Christie and Company: Detective Fiction of the Golden Age

[OtterMommy]

The Golden Age of Detective Fiction is roughly the period of of 1918-1939 in Great Britain, although the style was used as early as 1911 and can be used to describe modern novels written in the same style.  Notable Golden Age authors include:

• Agatha Christie
• Dorothy L. Sayers
• G.K. Chesterton
• Josephine Tey

(Wikipedia)

[OtterMommy]

As I said in the Currently Reading thread, I'm working my way through Agatha Christie's works, but I'd like to add in some more Golden Age authors.  I do have an audiobook of the Father Brown stories (my daughter and I are bingeing the TV show now) and I'm trying to decide where I should land next?  I'm thinking maybe Dorothy L. Sayers?

[SusanM]

I highly recommend Ngaio Marsh!  I'd also include Patricia Wentworth but I haven't read all her stuff.  If you're also including American Golden Age authors I've got a few suggestions there as well.  I'd love to have a place to chat with others about mysteries and their authors from this era and a little later (for me I'd say 1920's thru to early 1970s).

Edited June 9, 2022 by SusanM

[OtterMommy]

I just heard a podcast on Ngaio Marsh and I'll definitely look into her!  What are the American authors you would recommend?

[SusanM]

Wow, there are quite a few!  But off the top of my head I'd highly recommend Rex Stout.  I also really like Phoebe Atwood Taylor and the Mr and Mrs North mysteries by Richard and Frances Lockridge.  Also while her books are probably more spy thrillers than mysteries I'd  include Helen MacInnes here.  Or at any rate  her first 5 or 6 books which were written during, and set in, WWII.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, OtterMommy said:

I just heard a podcast on Ngaio Marsh and I'll definitely look into her!  What are the American authors you would recommend?

Frederic Dannay (Ellery Queen) and my great aunty Mary Roberts Rinehart. She is credited with inventing Batman.

[sugarbaker design]

She isn't technically a Golden Age writer, she came a little later, but I would definitely recommend Christianna Brand.  Her first published work appeared in 1941 and she worked steadily, if not prolifically like Christie, for forty years.  She wrote 6 novels featuring Inspector Cockrill, 2 featuring Inspector Charlesworth and one stand alone, Cat and Mouse.  I heartily recommend the established classic Green For Danger, as well as Fog of Doubt and Tour De Force.

[SusanM]

I guess Mary Stewart is considered more romantic suspense than mystery but she did win an Agatha Award for lifetime achievement so I think she counts!  Anyway if we're willing to expand the Golden Age time frame a bit I'd recommend her earlier books - her best stuff (IMO) was published between 1955-1965

Edited June 10, 2022 by SusanM

[Rose Quartz]

1 hour ago, SusanM said:

I guess Mary Stewart is considered more romantic suspense than mystery but she did win an Agatha Award for lifetime achievement so I think she counts!  Anyway if we're willing to expand the Golden Age time frame a bit I'd recommend her earlier books - her best stuff (IMO) was published between 1955-1965

I actually just did a re-read of a couple of her books recently, Airs Above the Ground and The Moonspinners, and I still really enjoy them.  My only complaint about her writing is that she tends to use the mistaken identity trope pretty heavily, which is why I probably don't care for her later work as much.

[SeriousPurrs]

A.E.W. Mason, Inspector Hanaud

First book in 1910--one of the influences for Poirot...

(Mason) "is also known as the creator of Inspector Hanaud, a French detective who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._W._Mason

(Inspector Hanaud section)

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

(Influences section)

[AgathaC]

On 6/9/2022 at 6:05 PM, peacheslatour said:

Frederic Dannay (Ellery Queen) and my great aunty Mary Roberts Rinehart. She is credited with inventing Batman.

I just finished my first Mary Roberts Rinehart (The Wall) and really enjoyed it!

My grandparents’ house had floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookshelves in the bedrooms and one room’s book wall was nothing but mystery novels. My grandmother had full sets of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, and so on. Heaven. When I hit 12 or so, she finally let me start reading them myself.

Maybe it was my grandmother’s influence, but I adore Christie to this day. Usually I get tired of an author after a few books because I start seeing their patterns. Not so with her. She had so many books and they weren’t all in the same style necessarily. Truly dark and creepy. Lighthearted. Adventure-heavy. Quiet and cerebral.

Just now delving into Wilkie Collins, but that’s a bit before the Golden Age…

[dubbel zout]

One could say Wilkie Collins made the Golden Age possible, as The Moonstone is considered one of the first detective novels. He has other interesting books, such as No Name, about a woman trying to go through life as an illegitimate child. It's a fascinating look at the law of that time, as well as a very good story.

[AgathaC]

2 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

One could say Wilkie Collins made the Golden Age possible, as The Moonstone is considered one of the first detective novels. He has other interesting books, such as No Name, about a woman trying to go through life as an illegitimate child. It's a fascinating look at the law of that time, as well as a very good story.

I have The Moonstone waiting for after I finish The Woman in White (that’s the one my local bookstore had in stock so I started there). It’s also got some mystery/suspense/creepy elements.

[akiss]

I really love Sayers. Lord Peter and Harriet Vane are two of the most amazing characters in such books, imo.

[Calvada]

I'm currently doing a re-read of Agatha Christie.  It's been many years (at least 40) since I read these.  I'm reading them in order and I'm surprised that for many of the books, I'd forgotten who the murderer was, so I'm enjoying them for that.  I didn't remember that Miss Marple only appeared in 1 novel and a few short stories in the first 30 to 35 books, although perhaps I didn't read them in publication order 40 years ago.  I was inspired to read the Christies again after a discussion with a friend about our favorite mystery authors when we both lamented that Sue Grafton's death had meant no "Z is for . . ." book and I mentioned that Agatha Christie wrote the final Poirot 30 years before her death and had it in reserve in the event of her death.  (Although I think it was published shortly before Christie's death.)  That made me start thinking about reading all the Christies once again, which I finally started doing so earlier this year.

I really enjoy Sayers.  The first one I ever read was "Murder Must Advertise" so I have a special fondness for it.  My mother bought a grocery bag of paperback books for $1 at a rummage sale and that book was one of them.  Once  I knew there was a series with Peter Wimsey, I read them all in order.  If only Sayers had been as prolific as Christie!   I know "The Nine Tailors" was called her finest literary achievement by the New York Times following her death, but all I remember is trying (and mostly failing) to get through reams of technical detail about bell-ringing.  And I really enjoyed the BBC's Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey stories with Harriet Walter and Edward Petherbridge.   

[peacheslatour]

On 6/12/2022 at 6:50 AM, dubbel zout said:

One could say Wilkie Collins made the Golden Age possible, as The Moonstone is considered one of the first detective novels. He has other interesting books, such as No Name, about a woman trying to go through life as an illegitimate child. It's a fascinating look at the law of that time, as well as a very good story.

He and Dickens really chronicled the horrible abuses of the English medical and mental establishment. They were great friends. 

[AgathaC]

On 6/13/2022 at 9:43 PM, Calvada said:

I'm currently doing a re-read of Agatha Christie.  It's been many years (at least 40) since I read these.  I'm reading them in order and I'm surprised that for many of the books, I'd forgotten who the murderer was, so I'm enjoying them for that.  I didn't remember that Miss Marple only appeared in 1 novel and a few short stories in the first 30 to 35 books, although perhaps I didn't read them in publication order 40 years ago.  I was inspired to read the Christies again after a discussion with a friend about our favorite mystery authors when we both lamented that Sue Grafton's death had meant no "Z is for . . ." book and I mentioned that Agatha Christie wrote the final Poirot 30 years before her death and had it in reserve in the event of her death.  (Although I think it was published shortly before Christie's death.)  That made me start thinking about reading all the Christies once again, which I finally started doing so earlier this year.

Just curious, how far are you into your re-read?

I’ve never read them through in order and, actually, I think there are a few I’ve missed. I started in seventh grade and read The Mysterious Affair at Styles with my grandmother. After that, for a while I only wanted to read Poirot books with Hastings since that’s the way the first one was. But I finally started branching out. Grandma had a book called The Agatha Christie Chronology. It was an old paperback held together with tape but it was invaluable. It gave brief non-spoilery descriptions and semi-reviews for each one and also had lists by category (Poirot, Marple, Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle, T&T, etc.). When I was in the mood for what the book called a “charming young girl adventurer” novel, easy to find.

My grandmother said the last few, like Elephants Can Remember, weren’t good, so I never gave them a try.

[Calvada]

5 hours ago, AgathaC said:

Just curious, how far are you into your re-read?

I’ve never read them through in order and, actually, I think there are a few I’ve missed. I started in seventh grade and read The Mysterious Affair at Styles with my grandmother. After that, for a while I only wanted to read Poirot books with Hastings since that’s the way the first one was. But I finally started branching out. Grandma had a book called The Agatha Christie Chronology. It was an old paperback held together with tape but it was invaluable. It gave brief non-spoilery descriptions and semi-reviews for each one and also had lists by category (Poirot, Marple, Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle, T&T, etc.). When I was in the mood for what the book called a “charming young girl adventurer” novel, easy to find.

My grandmother said the last few, like Elephants Can Remember, weren’t good, so I never gave them a try.

I'm about 25 books in.  (I'm not reading her Mary Westmacott books.)  I did read all the short stories first, since my local library had 2 volumes that were the collected Poirot stories and the Marple stories.  The books are a quick read - most of them between 225 and 275 pages.

When I read them 40 years ago, it was around the time I saw Murder on the Orient Express, which inspired me to read that book, and then I decided to read all of Christie.  I may have missed a few.  It's not like now when I can get online and with a couple of clicks have the full list of her books in the order of publication.  I think I read whatever my local library had and then got others through inter-library loans.  That was more of a big deal than it is now.  I don't know how I ever lived without being able to request library books online!  

[sugarbaker design]

On 6/12/2022 at 9:50 AM, dubbel zout said:

One could say Wilkie Collins made the Golden Age possible, as The Moonstone is considered one of the first detective novels.

I enjoyed The Moonstone, but I loved The Woman in White.

On 6/13/2022 at 4:06 AM, akiss said:

I really love Sayers. Lord Peter and Harriet Vane are two of the most amazing characters in such books, imo.

Lord Peter and Harriet Vane are two of my favorite fictional detectives ever.  I'm not normally a fan of cozies that focus on romance, but I can't get enough of LPW and HV.  I guess the difference that while they're both humorous, they're not cloying.  I admire and respect the LPW novels that don't feature HW, some more than others.  I have a copy of The Five Red Herrings in my TBR pile for a couple of years, but every time I pick it up I can't seem to get into it.  But I adore the four she's in:  Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon.

On 6/15/2022 at 2:02 PM, AgathaC said:

My grandmother said the last few, like Elephants Can Remember, weren’t good, so I never gave them a try.

Granny was right about Elephants Can Remember, but AC pulled out some excellent material in her later years like Hallowe'en Party (1969) featuring Poirot, Nemesis (1971) featuring Miss Marple and a standalone Endless Night (1967).

19 hours ago, Calvada said:

I don't know how I ever lived without being able to request library books online!  

Same here.  I've saved a fortune.

[dubbel zout]

11 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

I enjoyed The Moonstone, but I loved The Woman in White.

I agree TWiW is the stronger book.

[AgathaC]

17 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Granny was right about Elephants Can Remember, but AC pulled out some excellent material in her later years like Hallowe'en Party (1969) featuring Poirot, Nemesis (1971) featuring Miss Marple and a standalone Endless Night (1967).

Oh, I read and enjoyed some of her later ones, including the ones you mentioned. I also liked The Pale Horse, as I recall (been a while). My grandmother’s copy of that one had a news clipping in it. Apparently, a hospital nurse was reading it while taking care of a little girl with an unexplained illness. The symptoms matched what was happening in the book and she actually solved the medical mystery and saved the child’s life. (In that case, it was environmental, nothing nefarious.)

I remember particularly enjoying Have His Carcasse, which made me think how much fun it would be to just go hiking through rural England. May need to add it to my re-read list.

[annzeepark914]

I've read probably all of AC's mysteries (but not recently). There are only two murderers I can still remember. They were featured in The Moving Finger & The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Someone mentioned Helen McInnes books. I think her best mystery was Above Suspicion. Helen seemed to become more & more enamored with American agents (FBI, OSS/CIA) with each book she wrote.

[Grrarrggh]

Just read two Miss Silver mysteries by Patricia Wentworth and I think I'll stick to Miss Marple. 

[sugarbaker design]

For the past couple of years, I've been trying to read all the Ngaio Marsh novels.  It probably doesn't qualify as Golden Age, it was published in '43, but I just finished Colour Scheme, the penultimate on my list.  Unfortunately it was one of Dame Ngaio's lesser efforts, totally over-written, convoluted and unsatisfactory.  Only one left, Singing In The Shrouds!

[peacheslatour]

51 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

For the past couple of years, I've been trying to read all the Ngaio Marsh novels.  It probably doesn't qualify as Golden Age, it was published in '43, but I just finished Colour Scheme, the penultimate on my list.  Unfortunately it was one of Dame Ngaio's lesser efforts, totally over-written, convoluted and unsatisfactory.  Only one left, Singing In The Shrouds!

I just finished Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh. It was alright. Very "murder in a country house weekend" that I tend to gravitate to. 

[sugarbaker design]

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I just finished Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh. It was alright. Very "murder in a country house weekend" that I tend to gravitate to. 

I liked that one also, definitely not one of her best, like Overture to Death or Surfeit of Lampreys, but definitely in the top 50%.

[annzeepark914]

One of my longtime mystery favorites is The Yellow Room mystery by Mary Roberts Rhinehart (the great aunt of someone here, I believe--Peaches??). It takes place in the late '30's or '40's, in a big summer house in Maine. That's the 3rd mystery in which I remember the murderer (& not because any of these murderers were easy to spot). I love big, old summer house mysteries...the kind with servants who uncover the furniture when the house is opened for summer. When I first visited Bar Harbor, I was told Rhinehart had a big house in the section that burned up in a huge fire in 1945.

Edited July 6, 2022 by annzeepark914

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, annzeepark914 said:

One of my longtime mystery favorites is The Yellow Room mystery by Mary Roberts Rhinehart (the great aunt of someone here, I believe--Peaches??). It takes place in the late '30's or '40's, in a big summer house in Maine. That's the 3rd mystery in which I remember the murderer (& not because any of these murderers were easy to spot). I love big, old summer house mysteries...the kind with servants who uncover the furniture when the house is opened for summer. When I first visited Bar Harbor, I was told Rhinehart had a big house in the section that burned up in a huge fire in 1945.

Yes, she was my great x aunt. I never met her,  though I wish I had. My grandfather knew her. Speaking of yellow, one of the most frightening stories I've ever read was called The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It also takes place in a country house where  a husband has taken his wife after she has some kind of unnamed breakdown. She is confined to the nursery room upstairs that has yellow wallpaper on the walls. It's a slowly creeping kind of horror that makes you keep looking over your shoulder at every little creak or noise.

Edited July 6, 2022 by peacheslatour

[dubbel zout]

20 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Also a classic of feminist literature.

[peacheslatour]

22 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Also a classic of feminist literature.

Absolutely.

[cherrypj]

On 7/6/2022 at 10:50 AM, sugarbaker design said:

For the past couple of years, I've been trying to read all the Ngaio Marsh novels.  It probably doesn't qualify as Golden Age, it was published in '43, but I just finished Colour Scheme, the penultimate on my list.  Unfortunately it was one of Dame Ngaio's lesser efforts, totally over-written, convoluted and unsatisfactory.  Only one left, Singing In The Shrouds!

I’m on The Colour Scheme right now, and it’s a definite slog. But I thought Ngaio Marsh wrote 35+ Allyen books? My library seems to have more than 13. Did I get that wrong?

[sugarbaker design]

9 hours ago, cherrypj said:

I’m on The Colour Scheme right now, and it’s a definite slog. But I thought Ngaio Marsh wrote 35+ Allyen books? My library seems to have more than 13. Did I get that wrong?

Stop!  You're Killing Me says there are 33 titles (including an unfinished novel that was finished by Martha Duffy in 2017).

[Grrarrggh]

Just finished reading Poirot's last story and...... I really don't agree with what Christie opines through the little detective. But it definitely facilitated a lot of discussion and was a good read. 

[EtheltoTillie]

On 7/6/2022 at 2:12 PM, peacheslatour said:

Yes, she was my great x aunt. I never met her,  though I wish I had. My grandfather knew her. Speaking of yellow, one of the most frightening stories I've ever read was called The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It also takes place in a country house where  a husband has taken his wife after she has some kind of unnamed breakdown. She is confined to the nursery room upstairs that has yellow wallpaper on the walls. It's a slowly creeping kind of horror that makes you keep looking over your shoulder at every little creak or noise.

I’ve read this too. Great story. 

[OtterMommy]

I'm reading Six Against the Yard by the Detection Club right now and quite enjoying it.  It features six "unsolvable mysteries" by Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Ronald Knox, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Croft, and Russell Thorndike (plus an essay by Agatha Christie).  After each short story, a retired inspector from Scotland Yard--I'm assuming he's real, but I could be wrong--picks apart the mystery.  So far, I've read the stories by Margery Allingham and Ronald Knox, neither of whom I've read before.  I've enjoyed both of them, but Allingham's isn't an unsolvable mystery--there is never a question of whodunnit.  But it is still a fun story.

I'm actually glad that I picked this up because it is forcing me to dive a bit more into the Golden Age beyond Agatha Christie.

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I'm reading Six Against the Yard by the Detection Club right now and quite enjoying it.

That sounds like fun. I never knew about the Detection Club and just looked up their 3 books. I'll probably end up getting all three. The Floating Admiral is a round robin where they each took turns writing the story and building on what the last author wrote. Such fun! and in Ask a Policeman they each write a mystery using one of the other writers famous detectives. I'm least interested in that one as I don't really know all their famous detectives so the parody aspect might be lost on me. But it's a good excuse to read some of these authors. Thanks for the heads up. I had no idea this existed!

[Bethany]

On 7/6/2022 at 10:50 AM, sugarbaker design said:

Only one left, Singing In The Shrouds!

I know this is an older post but I wondered if you read it and if you liked it.  It was one of my favourites.

[sugarbaker design]

On 1/20/2023 at 3:04 PM, Elizabeth Anne said:

I know this is an older post but I wondered if you read it and if you liked it.  It was one of my favourites.

Yes!  I did read it.  I always avoided reading this one because I confused it with Clutch of Constables, because of the boat setting.  I'll start with the two things I didn't like:  no Troy and no Fox.  Also it's hard sometimes to overlook the now unacceptable stereotypes and language.  I could've done without Alleyn referring to one of the staff on the ship as "the queer steward".  But other than that I did enjoy that this was unlike any other Marsh, it was creepy, it was atmospheric and it held my interest throughout.  The simplistic psychobabble explaining the motive of the serial killer was unintentionally hilarious.  Singing In The Shrouds is definitely in the top 50% of Marsh's body of work, but not in the top ten.

[Bethany]

3 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

I could've done without Alleyn referring to one of the staff on the ship as "the queer steward". 

We see this attitude in an earlier book as well, Death in Ecstasy, which overall I like but this same attitude was there with regard to two of the characters.  Given that Marsh had been involved in theatre it surprised me that she didn't seem to have a more live and let live approach.  Perhaps she did outside her writing.

[sugarbaker design]

1 hour ago, Elizabeth Anne said:

Given that Marsh had been involved in theatre it surprised me that she didn't seem to have a more live and let live approach.  Perhaps she did outside her writing.

I think so.  Remember I was quoting Marsh writing Alleyn's dialogue.  The Q word could've been there to illustrate Alleyn's bourgeois attitude.  He actually used it in a letter to Troy, his wife, the artist!  Back then it wasn't frowned up as it is today.

[blackwing]

I just finished a book called An English Murder by Cyril Hare, who was an English writer and judge.  It was published in 1951 which seems outside the timeframe of "Golden Age" but the back cover very clearly identifies this book as a "Golden Age Classic".

Six residents/guests (and a few servants) are snowed in on Christmas Eve in a big country house.  Someone dies.

This was a very quick read, only 200 pages.  I thought it was very well done.  The characters are memorable and the solution is ingenious and masterful.

It seems to me that Hare's most famous book is "Tragedy At Law", I may have to check it out.

[sugarbaker design]

17 hours ago, blackwing said:

I just finished a book called An English Murder by Cyril Hare, who was an English writer and judge.  It was published in 1951 which seems outside the timeframe of "Golden Age" but the back cover very clearly identifies this book as a "Golden Age Classic".

Six residents/guests (and a few servants) are snowed in on Christmas Eve in a big country house.  Someone dies.

This was a very quick read, only 200 pages.  I thought it was very well done.  The characters are memorable and the solution is ingenious and masterful.

It seems to me that Hare's most famous book is "Tragedy At Law", I may have to check it out.

This is one of my favorite Golden Age books, I just read a bloated average mystery by Elizabeth George that ran over 700 pages.  If Cyril Hare can write a murder mystery with memorable characters, a decent puzzle and a satisfying conclusion in under 200 pages, why can't contemporary writers do the same!?

BTW, I'm re-reading The Body In The Library by Agatha Christie, (I just listened to a podcast that mentioned it), my paperback version is 176 pages.

[pennybotello7]

On 7/6/2022 at 9:12 PM, peacheslatour said:

Yes, she was my great x aunt. I never met her,  though I wish I had. My grandfather knew her. Speaking of yellow, one of the most frightening stories I've ever read was called The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It also takes place in a country house where  a husband has taken his wife after she has some kind of unnamed breakdown. She is confined to the nursery room upstairs that has yellow wallpaper on the walls. It's a slowly creeping kind of horror that makes you keep looking over your shoulder at every little creak or noise.

This is my favorite movie, in fact he is very scary, I adore him immensely!

[annzeepark914]

On 3/2/2023 at 8:52 AM, sugarbaker design said:

This is one of my favorite Golden Age books, I just read a bloated average mystery by Elizabeth George that ran over 700 pages.  If Cyril Hare can write a murder mystery with memorable characters, a decent puzzle and a satisfying conclusion in under 200 pages, why can't contemporary writers do the same!

I've been a member of a mystery book club for about 3 years. Too many of the books selected are modern cozies which IMNSHO are sooooo boring & predictable. But when I try to find books that I've enjoyed over the years, there either aren't any in our county library system or maybe just one or two. Are there any current authors who can write a real deal mystery like Rinehart, Christie, Marsh, et al?  Marcia Muller's & Bill Pronzini's books are good--well written & they both set the mood required for a (back in the day) cozy: fog, old creepy neighborhoods, a few oddball characters, etc.  

[annzeepark914]

@peacheslatour Have you read this? I just found it. I remember when I first went to Bar Harbor back in 2003, I was really bothered by all the staircases that went to nowhere (located on the main road coming in to Bar Harbor). Those were the properties where many of the big houses burned in the fire in 1945. That's when I learned that Mary Roberts Rinehart summered at Bar Harbor. So, when I got home, I checked out the Yellow Room Mystery book and reread it, knowing that it was set in Bar Harbor back in the 40's.

https://crimereads.com/mary-roberts-rinehart-mystery-murder/

[BlackberryJam]

NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Meant to be in the Cozy thread. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by BlackberryJam

[sugarbaker design]

11 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Just read Mystery in Provence by Vivian Conroy. It made me bemoan the lack of real editing. The characters were terrible and inconsistent. The dialogue was silly. The reveal was dumb.

I figure you meant to post this in the Cozy thread @BlackberryJam, cause Vivian Conroy doesn't ring any bells as a classic Golden Age author.  😉

[BlackberryJam]

24 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

I figure you meant to post this in the Cozy thread @BlackberryJam, cause Vivian Conroy doesn't ring any bells as a classic Golden Age author.  😉

YES. So sorry. I was posting on the phone, although some blurb compared this book to Christie. I almost hurled. Moving it now. Thank you. 

Back on topic, I know I've mentioned that I listen to Christie novels on repeat to help me sleep, but I wanted to note something about Murder at the Vicarage. Clement, the reverend who narrates the novel, finds Miss Marple's interest in the case as "ghoulish" at times. Which totally gives me a different vision of her. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by BlackberryJam

[pennybotello7]

On 3/20/2023 at 12:02 AM, annzeepark914 said:

I've been a member of a mystery book club for about 3 years. Too many of the books selected are modern cozies which IMNSHO are sooooo boring & predictable. But when I try to find books that I've enjoyed over the years, there either aren't any in our county library system or maybe just one or two. Are there any current authors who can write a real deal mystery like Rinehart, Christie, Marsh, et al?  Marcia Muller's & Bill Pronzini's books are good--well written & they both set the mood required for a (back in the day) cozy: fog, old creepy neighborhoods, a few oddball characters, etc.  

It seems that this will no longer be the case, now people are focused on something other than writing books.

[sugarbaker design]

On 3/19/2023 at 6:02 PM, annzeepark914 said:

Are there any current authors who can write a real deal mystery like Rinehart, Christie, Marsh, et al?  Marcia Muller's & Bill Pronzini's books are good--well written & they both set the mood required for a (back in the day) cozy: fog, old creepy neighborhoods, a few oddball characters, etc.

Fear not, there are plenty of authors out there writing excellent mysteries.  Some of my favorite authors are Louise Penny, Michael Connelly, Donna Leon, Keigo Higashino, Martin Edwards, Martin Walker, Jo Nesbo, Jane Harper, Denise Mina and Tana French.