Sylvia’s Little List
of Turn-of-the-millennium
Mystery Writers
by Sylvia Sikeston
[Note:
At the bottom of the page, you'll find links to amazon.com pages for the various books.]
Criteria: I read for 1) voice, 2) place, and 3) edge. Plot
is of little importance. Any writer not laughing at this point in time is suffering from
severe chronological myopia.
***Stan Cutler: L.A. Vastly under-recognized. Four
books, all with the same two protagonists, who alternate first-person chapters: Rayford
Goodman, over-the-hill former "private-eye to the stars," and Mark Bradley,
up-and-coming, well-adjustedly gay West Hollywood ghost writer. Cutler has both voices (as
well as huge chunks of L.A.) down perfectly. Goodman's weltschmerzy, curmudgeonly
seen-it-all lingo plays entertainingly against Bradley's hipper-than-thou pose and his
redeeming sense of self-irony. You're hard put to find a page without a half-dozen decent
to brilliant one-liners.
***Kinky
Friedman: NY, with an occasional Texas detour. A unique American voice: dark,
funny, severely damaged innocence. Probably the only writer on this page who will still be
read in a hundred years. The early books are best. See also our
own appreciation.
***Marissa Piesman. NY. Read her for the voice, and
social commentary. Funny stuff.
***Laurence Shames. Key West, with detours to NY. He
nails Key West, entertainingly and with love.
***Michael Nava: Gay Hispanic CA. Fiercely
intelligent books focused on gay lawyer Henry Rios.
***Joseph Wambaugh: Southern California. Best when
he’s not taking himself too seriously. Extraordinary reproduction of American patois
and mores across many social, ethnic, and economic lines. The early books were darkly
comic, often tragicomic. The later books are lighter but still with vivid renderings of
the Southland panorama.
***Donald Westlake: New York City proletariat and
occasional other classes. Very funny. Did a lot of hack work in the 60s and 70s. The John
Dortmunder novels are often superb. Even the hack work is worth exploring (try one called Two
Much!). The human zoo re-visited. Shakespeare 400 years later without the poetry but
still with the loving, forgiving curiosity of the compleat anthropologist-as-writer. Alas,
mostly out of print.
***Robert Crais: Robert Parker may've been
Crais's writerly role model, but Crais has long since surpassed his elder. Compared to the
highly readable Spenser fluff, Crais's Elvis Cole novels are 1) funnier, 2) more
substantial (less cute, more story), and 3) worth re-reading.
**James Lee Burke: New Orleans + Cajun country +
touches of magical realism (the early books are best). The new series, set in Muleshoe,
Texas, (or somewhere like that) is still shaky on its feet.
**Tony Fennelly: Gay New Orleans.
**Carl Hiaasen: Florida. A journalist's jaundiced
eye and a writer's eerily accurate ear. Hiaasen's anger at what developers and tourists
have done to his beloved Florida is in danger of becoming unrelieved bitterness.
**Paul Levine: Florida. Protagonist is a
retired Dolphins linebacker, now a lawyer with a conscience, a great extended family, and
a bunch of clients who, when they're not murdering or getting murdered, are good for a lot
of laughs.
**David Handler: N.Y. upper class. A limited
palette, but his wit carries the books beautifully.
**Susan Isaacs. NY, mainly Long Island. Uneven, some
* and some ***.
**Elmore Leonard: Florida; Michigan. Uneven. Not
nearly as good as he and critics think.
**Jonathan Kellerman: L.A. (the early books;
he’s weakening).
**Walter Mosley: Black L.A.
**Sara Paretsky: Chicago (the early books;
she’s weakening).
**Lisa Scottoline: Philadelphia lawyer.
*Edgar Box: Gore Vidal’s nom de plume in the
early 50s. N.Y.
*Robert Campbell: hardcore L.A.
*Michael Dibdin: Venice (Italy).
*Parnell Hall: N.Y. proletariat.
*Jospeh Hansen: L.A. (gay).
*Jeremiah Healey: Boston, gently.
*Peter Israel: N.Y. upper class.
*Stuart Kaminsky: Loving, detailed re-creations of
L.A. circa 1940-1945. If you like the movies of that period, you'll love these books. (In
another series, he does Russia.)
*Archer Mayor: Vermont, decently, humanely.
*Sarah Shankman: Atlanta & New Orleans. Hip and
funny.
*Richard Stevenson: Upstate NY (gay).
*Dick Francis: Included here mostly for
old times' sake. Formulaic and by now predictable, the books are still several cuts above
99% of what's out there. Sadly, they are not aging well.
To be avoided:
1. Sue Grafton: Huge seller, does Santa Barbara under a nom de ville. Formula
fluff. The early books were passable, before she got in a well-paved, well-paying rut.
Redeeming quality: she has refused to sell movie/TV rights.
2. Any male writer with the tiniest hint of testosterone in
his name or his blurbs. Remember, this is the genre that produced Mickey Spillane et al.
Caveat lector. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, founders, are the exceptions to the
rule, of course.
3. Any female writer with a cat as a protagonist (such as
what’s her name who did Ruby Fruit Jungle--yes, she has sunk to cozy
who-dun-its) or whose protagonist runs a quaint shop of any kind in New England.
4. American Indians of any gender: many have tried; none
have succeeded.
5. Danish, Dutch, French, German, Indian, or Hong Kongese
writers. Many have tried. None have succeeded. Except maybe Simenon. The British
village mystery is perhaps useful if you find yourself traveling the stretch of railroad
between Moscow and Vladivostok.
6. Anyone who’s made a name in another field, e.g.,
William Buckley, Margaret Truman, Steve Allen, Martina Navratilovna, et al. Kinky Friedman
(see above), founder and executor of the singing group, Kinky Friedman and the Texas
Jewboys, is the exception who proves the rule.
7. Any book with blurbs from newspapers you never heard of.
Any book with a blurb from the Washington Times.
8. Any book set in Seattle, the Upper Peninsula of
Michigan, or along the Nile.
9. Anything by Patricia Cornwell. One of her books is
dedicated to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), another to Barbara Bush. Nuff said.
Noted but best ignored:
Michael Connelly; Timothy Hallinan; Jerome Doolittle; Tony Hillerman; Marcia Muller; David
Lindsay; Dick Lochte; Susan Dunlap; Ed McBain (the books, however well-crafted add a whole
new dimension to the adjective "dreary"); Susan Moody; Jerry Kenneally; Irving
Weinman.
--Sylvia Sikeston
Send this page to a friend.
Links to the various books at amazon.com:
James
Lee Burke: In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead.
Robert
Crais: The Monkey's Raincoat.
Stan
Cutler: The Face on the Cutting Room Floor
Stan
Cutler: Rough Cut
Kinky
Friedman: Elvis, Jesus, and Coca-cola
Kinky
Friedman: The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover
Carl
Hiaasen: Lucky You.
Susan
Isaacs: The Magic Hour.
Jonathan
Kellerman: Private Eyes.
Elmore
Leonard: Get Shorty.
Paul
Levine: False Dawn.
Walter
Mosley. Devil in a Blue Dress.
Michael
Nava: The Burning Plain.
Sara
Paretsky: Burn Marks.
Marissa
Piesman: Close Quarters.
Laurence
Shames: Florida Straits.
Donald
Westlake: Don't Ask.
Donald
Westlake: What's the Worst That Could Happen?
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