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Recommendation RequestGreat mysteries to recommend?
I'm looking for something new to read. I most often read thrillers, adventure novels, and nonfiction. But I'd like to explore mysteries, as well, and I'm not sure where to start.
I'm looking of course for something female-positive, in whatever form that takes in the book (like great author, great main character, whatever). I love great series books, but it isn't required.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Cormoran Strike! If you haven’t already tried those.
Yes!! JK Rowling truly has a gift for understanding human nature. These books are epic.
I highly recommend Native American author Marcie Rendon’s Cash Blackbear mysteries, set in Minnesota/North Dakota in the 1970s! I’ve been reading mystery novels for almost 40 years and these are some of the BEST I’ve read! They’re gritty, noir-ish, and incredibly compelling, and Cash is probably my all-time favorite female sleuth-in-training! She’s ferociously independent, whip-smart, and an all-around badass without even trying!
Now, there is quite a bit of sensitive, often heartbreaking subject matter that’s explored in this series, about the abuses Native children and women were subjected to back in the day, but the fact that Cash overcomes SO much of that makes me cheer her on even more. But just a heads-up about the topics the books explore. It can get hard to read in places, but I think it’s history we should all know about.
I downloaded the first Cash book. I'm only 40 pages in and it's FANTASTIC!! I love it so much, bc it's got history worked into the mystery. I just downloaded the other two books so I can read them all back to back. Thank you, great recommendation
You’re welcome! I’m impatient for another Cash Blackbear novel, and also think it would make a fantastic TV show too - if done well. You never know with TV adaptations these days.
They HAVE to make a series, it's perfect for a series or TV movie
IKR⁉️ The only issue is that they might try to make it all “woke/politically correct” and that would just destroy the spirit of the whole story.
Thank you for this rec! I'm listening to Girl Gone Missing from the library on audiobook, and will probably track down paper copies. Cash is a great character, and her motivations layered. The reader is excellent, capturing Cash's stoicism, wariness, and desire to avoid attention, at the same time.
It also brings back memories of being a outsider university freshman in the 70s.
Oh that's fantastic! I can't believe this series is not more popular - Cash is one of the most fascinating and original characters I've encountered in detective fiction in ... forever, really. I can't put these books down! And I've also learned so much about N.A. communities and their history in the midwest. Someone needs to turn these books into a TV series, but I worry it'll end up being too "woke" and/or preachy and won't do this amazing series justice.
Also, hope you can write down (or share) your memories of growing up in the '70s! I've always been fascinated with that era (I was a child then and grew up mostly in Asia), and how life was for women then. I was a History major in college so I love firsthand accounts.
I’m writing a cozy mystery if you’re interested in reading that as I go. Single, female protagonist who outsmarts the blokes. No love interest currently planned…
It’s about an antiques dealer who solves a break in/ robbery at a historic site.
I’ve thought of doing murder mysteries, but since the world is utter garbage these days, I’m going for w particularly cozy, cozy. Haha
Someone recommended Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series to me (I think mystery?), but I haven't read them yet. Has anyone else read them and can opine on their quality?
TANA FRENCH!!!!!!!!! her first 6 books are loosely connected and her 7th and 8th are stand alone. HIGHLY recommend starting with 2, 5, or 6 as those are the three with female protags (the likeness, the secret place, and the trespasser).
Currently reading Lucy Foley's the guest list and I highly recommend her other two well known books as well, the Paris apartment and the hunting party! Another great author Ruth Ware! I binged all her books and am eagerly awaiting the next!
I pretty much only seek out female mystery/thriller authors, and my mom knows this too so she always has her work cut out for her when it's my bday lol
Then if you just want something goofy and YA, Karen M McManus (I think?) wrote One of Us is Lying and One of Us is Next and her third book in that series just came out. like I said, a YA series but enjoyable when you just wanna sit in barnes n noble and get lost for a bitty
I really enjoyed the Witch Elm by Tana French. A real page-turner.
Yeah, Tana French is good. I didn't much care for the protagonist of the Witch Elm, but I think that was intentional.
SO GOOD! I'm not sure if she's done writing or what, she was releasing a book every two years starting w Into the Woods but she hasn't released any book since The Searcher and it's been three+ years now :(
I recommend
The Amelia Peabody series is a series of twenty historical mystery novels and one non-fiction companion volume written by Egyptologist Barbara Mertz under the pen name Elizabeth Peters.
*eta: if you can get the audiobooks, the ones read by Barbara Rosenblat are especially good
Amelia Peabody is my absolute fave. I reread the whole series about once a year. And yes the Audiobooks by Rosenblatt are the best!
I gotta admit they're not very feminist, but I like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novels. And well, female author, female protagonist.
While I do not enjoy them quite as much and think they're sometimes a bit too aggressive in the protagonist's modern attitude, the Miss Daisy series by Carola Dunn is also entertaining.
(Yeah, I know, those are all set in the past, though Christie set them in her present. That subgenre is often less, uh, "gritty", probably because they're targeted at people like me, who prefer the old style - I don't like it when things get too gruesome.)
Christie is really the best writer I know when it comes to letting readers guess the killer. I don't always guess right, but Christie gives you a decent chance, which is not always the case with writers who focus on other aspects beside the mystery.
I read And Then There Were None about 25 years ago and I still think about it sometimes.
Yeah, Christie’s mysteries are the only ones I enjoy trying to solve. She gives the reader a fighting chance. Other mysteries are either so fiendishly complex they take a notebook and, like, graph paper to solve, and that’s too much like work, or they hardly bother with clues and just pull something out of a hat at the end. When I read mysteries it’s usually for the characters and location more than the whodunit, except with Christie.
I think the Marple stories are remarkably feminist for Christie's era. Miss Marple is a completely independent woman, highly intelligent, who knows her own mind. (Just like her creator).
I particularly recommend Nemesis because of its focus on female relationships, education, independence, albeit there is tragedy in how those themes evolve in the book.
I love Agatha Christie! She is my go to when I want to unwind with a good story
Not quite 'mysteries' in the usual mold, but I'd recommend any of Josephine Tey's novels. Lots of people are familiar with The Daughter of Time (in which her male detective is in the hospital after an accident in the line of duty) but he appears in some other of her novels as well; there are others, I think the better set, in which he doesn't appear. The Franchise Affair is about what can happen to a couple of independent eccentric women when the neighbours start whispering about them.
This book is technically horror/mystery. But I HIGHLY recommend "Mrs McGilvery" by Colin Gibson. Its the perfect read for Halloween. And I can't say why it's female positive without spoiling it. But it is by the end
Oooch, that sounds promising. You've made me curious!
I would really love to go into why this book is so good. But its hard to do so without spoilers.
I normally don't enjoy horror themed books. But this one was fantastic. Its like "It" without all the weird, uncomfortable sexualization of children
I like to listen to Agatha Christie radio adaptations sometimes, there are loads on youtube. I find it easier than reading her novels or stories.
There's a great little murder mystery novel by Jane Smiley called Duplicate Keys. Focused on a somewhat maladaptive female friendship. I ate it up.
And Dorothy L. Sayers wrote some of the best detective stories there are, but I read them a long time ago and don't remember much, other than they were good.
Peter Straub's Koko and Mystery...
It's not feminist or anything, but they're good... and not at all cozy.
Ann Cleves and her Vera Stanhope series.
Val McDermid, whose characters--even the main ones--include lesbians.
If you want a classic: Dorothy Sayers's "Gaudy Night," which is about misogyny and women's education.
Sarah Caudwell, start with Thus was Adonis Murdered.
I’ve never met another fan! Have you tried the new audiobook?
I am her biggest fan! Have not listened to the audiobook as I'm not an audiobook listener, but if it's good maybe I'll check this one out :) BTW Caudwell makes one very small misstep early on so we do know what sex Hilary Tamar is!
I always thought she was a woman. In the audiobook the narrator says it’s not indicated, and she tries to make an androgynous voice, but in my head it’s always a woman. What’s the little misstep? Please share! 🤓
Check Out Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine. Some titles are A Dark Adapted Eye; A Fatal Inversion and The Brimstone Wedding. These are older but British mysteries with a twist.
I second the recommendation for Tana French and want to add Minette Walters, especially her early work like The Scold’s Bridal and The Echo.
Oh and check out PD James and her female protagonist: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin. If James had been slightly later in time she might have been able to develop her female detective series more.
I have a wonderful one for you!
"Small Pleasures" (I think the title is bland and awful, but the book is not) by Clare Chambers. Goodreads link here.
It's a fascinating tale of a woman journalist in the late 1950s who covers the story of a woman who thinks she had a virgin birth.
It's loosely based on a couple of real cases, from a time in history when DNA testing wasn't available, so those cases weren't resolved. However, despite also using the pre-DNA era, the writer finds a really satisfying and clever way to resolve the case in her book.
It's not the usual kind of book I read but I picked it up on a whim at a train station and was hooked. Just really fascinating and well-written. And I liked that the heroine was a slightly older woman, intelligent, wrestling with her own independence. It's as much her personal story as that of the woman she is investigating.
I really loved Nicole Ashong's Love's a Beach. Modern mystery with strong female leads (and strong female villains).
I really enjoyed Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The movie adaptation was great too, but start with the book.
If you’re into paranormal mysteries, check out Simone St. James. The Sundown Motel is a good place to start. She also has historical paranormal mysteries. The only downside is there’s usually a romantic side story but they’re not too heavy handed. I did find the romance storyline more obnoxious in the Other side of Midnight. It was still good though. And you can’t go wrong with Agatha Christie.
I read th First Grave on the Right series a while ago. Those bools were very exciting, lots going on, and hard to put down.
I'm also reading the Phryne Fisher murder mystery series. I loved the TV series and the books are even better.
Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan series. They are fantastic. I run a Discussion Group on FB and it's very active.