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I love reading mysteries and thrillers.
Here you'll find links to these
great books, all available on
and on
Sometimes I have books for sale through Amazon.
First Editions in top notch quality!
Right after vacation I got a copy of this:
I read Bangkok 8 (see below) while on vacation and found a copy
of this book used. It's out of print.
Like the other one, this is just great. Chinese police detective in Hong
Kong who is half white, half Chinese who is working on a grisly murder case in
the months before the change over from British Rule to Chinese for Hong Kong.
What seems at first to be a case of maybe Triad violence, turns out to be much
more.
Burdett paints a great picture of the time there as seen through his protagonist
and the people he has to deal with. First rate murder mystery and an
interesting take in some measure on what it was like in '97 when the switch was
about to take place.
Highly recommended.
Just finished this one:
I have read all of Rick Riordan's books. This one is much
different than the ones starring Tres Navarre, but I very much enjoyed it.
As a native of the Bay Area now living elsewhere, I enjoyed having parts of the
book set there.
Riordan creates a very good story of family tragedy, broken friendships and
blackmail.
This would be a good intro for those that have not read his books, as it's stand
alone, and does not contain the humor the others do. Shows off his range,
too.
Recommended.
Read this one just before vacation:
T. Jefferson Parker is one of those rare authors that just keeps
getting better.
This one starts in present day, goes back to mostly the 60's in Orange County
CA, then back to present day in a murder mystery about a young woman from a
crappy family.
OC back then was a LOT different than it is now. Still a hotbed of white
racists, of course, but life was a little more rural now compared to the mostly
suburb hell that is Orange County of today.
Our two main characters are a cop and a newspaper man who are also brothers from
Tustin.
Their lives intertwine quite a bit professionally and off the job in the search
for who did it.
They even run into Timothy Leary and Richard Nixon along the way.
Outstanding novel. Highly recommended. Read this
one while on vacation, Oct 2004:
Excellent read. Great murder mystery that takes place in Thailand.
Main character is a half white, half Thai cop working the killing of his partner
and an American Marine.
Fast paced and darkly funny. Highly recommended.
For the Hardboiled mystery fan:
Mobs and cops and robbers stuff. Not that intellectual, but
a good way to pass a couple of evenings. See below for more from this
author that I liked better, though I did enjoy this one, too.
Really enjoyed this one:
Great book. All 4 of his books are really good.
This one sees once again his favorite Philly lawyer Victor Carl tracking down
the truth in a missing and presumed killed man as well as the case of a client
just killed.
Humor and thrills. Recommended. I'm sure you saw
the movie, but you should read the book:
Dennis Lehane is another favorite of mine. The above is a
move away from his mysteries that he started with.
Those are very good books and I recommend them (starting with
Drink Before The War) as well as another good one NOT in that series,
Shutter Island
All are HIGHLY recommended. Something a little different, but really
good:
Good mystery with a twist being that our lead character is a
baseball scout.
Pay no attention to a couple of the bad reader reviews on Amazon. They are
dopes. James Lee Burke is my all time favorite author.
His books that take place in the South (usually Louisiana, Texas and that
area) are fantastic literature and great mystery novels as well.
One of his last was historical fiction with real characters. It takes place just before, during and just after the Civil War. The people here that the story center around live in and around New Iberia, Louisiana. Willie Burke is the great uncle of James Lee and shares honors (in my eyes) with
Abigail Dowling and Flower Jamison as the book's main characters.
While this is not a "war" novel in the strictest sense, being that it focuses mainly on the people affected by it, there are some passages here that can give you an understanding what the combatants had to go through. It is the life changing affects of the war, racism and the dirty games that men play that will move you as it moves Willie, Flower and
Abigail. I highly recommend it.
Other books by Burke that I highly
recommend:
Last Car to Elysian Fields
Sunset Limited
Cimarron
Rose
Jolie Blon's Bounce
One of my new favorite authors is Dan Simmons (he's new to me, but not to scores of horror/fantasy/sci fi readers)
Over the last few years he has made a departure from the above in the form of some great mysteries and thrillers.
Three that I can HIGHLY recommend are:
Darwin's Blade
This one is a lot of fun. Darwin is a San Diego man who works for a small outfit that reconstructs accidents for insurance companies. Sounds boring? Trust me, it's not. His work leads him to work with several different agencies investigating accident fraud on a HUGE level beyond that of the usual "stop and squat" on the freeway. You'll learn more about that in the book. Very good.
Hardcase
Great Hardboiled mystery for those that love the genre. Kurtz shines as the "anti-hero" if you will.
The Crook Factory
Hemingway, Cuba, J. Edger Hoover, German Spies. What's not to like? Good escapism spy thriller.
How about a great book about
cigars
and labels?
Art
of the Cigar Label by Joe Davidson
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