I love mysteries. It’s not even so much about solving the crime – just following the case is fun. These books are difficult to talk about, though, without giving away the plot, murderer, or endgame. So, without much detail are a few of my favorite mysteries and authors:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I love Agatha Christie books – they are relatively short but still seem to tell a good tale. Hercule Poirot is such a great character, so it’s always fun to pull a book off the shelves and challenge my little grey cells. It’s hard to talk about these mysteries without giving away something vital. This story had a good cast of characters that seemed believable – not too quirky but each having enough of a personality to serve the story. The “whodunit” part of the story offered enough of a surprise to be fun – though I had my suspicions about halfway through!
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins was really a terrific read. The book is considered the first detective novel and brings in a lot of the established tropes of detective novels – the English country house, the cast of wonderful characters and so on. I don’t want to give anything away. What was unexpected was the humor in the novel. There were some really funny sections, which helped to make several characters endearing. I also enjoyed the fact that the characters were written with consistent qualities and said/did things that made sense given their personalities. As with Agatha Christie, characters had interesting quirks that weren’t too quirky! I loved the better-known Collins book, The Woman in White, and this is similar in that the descriptions are wonderful. The story is engaging and it’s possible to envision events unfolding. There is a Victorian quality to the story and, even though it sets up some of the tropes of today’s detective fiction, it feels fresh to me – I think in part because of the humor. This was terrific, even though I guessed who took the Moonstone pretty early on – it wasn’t confirmed until late in the book, so Collins kept the mystery alive.
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle is a terrific story. I read it many years ago and have seen various versions on TV, so I knew the general story. The mystery is well-done and keeps the reader guessing. The setting on the moors is creepy – I can’t imagine spending one night there, let alone living there … even without “the hound”. The characters are interesting and, as with Sherlock Holmes mysteries in general, some of them are not what they seem.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a wonderful book, though seeing the movie a few times sort of spoiled it a little. It’s a bit different than the other books because it seems to start out as a story about a new wife who moves to an old mansion … but the story evolves.
I so wanted the second Mrs. de Winter to stand up for herself. She (the unnamed narrator) was a shy, frightened, fish-out-of-water young woman who was placed in a very challenging situation. Her husband alternated between being uncommunicative to being angry to being responsive until he was again uncommunicative. The estate was a massive property with rules and order that were all new to her. And then, of course, there was Mrs. Danvers! The poor young wife had my sympathy from the start. And while I wanted her to speak up, that really would have been out of character for her. For the first 3/4 of the book, the reader and the narrator are trying to figure out what is going on – the narrator thinks she knows, but … not so much.
Even knowing what was going to happen didn’t reduce the joy of reading the story. The descriptions of the house and garden and woods and so on were just lovely. The characters were well-defined or at least they came to be. The plot was the only thing that suffered from prior knowledge. It says something that a suspenseful story was not ruined by knowing what would happen – it is a testament to the writing and the strength of characterization. Mrs. Danvers still gives me chills. Yikes! What a character. The only one I was slightly disappointed with was Favell. The actor George Sanders, who played Favell in the 1940 movie, has always been a favorite of mine – even though he frequently played a the same character, i.e., a bit shady, sarcastic, and smug, but still a hoot. The Favell character of the book just seems slimy and smarmy – loses a little of the fun!
The Murder Room by P. D. James is another excellent book – in fact, I’ve enjoyed every one of her novels. In many ways, I find her storytelling to be more like literature than the average mystery novel. The description of the settings and characters are evocative and it’s very easy to get caught up in the story. Commander Dalgleish is an interesting character – a police investigator and poet who has lost his family. Like Christie’s Poirot (and Marple), Dagleish is a character to follow through the various investigations and stories – he brings familiarity and engagement, with a bit of pathos thrown in the mix.
The Red Box by Rex Stout features Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin as a pair of private detectives – Wolfe who rarely leaves his NYC brownstone and Goodwin who is the eyes, ears, and legs of the team. The series of books are wonderful and there was a TV show on A&E in 2000-2002, which is also terrific. The dialogue is fast-paced, the wardrobe is snazzy, and the brownstone … I’d move in tomorrow! Wolfe and Goodwin are stylized but not like Sam Spade or Philip Marlow. There is a glam rather than gritty feel and the stories have a timeless quality.
