Mystery and History
About 10 years ago I stumbled onto an episode of PBS's Mystery showcasing Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael, and I was completely hooked. By the end of the week I had bought the first 3 Cadfael chronicles, and the books are even better than the excellent TV productions. Cadfael is a Benedictine monk in 12th century England who has a vast knowledge of herbs and is worldly enough to have a canny understanding of human nature. On TV, he was played by Sir Derek Jacobi, who can pretty much do no wrong in my book.
Cadfael got me interested in mysteries as a whole; at the time I hadn't read many mystery stories outside of Poe and Conan Doyle. I was instantly taken with the historical mystery. There's something I love about the research and knowledge that goes into writing a period piece of fiction. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm learning things as I'm being entertained-always a plus in my book.
I would guess I have close to 100 anthologies of short stories, many showcasing mystery fiction. About a year ago I elected to compile a bibliography of all the short stories I have, sorted by author and publication (yes, I am that anal), in order to avoid buying anthologies containing stories I already have. Nothing irritates me more than buying a book, gettting it home, and finding out the Harlan Ellison (or Ray Bradbury, or William Nolan) story I bought it for is one I've already read in another book I own.
Despite my propensity for story duplication, I had only come in contact with 2 Jaques Futrelle stories featuring his detective The Thinking Machine; these stories were rather infrequently reprinted until this year. Now, Modern Library just published the entire collection of Futrelle's Thinking Machine tales in one volume, with an introduction by Harlan Ellison, and man-oh-man, I am loving it. The Thinking Machine is a man: an incredibly brilliant, egotistical, arrogant sonofabitch. He is contemptuous of anyone with less intelligence than himself (which is pretty much everyone), and he is a detective in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, following at all times the rules of logic. The stories are very entertaining, but they're not the kind of mysteries you, as a reader, ever have a chance to solve. The Thinking Machine doesn't reveal his thoughts on anything until the end of the story and when he does, he reveals the entire case from start to finish. There really isn't time for the reader to ponder clues and make educated guesses before the story is over, which is kind of a brilliant literary device, when you think about it- it just reinforces that the Thinking Machine's brain works so much faster than anyone else's. Makes you wish Futrelle had lived a bit longer, but he literally went down on the Titanic, and that, as they say, was the end of that.
Other great historical mysteries I have enjoyed include the works of Laura Joh Rowland, who writes a spectacular series of tales about Sano Ichiro, a samurai detective in feudal Japan. Sano has to constantly solve mysteries while fighting corruption and maintaining his own tenuous social position in the court of the Shogun. He has several loyal allies, most notably his wife, who often takes a hand in helping to solve crimes. But Sano is a man beset by enemies at every turn who seek to discredit him in the eyes of the court. All the political intrigue only adds to some great mystery stories, as Sano is often in the position of investigating dangerous people-people who could ruin him.
Iain Pears wrote a phenomenal mystery entitled The Instance of the Fingerpost, which is without a doubt the best historical mystery I have ever read. It is the account of a murder told from 3 different points of view, each with a variant perspective and with unique information that keeps you guessing until the end. It takes place in England during the 1660's. Pears also writes a series of "Art History Mysteries", which, while they take place in the present time, deal with the history of paintings and artists, as well as the art world in general. It wasn't a world I thought I would be interested in (being the uncultured Philistine that I am), but Pears is a remarkably talented writer who spins what J. Peterman would call a "ripping good yarn".
Ray Bradbury wrote an entertaining novel in the tradition of the Private Eye genre: Death is a Lonely Business. It takes place in Venice, California, in 1949, after they've torn down the amusement pier. In addition to being one of the best writers of speculative fiction in the world, Bradbury is hands-down one of the best writers I have ever read. One needs look no further than this book, with its imagery of the decrepit amusement park in its heydey and the conveyed sense of loss and abandonment felt in the present, to see why.
Got any good mysteries, especially historical mysteries, you'd recommend? Let me know. I'm not a Patricia Cornwell/ Mary Higgins Clark kinda guy, and I'm not a fan of the blue-haired, tea-sipping old lady type of sleuth either. If you've read any of these that I recommend (or if you decide to take my advice and read them) let me know what you think! I'm always interested in discussing good books.
Maybe a post on Private Eye fiction is in order soon.
Cadfael got me interested in mysteries as a whole; at the time I hadn't read many mystery stories outside of Poe and Conan Doyle. I was instantly taken with the historical mystery. There's something I love about the research and knowledge that goes into writing a period piece of fiction. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm learning things as I'm being entertained-always a plus in my book.
I would guess I have close to 100 anthologies of short stories, many showcasing mystery fiction. About a year ago I elected to compile a bibliography of all the short stories I have, sorted by author and publication (yes, I am that anal), in order to avoid buying anthologies containing stories I already have. Nothing irritates me more than buying a book, gettting it home, and finding out the Harlan Ellison (or Ray Bradbury, or William Nolan) story I bought it for is one I've already read in another book I own.
Despite my propensity for story duplication, I had only come in contact with 2 Jaques Futrelle stories featuring his detective The Thinking Machine; these stories were rather infrequently reprinted until this year. Now, Modern Library just published the entire collection of Futrelle's Thinking Machine tales in one volume, with an introduction by Harlan Ellison, and man-oh-man, I am loving it. The Thinking Machine is a man: an incredibly brilliant, egotistical, arrogant sonofabitch. He is contemptuous of anyone with less intelligence than himself (which is pretty much everyone), and he is a detective in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, following at all times the rules of logic. The stories are very entertaining, but they're not the kind of mysteries you, as a reader, ever have a chance to solve. The Thinking Machine doesn't reveal his thoughts on anything until the end of the story and when he does, he reveals the entire case from start to finish. There really isn't time for the reader to ponder clues and make educated guesses before the story is over, which is kind of a brilliant literary device, when you think about it- it just reinforces that the Thinking Machine's brain works so much faster than anyone else's. Makes you wish Futrelle had lived a bit longer, but he literally went down on the Titanic, and that, as they say, was the end of that.
Other great historical mysteries I have enjoyed include the works of Laura Joh Rowland, who writes a spectacular series of tales about Sano Ichiro, a samurai detective in feudal Japan. Sano has to constantly solve mysteries while fighting corruption and maintaining his own tenuous social position in the court of the Shogun. He has several loyal allies, most notably his wife, who often takes a hand in helping to solve crimes. But Sano is a man beset by enemies at every turn who seek to discredit him in the eyes of the court. All the political intrigue only adds to some great mystery stories, as Sano is often in the position of investigating dangerous people-people who could ruin him.
Iain Pears wrote a phenomenal mystery entitled The Instance of the Fingerpost, which is without a doubt the best historical mystery I have ever read. It is the account of a murder told from 3 different points of view, each with a variant perspective and with unique information that keeps you guessing until the end. It takes place in England during the 1660's. Pears also writes a series of "Art History Mysteries", which, while they take place in the present time, deal with the history of paintings and artists, as well as the art world in general. It wasn't a world I thought I would be interested in (being the uncultured Philistine that I am), but Pears is a remarkably talented writer who spins what J. Peterman would call a "ripping good yarn".
Ray Bradbury wrote an entertaining novel in the tradition of the Private Eye genre: Death is a Lonely Business. It takes place in Venice, California, in 1949, after they've torn down the amusement pier. In addition to being one of the best writers of speculative fiction in the world, Bradbury is hands-down one of the best writers I have ever read. One needs look no further than this book, with its imagery of the decrepit amusement park in its heydey and the conveyed sense of loss and abandonment felt in the present, to see why.
Got any good mysteries, especially historical mysteries, you'd recommend? Let me know. I'm not a Patricia Cornwell/ Mary Higgins Clark kinda guy, and I'm not a fan of the blue-haired, tea-sipping old lady type of sleuth either. If you've read any of these that I recommend (or if you decide to take my advice and read them) let me know what you think! I'm always interested in discussing good books.
Maybe a post on Private Eye fiction is in order soon.
posted by The Angry Piper at 12:29 PM
6 Comments:
If you liked that read Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco. Wonderfully written period mystery.
Hey, buy some Rex Stout already. You like arrogant thinking machines, Nero Wolfe is your man. A bit on the pulpy side, but you like it like that, don't you?
Yeah, I dig the pulp.
Appropriately enough, the back cover of Modern Library's Thinking Machine calls him "no less than the newly rediscovered literary link between Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe."
Guess I'll add Stout to my list. Gracias.
You would like the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
Ahhh...Discworld. Cohen the Barbarian. Friggen' classic.
Mmmmmm. Stout!
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