Detective Novels - Reviews and Recommendations......

mr_goo

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series started out well enough. But then they became very popular and I imagine that Child was signed to a contract in which he had to churn one book out every year. Nice money for him but I gave up on them a long while back as they became formulaic and at times quite daft.... and don't get me started on TC playing him on film. Rediculous.

Another couple of authors that started out well are Wilbur Smith and Clive Cussler. But again they started to knock 1 to 2 books out every year. I did like Cussler 's Dirk Pitt books (Raise the Titanic & Sahara) the films were awful. Especially Sahara. Again Hollywood doing its finest to screw up a good book.

hamish_mctavish

George Pelecanos - mostly writes detctive fiction set in Washington DC. Very well written and thought-provoking stuff. He also wrote and produced The Wire which gives you some idea of his style.

socrates

Joseph Wambaugh - The Choirboys is a classic of course but try The Onion Field. It' s a true story and enthralling.
David Baldacci has also some good earlier work.
James Patterson for years now (in my opinion) has become a contractual author churning out poor stories. Early novels were really good.
Karin Slaughter, Jonathan Kellerman, Robert Craig and the Joe Pickett novels by C. J. Box.

hommelbier

John Harvey wrote some very good crime novels set in Nottingham and featuring Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick for which he has won praise.

A good source for writers to try is in the list of winners of the Crime Writers Golden Dagger Award

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Dagger

ayjaycee

When I posted earlier, I'd forgotten about Christopher Brookmyre which is a bit odd as he has been one of my favourite Brit authors for a long time. His books cover a number of genre but the Jack Parlabane series, whilst not detective novels as such, are stand outs about an investigative journalist who, I guess, also detects. Can be quite violent and dark but always have a wicked sense of humour not far under the surface.

I also agree on a fair few of the other recommendations. David Baldacci is good (particularly the King and Maxwell series). By coincidence, I also re-read The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh recently and was prepared to be disappointed as I hadn't read it since first published but it has actually aged very well indeed and was fantastic this time around as well.

I can't remember who it was but somebody mentioned the decline of James Patterson. I always think it's a sign of a writers demise when they start publishing books with shared credits - i.e. 'James Patterson with........', 'Clive Cussler with..........,' 'Wilbur Smith and.........', 'Tom Clancy with.........'. My interpretation is that it usually means is the the original author is past it and happy for somebody else to connect with their name in exchange for a share of the royalties.

nickice

Shirley Basso wrote:

Phillip Kerr
David downing
Martin Cruz Smith

All excellent writers.

There was one David Dowing in the John Russell series that was disappointing (the penultimate one I think) but the rest are great. Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books are great (I read that Tom Hanks had bought the rights too.

mr_goo

The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin.
Set in post New Orleans in 1919. It follows 3 individuals one aided by a yount Louis Armstrong, who are trying to track down a serial killer in the Big Easy. It is based on true events, where for a year the killer haunted New Orleans. Very different from the norm' and a very good debut novel. The book actually uses some of the news articles from the time as part of the story.
There is a follow on book called Dead Man's Blues which features 2 of the main characters from the first novel. Possibly the start of a good series in future years.

Footnote
Axeman's Jazz is being made into a TV serial. Should be good if they get the cast right. Hopefully not Fassbender.

Wheelspinner

Other half went through all the Child’s books then started on Vince Flynn books. Seems to rate them pretty well.

mouth

meursault wrote:

Thanks for this, I'm learning Italian so quite fancy a go at those books in Italian.

I read Anne Franke's diary in German once. She was quite articulate despite being only11 years old. Even so, it was mind numbingly difficult. Hope your Italian is to a high standard. I must admit though I do quite like to read children's books in foreign - my father in law at one time had properties in both Spain and Italy and I used to read with my younger bro and sis in law. Oddly, they're often the same story as the English versions so usually quite easy to fathom. I also quite like buying a newspaper when abroad. Shop keeper usually gives you a really funny look when you buy the local rag rather than the MIrror.

Thigh_burn

Mr Goo wrote:

The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin.

+1 it's excellent