Mystery Authors that currently rock, and their series openers

Argggh, I accidently deleted this post, and will rewrite it. I assure you my first version was wittier and better written.

Charlaine Harris
Shakespeare's Landlord - a thought provoking series with one of the most tough, well-written characters I've come across. Shakespeare, by the way, is a southern town in this century.
Dead until Dark - much lighter, but no less astute. These books are still mysteries, and the vampires and whatnot are added in for extra interest and scenarios. You don't have to like horror or fantasy to find this interesting.
Real Murders - if you can find this opener to her first series, it kicks ass and defies pigeonholeing. I would recommend that you read these books, even if you can't find all of the first few installments. The main character is a librarian with the heart of a tiger in the body of a respectable southern woman, with fascinating results. My favourite thing about this author is that she doesn't pull her punches, and everything isn't necessarily okay in the end, though each book is very satisfying. She also gets a hell of a lot written with less words and more realism than any author that comes to mind.
Grave Sight - the first book in her newest series, which is again darker in tone yet entirely enthralling, a bit more like the Shakespeare series, but with a slight psychic undertone. A few ideas she raised in this book still creep me out when I think about them too long. The main character has the ability to find dead people, and makes her living from it - to the desperate hope or disgust (sometimes both at once) of others. Her job puts her in some very interesting situations, with some very hostile people. The characterization is superb.

Margaret Maron
Bootlegger's Daughter starts of my favourite series, again set in the southern states for extra un-cloying colour. The main character has seen too many bigoted judicial rulings in her career as a lawyer, so she snaps and decides to run for a seat as a judge herself, with some very interesting results.
One Coffee With is a very different series, and was written earlier and set in New York City. The main character, a female police lieutenant, first comes off as something of a repressed cold fish . . . though she has a sharp intellect and a flair for her job. With an excellent mystery as the background for each book, we watch as she slowly gains a life and emotional colour, courtesy of a very non-traditional love affair, some assorted friends, and the unravelling of an unfinished story set around her father's death when she was very young.

Jennifer Apodaca
Dating Can Be Murder - A newly widowed soccer mom wakes up and gets a life after she realizes her late husband was a cheating sleaze that ruined them financially in some shady business before he kicked off. She revamps her career and herself (buying a matchmaking business, a boob job, and a sexy wardrobe) while actually becoming a better role model for her two sons. It's like Janet Evanovich at her best: light, and not nearly so goofy. The best friend with the surveillance tools (used in her hobby of stalking her asshole ex-husband). The series heats up with the interesting cop and private eye characters that take interest in the heroine's new look, but the series doesn't use them to continually save the main character when she continually bites off more than she can chew.

More mystery authors to come in a later installment, for which I will not promise a deadline.

I consume mysteries like popcorn . . .

Really, I do.

I read a couple books a week, accidentally for the most part . . . I just get sucked in.

First I idly go online to see what the library systems on the island have going on (I have cards for both of them, naturally) then I find myself filling up all my allowable holds on the waitlists for library items . . . mainly books but also a lot of DVDs from the fabulous gvpl collection. I consider it a goal to keep my allowable holds entirely full. Thirty and fifty items really isn't much, when you consider how long you have to wait for some of them . . . some of them aren't even released from the publisher yet, and of course it's best to be first on the wait list for my favourite 20 authors . . . hey, it's a way better scenario than me going through the media on chapters or amazon, right? It's all FREE . . .

Next the pull of the library vortex has me toddling to the library at least twice a week. See, though hold items will wait for me to pick them up for a week, I only get three days with DVD or CDs which have holds placed on them by others. And naturally, every time I'm in the library, I have to take a quick look at the paperback racks . . .

Most of my best author finds have been made by me browsing through the racks. I do all kinds of things to learn about good books, but honestly taking a quick look at the books tells me a lot. You can't judge a book by it's cover entirely, but honestly you can learn a bit . . . though the author doesn't get to pick the cover, the publisher has chosen a look for the book that reflects who they think will read it. It's not a coincidence that the best publishers often put my favourite books in cover art that I appreciate.

Reading the blurbs on the back of the book can tell you a bit, but if you already know you are going to read the book (say if it is by a favourite author or recommended by someone with actual taste) stay far FAR away from them, they often tell too much! They can be worse than movie previews, even the kind that show you all the funny jokes in the movie all at once, making the movie itself redundant. You don't need to spend half the book waiting for the hot police detective to show up, or for the chosen shreddie character to finally kick the bucket or die in a horrific murder. Scanning the quotations of praise from other authors or reviewers can also be useful . . . not for what they say, of course, but for who they are. If you have never, ever heard of them or seen them anywhere, it's probably not a good sign. Endorsements from the Pendleton County Weekly are also suspect. If the publishers have to stretch that far to find a good review, their taste is suspect or there is no interesting plot hook they can allude to in the preview-blurb. Probably both. Total lack of review quotes is not necessarily bad, however . . . you might have even found that elusive thing, a paperback publisher with class and restraint.

Authors that were worthwhile that were found by library shelf-hunting alone . . . Lois McMaster Bujold, Diana Wynne Jones, Margaret Maron, Charlaine Harris, Kate Elliott, Garth Nix, Phillip Pullman, Nancy Martin, Robin McKinley, and the list goes on. Holding the book in person also allows you to check it's publishing date, and usually there is a bibliography list so you can tell if it is the first in a series, or if there are other series that the author has written that you might have heard of (or in my case read, and forgotten the author name).

Other ways I research good books is online. Specifically, I look for the webpages of my favourite authors, and see who they recommend. The endorsed author webpages have the most complete bibliography, and often have the first chapters of their most current work. If you hear about an author from a friend or elsewhere, the best way to make sure you start with the right book is to check online first - it sucks to start halfway through a series, or read the suckiest stand-alone book and get turned off an author prematurely.

Some of my favourite authors have series that are so different in tone that I would have thought they were written by other people if I didn't see their names on the copywright line. Also, many authors have different series under different pseudonyms, and their websites often admit this freely. Often pseudonyms make sense because their earlier work sucked and they want you and everyone else to forget about it, sometimes they write books in different genres and they don't want their books pigeon-holed, and sometimes there is no obvious reason (maybe they had contract isssues?). But a true fan would want to check out the other books anyways, just in case they also rock.

Buckley's - don't do it.

Well, I haven't been keeping up with this blog since before my friend Susi and her bf Daniel visited me for a week. They are still travelling across Canada by train, and their last set of pictures includes them running and riding a dogsled . . . duude, 23 years in Canada and I never got to try a dogsled . . .

I've been nicely behind in all my studies since spending reading break hanging around with the Germans in Vic, Van and even Duncan. I had too much fun and can't be bothered to regret it. I especially liked using the visitors as an excuse to go out and eat at all sorts of new places with the Dine-Around specials that were on all February.

This last week I missed all my classes entirely, and was sick with bronchitis. I tried this horrible cough syrup that was worse than just hacking up a lung, I swear . . . I thought the bad taste was more a joke because they brag about it in the commercials, but it was really the worst thing I ever tasted, including spoiled milk. I immediately brush my teeth afterwards, otherwise I wouldn't be able to handle it.

So, basically, the most interesting thing that happened to me since Susi and Daniel left was Buckley's cough syrup. I never would have tried it if I knew it tasted like wet dog, peppermints and jaegermeister all in one.


Oh, also interesting . . . the movie 'V for Vendetta' and it was teriffic - make sure you see it in the theatre! Don't learn anything about it if you can help it, just go see it!