Tag: mystery series

series

Mystery Series: Spector Locked Room Mysteries

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Happy Friday everyone and for the third series post in a row I have a mystery series for you. After current (at the time it was written) with Imogen Quy last week and St Just before that this week (coincidentally both set in Cambridge) this week it’s a historical mystery series – not set in Cambridge!

These are called the Spector Locked Room mysteries, but I think it’s fair to say that Joseph Spector and the police detective who calls him in George Flint are equal leads in these locked room mystery stories. And every mystery may not be a literal locked room (although several are!) but they are so called ‘”impossible” crimes where it appears impossible for the deaths to have been carried out by a human or be anything other than suicides.

Now there are a fair few locked room mysteries in Agatha Christie (Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Mysterious Affair at Styles) but I would say that these are closer to John Dickson Carr’s books. Tom Mead has come up incredibly twisty solutions, that often require a fair degree of concentration to follow as they’re explained, which is not something I’ve ever found with Christie.

These are set in the 1930s – we’ve reached 1939 in this latest one – which firmly puts them in that inter-war Golden Age-esque category of historical mysteries. The other series that has a magician and a policeman working together is Elly Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries – but those are all post world war two, and tend to be more focussed on Edgar (the policeman) not Max (the magician). The first book in this series, Death and the Conjuror was a BotW in July last year, but I think the fourth book in the series is the best/my favourite – it’s got a creepy mansion that can get cut off by the tide that attracts ghost hunters and people seeking contact with the spirit world.

The first three of these have been consistently in Kindle Unlimited since I started reading them last year, but the fourth one isn’t yet – I was wondering if it would go in when it came out in paperback but it didn’t – although I did pick it up when it was on sale. No news yet on whether there is a book five, but there are a couple of short story collections too that I haven’t had a chance to read yet.

Have a great weekend.

series

Mystery Series: Imogen Quy

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Happy Friday everyone and I’ve got a mystery series pick for you today – back in May I picked The Wyndham Case as a BotW and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately bought and binged the rest of the series and now a couple of months has elapsed and I feel it’s only fair I should tell you about the series.

Imogen Quy is the college nurse at the fictional St Agatha’s College, Cambridge. In fact she initially started training as a doctor but dropped out to move to America with her boyfriend – who was also training as a doctor and had got an opportunity over there. After he dumped her, she moved back and finished her training but this time as a nurse. Now she’s in her thirties and living in the house her parents left her in Cambridge, complete with a couple of lodgers (who change a bit from book to book) and across the four books stumbling across some mysteries.

As the college nurse, Imogen has a good reason to be called to look at a body when it’s found in college, and her role in college means that she sits outside both the students and academics of the college. She has a group of friends which includes some of her lodgers, some of the other people at the college and also a local policeman. The first mystery is connected to a historical book collection held by the college, the second is a half-written biography of a mathematician which seems to be burning through authors, the third is about the death of a prospective benefactor to the college and the final book about the mysterious death of a college scholar who fell while attempting a spot of night climbing. All of them are well constructed and pretty clever – and you can draw your own conclusions about how much I liked them based on how quickly I read them!

As I said in my review of The Wyndham Case, I had been wanting to read the Imogen Quy series since I first read one of Jill Paton Walsh’s Wimsey continuations – in the introduction to the first one she writes about how inspired she was by Gaudy Night and so I wanted to see what she did with her own Oxbridge college mystery series. And I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t like the final book quite as much as the others, but I would happily have read more if she had written them. Paton Walsh was a prolific author and also wrote novels for younger readers and more literary fiction. She wrote the first two in the early 1990s before she worked on Thrones, Dominations and alongside other things and then are sandwiched between A Presumption of Death and the third and fourth of her Wimsey/Vane novels as the last five books she published.

I picked all of these up second hand – but they’re also available on Kindle and if I hadn’t already started buying them and wanted the set (and as matching as possible!), I might have been tempted by the Kindle editions so I could read them quicker rather than waiting for the postman.

Have a great weekend!

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Mystery Series: St Just Mysteries

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Happy Friday everyone and today for the series post I’m writing about G M Malliet’s St Just books. I’ve already written about her Max Tudor series, most recently back when I did a spy-themed week a couple of months back. But this week I finished the last book in the series I hadn’t read (reading severely out of order!) and so now I can tell you about then.

Our detective is Arthur St Just, a police Detective Chief Inspector and the crimes are Christie or Golden age-esque. Many of them are set around rich families, authors or Oxbridge colleges, or some combination of the above. St Just is from Cornwall but primarily based in Cambridge but Oxford also makes an appearance or two. St Just is a widower but does acquire a fiancée later in the series for some continuity of running characters as well as the fact that is it even a mystery series without a love interest?

It is very much a series of two halves as there was a decade or so gap (and a change of publishers) between book three and book four, and in fact I hadn’t realised that the series had restarted until I saw Death and the Final Cut on NetGalley last autumn. I read that then and now I’ve filled in the gaps with books four to six. And I’m pretty sure I’ve enjoyed these later ones more than I liked the earlier ones. My reviews of those on Goodreads from around a decade or so ago (I read them after having already started on the Max Tudors) are short but very much in the ok to fine sort of area.

Books three to six are in Kindle Unlimited at the moment and I actually think these are a pretty good place to start or at least test out series. They all have interesting characters, but the earlier books are more in the dislikeable mode than the later ones, and three to six particularly have good pacing and interesting mysteries. Seven isn’t quite as good, but it clearly wasn’t enough to put me off going back for the rest when I got a chance or to make a note to keep an eye for any more appearing.

Have a great weekend!

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Recommendsday: First in mystery series 2

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Happy Wednesday everyone, and I’m back today with another post of first books in mystery series, to follow on from last year’s dedicated mystery series post and to a lesser extent this post which does at least have a non mystery in it too. As you know I’m always looking for my next bingeable series to add to my lists as other series finish, which can go either way (I’ve read – or tried to read – some real dross over the years) but with all of today’s series I’ve read at least one more in the series already.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

This is the first in a (now long-running) series about Guido Brunetti, a Commisario of police in Venice. This was actually written in the early 1990s – but it doesn’t feel dated in style or the actual mystery, it’s just the lack of mobile phones and references to lire, marks and a character who may or may not have been an actual Nazi that remind you that this is thirty years old. Anyway, in this first in the series, Brunetti is investigating the death of a renowned conductor who dies in his dressing room of cyanide poisoning in the interval of a performance of an opera that he was conducting. I really loved the portrait of Venice in the book (this was written a few years before I visited Venice as a child and I loved that) and the characters are all really well drawn and developed. It’s perhaps a little bit darker than the sunny orange cover and mass market mystery size would have you believe – but not so grim that I wouldn’t read more of them if they came my way. I picked this up in Judd Books by the way, which is a total example of what I meant in that post about discovering something completely new to you.

Murder at the Fitzwilliam by Jim Eldridge

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This is the first in a mystery series set in the 1890s, where our detective is former Detective Inspector Daniel Wilson, who helped investigate the Jack the Ripper murders when he was a police officer. Now retired, he’s working as a private enquiry agent and is called in to investigate after a body is found in the Egyptian collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. As well as a hostile police officer, he also has to content with Abigail Fenton, an archaeologist who cataloguing the museum’s collection and found the body. This is a pretty easy read, there are a few twists to the mystery as the body count rises although I had the culprit worked out relatively early on. I would read more of these if they were in Kindle Unlimited – but at the moment only this one is.

Scot Free by Catriona McPherson

Cover of Scot Free

This is the first in a contemporary, American-set murder mystery series from Catriona McPherson, of Dandy Gilver fame. Our heroine is Lexy Campbell, a fish out of water transplant from Scotland to California. She made the move because she’d fallen in love but now, mere months later, she’s divorced and heading back home, just as soon as she clears one of her counselling clients of murdering her husband. This has a lighter and more humorous tone than her historical series – I think it’s aiming for Steph Plum sort of vibes. I’m not sure Lexy is a great counsellor, as she seems pretty clueless about her own personal life but it was fun enough that I’ve read the second one since reading this. How many more I read may depend on whether they turn up in Kindle Unlimited though!

Happy Humpday!

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Mystery Series: By the Book

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It’s Friday again and it’s not due to be quite as hot today as it has been earlier in the week, for which we should all be very thankful. Britain is not built for 30+ degree heat – let alone in May. Anyway, I hope you’re somewhere suitably shady, while you read this week’s series post.

The By the Book Mysteries are a series of three books about Tess Harrow, a mystery writer who moves back to her grandfather’s rural cabin in Washington state with her teenage daughter in the aftermath of her divorce. Once she arrives there she stumbles upon a real life murder. The first book in the series was my Book of the Week back in December and by the end of that she’s decided to make Winthrop her permanent home. In book two Tess is renovating her grandfather’s former hardware store into a bookshop when she discovers a body and in book three they’re preparing for the opening of the bookstore when the murder occurs.

As well as Tess and her daughter Gertrude, the other regular characters are the town’s sheriff (who looks disturbingly like the hero of Tess’s books); Nikki who runs the local book mobile and from book two onwards Jared, who works at the local logging concern. As well as the murder of the week, there is a running plot about whether the loggers are up to something illegal and a will they won’t they romance between Tess and Sheriff Boyd. These are very easy to read, with some nice humour and enough going on that they rattle along nicely and make for an enjoyable way to spend sometime.

There are three books in the series with the third coming out back in 2023 – a gap which suggests that Tamara Berry may be done with the series as they were published at a rate of about one a year until then and Berry having published two books in a new series since then. And so I issue a slight warning: book three doesnt’ feel like it was intended to be the end of the series and not all the plot strands are tied up at the end it. I’m fairly used to series that I like just stopping at unexpected points so it doesn’t bother me too much, but it would be remiss of me not to alert you. So your mileage may vary on that front – at least I’ve read them for you and warned you appropriately!

Have a great weekend!

series

Series Redux: Max Tudor

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Cover of A Demon Summer

I know, it’s a bit of a cheat, but I’m finishing off my espionage-themed week with a reminder of the Max Tudor series of mysteries about a former spy turned vicar. They’re not set in the Cold War, so they don’t quite fit, but they do at least have links to the secret services so I’m claiming they count and I’m sticking to it. I’ve read seven of the eight* books in the series at this point and as it’s three years since the last one came out and G M Malliet appears to have moved on to other series, so this may well be a complete series at this point . As I said in that original post, Max’s prior career gives him a great excuse to get involved in murders, which is always a stumbling block for a mystery series, and the village that he lives in has a good variety of secondary characters to add into the mix. If you want a village-set mystery series, this would be a good choice if you can get hold of them!

*I did try and order the eight at one point and the vendor kept not being able to fulfil the order, so I should try that again because the Kindle version never seems to drop in price.

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Mystery series: Brighton Mysteries

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Given that I binged three of this series just last week, today’s series pick may not surprise you. The only downside to having read three of them last week is that I’ve now run out and read another Elly Griffiths series from start to end and there are No More. Hey ho.

The Brighton mysteries start in 1950, when DI Edgar Stephens finds a body of a girl that’s been cut into three – which reminds him of a magic trick invented by a friend of his that he served with during the war. Edgar goes to hunt out Max for his help and finds him still touring the variety circuit of seaside towns around the country. And that’s how the seven book series gets underway – initially with Edgar and Max and mysteries and as you go through the seven books more characters joining them. Max’s involvement becomes a little less central to the mysteries in later books where you see more of Edgar and WPC Emma Holmes at work – but he’s always part of the mysteries because they are all so connected to the theatre and entertainment industries.

The seven books cover more than 16 years, so a lot changes in the characters lives as you follow them through – but also you see the world changing too: from post war austerity through to the swinging sixties and the changes in attitudes that that brought with them. Brighton also changes a lot during that time – with the rise of TV, the death of end of the pier variety and vaudeville and the coming of cheap package holidays. It’s a great time to set a book – and the mysteries are good too. I think they’re pretty good on accuracy too – I spotted one complete howler* in the last book but it’s the first time I remember finding one of those in all seven of the books, so I’ll let it off. Anyway, these are good very readable mysteries that you can get sucked into reading one after another – the way you can with Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series too.

You should be able to get hold of these fairly easily- they’re on Kindle and Kobo and I’ve been able to buy them in bookshops too.

Have a great weekend!

*a price that would be insane in a pre-decimalisation world – so possibly some confusion about when that happened.

series

Series Redux: Vinyl Detective

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Vinyl Detective books on a shelf

Happy Friday everyone. For today’s post I wanted to point you all back at the Vinyl Detective series by Andrew Cartmel. It’s been nearly four years since I wrote my original series post and we’ve had two more books in the series since then so I thought I would come back around to it. These are mystery stories based around a never-named record collector and record hunter for hire and his group of friends and associates. Each book focuses on the hunt for one specific record in a different genre – so far we have done jazz, 1960s rock, World War II era big band, 1970s electronic folk, punk, death metal, electronic dance music and Italian movie sound track music. The EDM book is my least favourite, so I was pleased when the Italian film music one was a real return to form.

I came to this series because he was one of the Rivers of London graphic novel authors and worked with Ben Aaronovitch on Doctor Who and so I think if you like Aaronovitch’s writing, you will like these. So far this hasn’t hit any of the music genres that I have any real depth of knowledge on – but I’m hoping that it does soon (so either classic musicals or boybands of the late 1990s I guess?) so that I can look for hidden easter eggs of knowledge because I think there’s loads of insider jokes in there that I’m missing because I don’t know enough. I’m hoping we have more coming, but Cartmel also has second series going now with the Paperback Sleuth books and he could do a fourth in that series next – or something different altogether I guess. Anyway, these should be fairly easy to get hold of in any bookshop of a decent size or a decent crime section.

Have a great weekend everyone!

cozy crime, series

Mystery series: Writer’s Apprentice

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It’s Friday again and I’m back with only my second post about a mystery series this year.

This is a small town cozy crime series with a literary twist – there are six books in the series and I’ve read five of them. At the start of the series, in A Dark and Stormy Murder (which was a BotW back in the autumn of 2024) Lena London is an aspiring suspense author who moves to Blue Lake in Indiana because she’s just landed her dream job as assistant to her favourite author Camilla Graham who is based there. As it’s a mystery series bodies start to turn up and there are love interests and the first book also sets up a running back story mystery that needs solving involving a secondary character.

Unlike a lot of mystery series, Lena actually choses between her love interests pretty early and the running mystery isn’t dragged out too long either. Julia Buckley introduces new regulars as the series goes on too which helps broaden the world and introduce new avenues for corpses to appear – although the same person is the prime suspect in the first three mysteries for reasons related to the running side plot. Blue Lake is a nice setting and Lena’s status as a new arrival, albeit from not far away and with a friend living in the town, means that you get explanations of who is who and what is what pretty naturally in the narrative, which isn’t always the case.

The fifth book did feel like a bit of a shift from the other four with a missing person and a (possibly) evil corporation coming to town rather than a body and I didn’t like it as much. I think the series probably did need to do something a little bit different but the direction of the plot felt a bit confused and like the book couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to move towards a more cozy thriller type thing. Number six (aka the one I haven’t read) has a different cover style and is significantly more expensive and isn’t linked to the previous five on Amazon so I suspect that it may be a different publisher, which maybe suggests that the previous one didn’t work as well for other people two.

That said the first four books in this series are good, well plotted mystery stories with a nice setting and a good cast of characters and are worth a look if you see them around. Unlike a lot of the cozy series I read these are available as ebooks on Kindle and Kobo, and I’ve picked up a couple of these from the Big Waterstones in Picadilly, so they’re easier to find than some of the mass market series I read.

Have a great weekend!

Book previews

Out this Week: New Perveen Mistry

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After a three year break, there is a new Perveen Mistry mystery out this week. These are murder mysteries set in 1920s India and our heroine/detective is Perveen, who happens to be Bombay’s only female solicitor. This new book is called The Star from Calcutta and sees her securing her biggest client yet – a Bollywood studio. She’s meant to be helping an actress who owns the studio with her director husband, who is caught up in a breach of contract dispute, but a body is found after a screening and the actress goes missing. I’ve read the first two in this series and really like Perveen as a character and the whole setting and set up and as you know I love a 1920s-set mystery. I have the third one waiting to be read, and as you know I try to read things in order so it may be a while before I get to this one, but if anything was going to tempt me to get going on the series it’s the prospect of a Bollywood-set book because I love a Hollywood-set book, particularly in the early years of the movie industry so this is right up my street.