Mysteries/Thrillers

[eclair]

Hi, hal9000, I think you and I might have similar tastes in books! Here are a few recommendations:

Shirley Damsgaard (not a typo) has a series about a grand daughter, Ophilia, & grand mother , Abby,who are descended from an Appalachian line of all kinds of psychics and healers. The grandmother uses herbs and crystals, the grand daughter uses runes. The first in the series is "Witch Way to Murder". I like the series pretty well, but I'm noticing laziness with the villains; too much us vs them, and "them" are one dimensional cliches as the series goes on. I didn't notice this so much with the earlier books. The grand daughter works in a library. The grand daughter struggles to accept her powers at the beginning of the series.

Madelyn Alt also has a series featuring white witches. The first book in the series is "The Trouble With Magic". The protagonist works in a new age book store run by an older British witch, who can help her accept and develop her powers. Subplots about the protagonist's mother and sister wanting her to give up the occult are annoying to me. Writing and character development only so-so, but worth getting the first book from the library.

I don't recall these two series as being very funny, not especially dark, but not comical either. The rest of the books below are also sometimes humorous.

Victoria Laurie has two series, one about a professional psychic, first in the series "A Vision of Murder" She has a business giving readings and ends up with a side job working for the FBI .

Her second series is about a ghost hunter who releases trapped spirits or, if the spirits are evil, traps them. First in the series is "What's a Ghoul to Do?". The author is a professional psychic, and she writes well. I like these series best of the ones I've mentioned.

Julie Kenner has a series about a suburban soccer mom who is a retired demon hunter (she was an orphan, raised by the Vatican's secret demon hunting experts), who has to come out of retirement to fight demons and raise a toddler. I think the first title is "Carpe Demon". I also really like this series. The hook is that the protagonist is like Buffy, if she grew up and started a family.

Tate Halloway has a series about a witch who works in a metaphysical bookstore. She is hiding from witch hunters from the vatican. She has also accidentally ended up with the goddess Lilith sharing her body. First in the series is "Tall Dark and Dead". Very enjoyable reading.

There are a few other books/series I can think of, but can't quite remember enough information to find the authors/titles right now. I would also like to find similar types of books/series!

[hal9000]

eclair - thank you so much for your suggestions! I bought What's a Ghoul to Do? and have tracked down some Shirley Damsgaard titles at the library. Julie Kenner looks like fun as well.

Apart from the cozy side of mysteries, I am also a huge fan of film noir and hardboiled fiction, and have been looking for female pulp authors. My favourite thus far is Christa Faust, whose novel Money Shot is about a former adult star turned agent (think Gina Gershon) and her lunkish security guard (think Eric Roberts) who are on the run with a suitcase of cash from people traffickers who have framed her for murder. Not as squicky as it sounds, and it has the formula down pat.
It has a classic, old-school paperback cover, and there is a sequel in the works.

[MissPandora]

Thanks for the heads up on Tate Halloway. I love the Victoria Laurie and Julie Kenner series (serieii?, serieses?).

[Carolinian]

hal9000, have you read Queenpin by Megan Abbott? Here's the blurb from Stop You're Killing Me:

Queenpin (2007) is the story of a young woman working as a bookkeeper at a small-time nightclub. Gloria Denton, an infamous and glamorous mob-insider, takes our unnamed narrator on as a protégée, her assistant in an intoxicating world of late-night casinos, race tracks, and betting parlors in a unspecified time and place that feels like the 40s. The relationships in this noir tale are complex and compelling, the action swift, the spiraling climax inevitable yet fresh. This hard-boiled stunner won the 2008 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original.

I see my library has some Victoria Laurie and Julie Kenner. I look forward to trying them out, thanks for the suggestions.

[MrsCatHead]

Ok, so now I'm hooked on the Wallender series. I also Netflix'ed the BBC series with Kenneth Branaugh. Mankell gives the thumbs up and so far, I'm liking it. Liking it all!

[Deleted]

I recently read the first three books in Julie Kenner's demon hunter series, and I was kind of bored by them. The first book was great, but then I feel like there wasn't enough plot to fill out the other two books, and so they were padded out with filler. The hook is that she's a suburban housewife and mother who hunts demons on the side (without her husband's knowledge), but there was way way way too much filler that focused on the day to day wife/mother stuff. I think Kenner was trying to convey a sense of chaos in her character's life (I can't even remember her name), and trying to be humerous about it, but it just didn't work. Her attempts at humour were pretty lame too, there were times when one or more of the characters were falling over with laughter, or trying to hold in laughter, or some such, and I remember thinking 'why? no-one said or did anything funny'.

I also found the attempt at a love triange lame and creepy >>the main character is a widow who has re-married, and her dead husband has managed to stuff his soul into another man's body>>

Maybe I'm biased, but as a single, childless woman I found the emphasis on the day to day household stuff dull, while there wasn't enough action.

[trifle]

This is the one I'm dying to read--I just wish it were going to be available for the 4th of July weekend!


Still Missing

[Peggy Lane]

That sounds really good. Is anyone else a fan of Susan Kandal's Cece Caruso series? Cece writes biographies of mystery writers and the mysteries somehow tie back to the writers. I've read all of them but the newest one, "Dial H for Hitchcock" and really enjoyed them.

[Peggy Lane]

I'm double posting, but it's been several months. Apparently no one else likes the Cece Caruso series. Heh.

Anyway, although I read and loved "Children of Men" when I was in high school (I'm old), I've never read any of PD James mysteries before. I read her first Cordelia Gray mystery over the weekend and really, really enjoyed it. I have one of Dangliesh novels waiting on me. He apparently is her "main" series of novels.

[Ripley]

I'm listening to a new mystery series on audiobook by Alan Bradley. The first in the series is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and it features an 11-year-old precocious sleuth named Flavia De Luce. Normally, precocious kids annoy me, but the author is smart enough to put in enough details that still remind you that she is 11. It's rather cute, and I like the actress who is narrating the audiobook.