I've enjoyed mystery stories since I first discovered Nancy Drew at age 8 or 9. My favorites are the police procedurals, particularly the British ones. I prefer grit over fluff when I'm reading about murder. I also prefer men writers over women. Which is telling, since I always thought I'd like to write detective fiction.
One of the most tedious things about detective fiction is the tendency to frame the stories around the detective's personal life. After a while the lover becomes excess baggage and at around Book Four in the series, the detective experiences the Great Personal Tragedy. Or there is the Joe v. the Volcano (Ranger) yo-yo in the Stephanie Plum books (which I gave up on a long time ago).
There are exceptions. There are the Lloyd-Hill books written by Jill McGown. The romance between the two police officers is interesting. For a while I was on an email list run by Ms. McGown, but it occurs to me I haven't received any updates in quite some time. I own 13 Lloyd-Hill books and I checked amazon.com today to see if there had been anything new that I'd let slip by me. No new books. Hmm. I googled Jill's name and was shocked to learn that she died in 2007. I'm almost afraid to look for any new Bill Slider books from Cynthia Harrod-Eagles*. (Note that I say I prefer men writers and I am talking about women.)
There are hundreds and thousands of mystery writers, I'm sure. I salute them, even if most of them are writing stuff I don't care to read. Special thanks to those prolific writers whose work doesn't/didn't get tiresome, including Lawrence Block, Dick Francis, Peter Robinson, Colin Dexter, Ed McBain, John D. MacDonald, Ian Rankin, Bill Pronzini.
*Coming out in January 2010. On my amazon wish list.
One of the most tedious things about detective fiction is the tendency to frame the stories around the detective's personal life. After a while the lover becomes excess baggage and at around Book Four in the series, the detective experiences the Great Personal Tragedy. Or there is the Joe v. the Volcano (Ranger) yo-yo in the Stephanie Plum books (which I gave up on a long time ago).
There are exceptions. There are the Lloyd-Hill books written by Jill McGown. The romance between the two police officers is interesting. For a while I was on an email list run by Ms. McGown, but it occurs to me I haven't received any updates in quite some time. I own 13 Lloyd-Hill books and I checked amazon.com today to see if there had been anything new that I'd let slip by me. No new books. Hmm. I googled Jill's name and was shocked to learn that she died in 2007. I'm almost afraid to look for any new Bill Slider books from Cynthia Harrod-Eagles*. (Note that I say I prefer men writers and I am talking about women.)
There are hundreds and thousands of mystery writers, I'm sure. I salute them, even if most of them are writing stuff I don't care to read. Special thanks to those prolific writers whose work doesn't/didn't get tiresome, including Lawrence Block, Dick Francis, Peter Robinson, Colin Dexter, Ed McBain, John D. MacDonald, Ian Rankin, Bill Pronzini.
*Coming out in January 2010. On my amazon wish list.