiday themed (although it's not really an intrusive gimmick in that while they take place around a particular holiday, the mysteries themselves seldom more than tangentially related to the particular holiday), and often set in or around Philadelphia, where I currently live. When she changed publishers Haddam dropped the holiday theming, and so most of the ones currently in print aren't "holiday mysteries". The hero is Gregor Demarkian, retired founder of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, and described by the fictional version of the Philadelphia Inquirer as "The Armenian-American Hercule Poirot", a description which embarasses him on a number of levels. One of the things that I like most about Jane Haddam's characters is that they actually have a number of levels on which it's possible to be embarrassed; indeed, I would be perfectly willing to read a Gregor Demarkian novel without a mystery in it at all. Simply reading about Demarkian, his neighbors, and his lady friend Bennis Hannaford would be sufficient.

Lord Peter Whimsey Back to Top

Dorothy Sayers's British peer and amateur sleuth is, dare I say it? the best of his breed. They are traditional, "play fair with the readers" mysteries, written with wit and even erudition, as befitting an author with a First in Modern Languages from Oxford. Later on in the series, Whimsey meets (while trying to get her off for murder) and then marries Harriet Vane, a mystery writer. Fans have criticized some of these for being obviously wish-fulfillment on Sayers's part, and accused her of falling in love with her own character, but I really don't feel the force of their objections. Whimsey has been filmed several times; my favorite is the television miniseries starring Edward Petherbridge, who makes a properly rabbity Whimsey.

Mary Russell Back to Top

Mallory Back to Top

Marlowe Back to Top

Joshua Macy
Last modified: Fri Aug 01 03:33:44 Eastern Daylight Time 2003