was a Sherlock Holmes fan;
wrote detective fiction;
sometimes synthesized detective fiction with sf, e.g., see here;
at least once, synthesized detective fiction with fantasy.
So are Anderson fans also Holmes fans? And do they read other detective fiction? If so, which authors?
I have read:
all of Homes;
a lot of Montalbano;
Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy;
Anderson's Trygve Yamamura Trilogy and one Yamamura short story -
- and, of course, a few other novels, e.g., I highly recommend A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine.
However, no way am I a fan of detective fiction in general. Once, I found a bookshop that sold nothing else and had no interest in browsing through the shelves.
(Sheila watches Father Brown on television.)
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I used to read a lot of mysteries: all or most of the Holmes stories, many Agatha Christies, many of the books of Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K Chesterton, John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout, and Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee stories. And I still have these books, except the ones by Christie and Stout. I suppose I'm a LAPSED mystery fan!
And I would look over a bookstore specializing in mysteries--because I might find an interesting book!
Sean
Correction, I no longer have most of Margery Allingham's books.
Sean
Paul and Sean:
I'd read an omnibus of Sherlock Holmes, with (supposedly, at least) every Holmes story Conan Doyle wrote, BEFORE I got into reading Anderson. Ditto the Father Brown stories. (Although I later discovered "The Faun" was by PA, and I'd read THAT before Holmes or the Padre.)
Asimov's *Black Widowers* short mysteries. Several of John Dickson Carr's works. Plenty of stories of The Saint. Some of Christie's work; I had some political/philosophical quibbles with her. I've got Raymond Chandler's *The Big Sleep*, as well as Dashiell Hammett's *Red Harvest* and *The Thin Man*.
Adam Hall is perhaps best known for spy stories, but he did a short series of detective novels about Hugo Bishop — "He's not a cop, nor a private eye. He simply shows up to help."
Harry Kemelman with *The Nine-Mile Walk* and the *Rabbi Small* novels (*Friday the Rabbi Went Hungry*, *Saturday the Rabbi Slept Late*, etc). A few of the Sayers works, some Ellery Queen, one or two of the Judge Dee tales.
Elizabeth Peters, a pen name of Barbara Mertz, wrote a series mixing late-19th-&-early-20th-century Egyptology with what the narrator called "detectival interludes" frequently involving the theft of antiquities ... plus murders not always connected with the stealing. "Every year, another dead body," as an Arab-Egyptian character took to mock-lamenting.
Oddly, I can't recall having read ANY Margery Allingham or Rex Stout.
Then there are mixed-genre works such as the *Lord Darcy* stories by Randall Garrett: detective stories in a world where magic works ... and Church-authorized sorcerers are useful forensic analysts. Or the *Zoot Marlowe* tales, about a space alien with a fixation on Raymond Chandler coming to visit Earth and investigate crimes here.
Kaor, DAVID!
Thanks for your autobiographical comments on your reading of mysteries!
I should have mentioned that, like you, I've read some or most of the Ellery Queen books (and I have the one ghosted by Avram Davidson, ON THE EIGHTH DAY). Alas, I've not read Chandler or Hammett's works. But I did read some of the Rabbi Small books.
Agatha Christie's mysteries didn't grab me enough to notice if I had any philosophical/political quibbles with her. What were they, IIMA?
Elizabeth Peters/AKA Barbara Mertz, was also known as Ellis Peters. Under that last name I read two of her Brother Cadfael books, which I liked. Alas, the Cadfael books seems to have gone out of print.
I'm a bit sorry now I tossed out the Allingham and Stout books. They were good mysteries, after all.
Sean
Sean:
"Elizabeth Peters/AKA Barbara Mertz, was also known as Ellis Peters."
Not according to Wikipedia, which gives Ellis Peters' real name as Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE, BEM (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995).
Barbara Louise Mertz (September 29, 1927 – August 8, 2013) aka Elizabeth Peters (also aka Barbara Michaels) was an American.
Note though, that the ladies celebrated their birthdays only one day apart — assuming for the moment that Wikipedia got the dates correct. An amusing coincidence, that.
My problem with Christie — I've mentioned this before — is that in at least one story the "good guys," at the end, are planning to use drugs to suppress political dissent. Upset about those anti-corruption protesters? Give 'em a whiff of our new riot-control gas, and they'll all love Big Brother!
Kaor, DAVID!
Aw, darn and drat, I got two different mystery writers mixed up! Edith M. Pargeter was NOT the same as Barbara Mertz. Again, my flawed memory let me down!!!
I agree with what you said about using drugs to suppress political malcontents. Smacks too much of the Soma seen in BRAVE NEW WORLD.
Sean
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