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Crime/mystery novels/novelists

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by WaylonJennings, May 15, 2008.

Page 6 of 6
  1. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I get my John Grisham mack on every once in a while.
     
    Football_Bat, May 17, 2008
    #61
  2. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Grisham is an excellent story teller. His early books were good, his latest books are good. In between I thought he was cranking them out to meet a contract (Patricia Cornwell anyone, though she on her best day can't write as well as many others). Grisham's best is A Time to Kill, which he actually wrote first and used to sell out of the trunk of his car. After The Firm and The Pelican Brief were released and became hits, they re-released A Time to Kill and it took off.

    Cornwell's first few were OK, not great. Then she got a huge contract and started mailing it in. She had a few in there that were putrid.
    You write better when you're hungry, I guess.
     
    Moderator1, May 17, 2008
    #62
  3. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    For those connoisseurs with a taste for the weird and pseudonymous, try the mysteries written by Edgar Box.

    AKA Gore Vidal.
     
    jgmacg, May 17, 2008
    #63
  4. part-timer

    part-timer Member

    I really like Sandford's Davenport character because he does have some flaws that appear from time to time, mainly his bouts with depression. Sandford spun off a secondary character from the last of the Prey series, Virgil Flowers, and it was a good read (can't think of the title right now).

    Parker tried to do that with Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall books and I think he watered down the whole franchise.
     
    part-timer, May 17, 2008
    #64
  5. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    He's not a true mystery writer, but Pete Dexter's The Paperboy is a mystery and one definitely worth reading.
     
    Frank_Ridgeway, May 17, 2008
    #65
  6. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    I used to really enjoy Grisham and Cornwell. Cornwell's early novels had a wonderful heroine in Kay Scapetta. She always made me feel intelligent, seeing the world through her eyes.
    Now they're so commercial. So factory and formulaic.
    (One exception. I really enjoyed Grisham's "Rainmaker.")
     
    fishwrapper, May 17, 2008
    #66
  7. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    i have read every ed mcbain 87th precinct novel. i liked them when i was in high school and up through college. a few years ago around the time he died i picked up his last book and well, let's just say it wasn't the quality i remember.

    i don't read this genre much anymore except for john sandford. something about his davenport books just sucks me in.
     
    leo1, May 17, 2008
    #67
  8. maberger

    maberger Member

    great, great thread.

    did someone mention patricia highsmith, and i missed it?

    like james lee burke a lot; some of his earliest stuff -- before robichaux -- inch close to cormac mccarthy, i think. i do find myself a little cynical sometimes over the magic realism, and about the sheer physical abuse he and clete absorb (to say nothing of their families).

    but i did think 'stained white radiance' was a revelation, just like ellroy's 'white jazz,' which i seem to remember reading right after they both came out on in the early 90s. it's easy to overdose on ellroy now, but boy reading him the first time was like swallowing electricity.
     
    maberger, May 17, 2008
    #68
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