Good, popular detective fiction?

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Can anyone recommend some decent crime/detective fiction for my dad? It's his birthday coming up and I want to get him something entertaining and well-written, i.e. hopefully a cut above the dreck you see advertised in tube stations, but not too abstruse, weird and, um, Dissensus-ish. Not Lynda la Plante but not Reza Negarestani either, if you see what I mean. He enjoyed the Stieg Larsson books recently, so I might get him something by Jo Nesbo who is inevitably being touted as 'the next Larsson', plus I was thinking I probably couldn't go far wrong with a comp of Holmes stories. But I was thinking of getting a job lot of cheap books on Amazon, maybe half a dozen, so any recommendations for other stuff that's good and preferably current would be appreciated.

Cheers!
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Mr. Tea said:
Can anyone recommend some decent crime/detective fiction for my dad? It's his birthday coming up and I want to get him something entertaining and well-written, i.e. hopefully a cut above the dreck you see advertised in tube stations, but not too abstruse, weird and, um, Dissensus-ish. Not Lynda la Plante but not Reza Negarestani either, if you see what I mean. He enjoyed the Stieg Larsson books recently, so I might get him something by Jo Nesbo who is inevitably being touted as 'the next Larsson', plus I was thinking I probably couldn't go far wrong with a comp of Holmes stories. But I was thinking of getting a job lot of cheap books on Amazon, maybe half a dozen, so any recommendations for other stuff that's good and preferably current would be appreciated.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Sjöwall and Wahlöö's Martin Beck series.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Sweeeet, thanks guys. Should have known there'd be some threads about this already.

Edit: I love how quickly one of those threads degenerated into jokes about stereotypical Scandinavians.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Dunno, I've not read it (yet). I've a feeling my dad would read a few pages of Pynchon and go "What is this toss?" - unless his new one is a bit more straightforward than V, Rainbow etc.?
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
Henning Mankell is pretty good I suppose. Raymond Chandler is meant to be the man for this sort of thing isn't he? Never read him myself.
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
Depends what kind of dad you've got Mister Tea.
This book has been described as Pynchon-lite. And it has all the classic detective story tropes.
But if you think the constant pot smoking that goes on in the book would be a turn off for dear old pa, steer clear!
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ha, no, I don't think he has a problem with moderately 'transgressive' writing, I mean presumably we're not talking about de Sade here, I just meant Pynchon's general po-mo headphuq tendencies. But if he's toned that down a little for his latest, that could be an option. Plus I'll get to read it afterwards. :D

Edit: cool, might get that then. Cheers EM!
 
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empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
It isn't a challenging, or like, even moderately confusing, read.
It'd be nice if you read it, too, so you could discuss it with dad.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
A good Simenon omnibus is a great thing to get hold of.

Name of the Rose is a good read and genuinely detective-y

agree about Mankell

Danny Smiricky novels of SKvorecky

Andrew Martin's Jim Stringer novels: http://www.jimstringernovels.com/

All picked with the older reader in mind.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Right, well I've gone with one of the Martin Beck novels by that Swedish couple, a Morse novel, Auster's New York Trilogy because I borrowed it from a friend years ago and really want to read it again, and something by Andrew Martin.

Cheers chaps!
 
slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Shame on you...buying the Auster trilogy is the same as when Homer bought Marge a bowling ball for her birthday...I hope you feel enormous guilt when he says he doesn't think much of it...
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
slim jenkins said:
Shame on you...buying the Auster trilogy is the same as when Homer bought Marge a bowling ball for her birthday...I hope you feel enormous guilt when he says he doesn't think much of it...
Click to expand...

I think he'll like it though, I mean it's a ripping book! I just plan to, uh, refresh my memory of it when he's finished with it... :eek:
 
slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
Good luck - hope he does like it...just thought it a little too left field for the taste you described. Never know, it might set him on a whole new path to James Sallis and even Robert Coover's superb Noir. I'd like to have made suggestions but my taste is 'unpopular'!
 
J

JWoulf

Well-known member
Fred Vargas, Jonathan Lethem, Lehane, not great books but not bad. If you wanna go a little darker you could try Denis Johnson, Jim thompson, James Crumley, and Iain Banks "complicity"
 
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