I'm looking for some good mystery books

[albionmoonlight]

I've gotten into the TV show Monk recently--enough so that I wonder if I like the mystery genre and simply never realized that I like it.

I'd like to pick up a few good mystery books, but I know that--just as with science fiction--90% of what is out there is crap. Accordingly, I am looking for recommendations.

FWIW, the one series of mystery books that I have read and liked is the Lord Peter series by Sayers. Although I much prefer the earlier ones where he's not all goo-goo eyed over Harriet Vane. Indeed, one of the reasons that I have shyed away from mysteries in the past is because they often seem to incorporate romance into them. I don't like much romance in my books.

So, based on the fact that I like Monk and Lord Peter, I can deduce that I am looking for the following: Well written mysteries (it should be something a little more than a pot-boiler) with an interesting detective. I know next to nothing about the genre, so please don't hesitate to mention something just because you think that it is "too obvious."

Thanks in advance.

[3ric]

My wife likes Sayers too, so her taste might be a good guideline. Her favorite author in the genre is Elizabeth George, who has written several books about mysteries which the officers Lynley and Havers investigate. www.amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Elizabeth%20George/002-7872880-1966405)

[3ric]

Dola.
Colin Dexter and his books about Chief Inspector Morse and his sidekick Lewis is a very good series in the genre too.

[Desnudo]

Lawrence Sanders is an excellent mystery writer that usually keeps the romance part light. Try one of his "Commandments" books. James Patterson, which would be one of the obvious ones to me, since his books have been made into movies. And you could argue that his books are more thriller than mystery. Kiss the Girls is probably his most famous book. John Le Carre is more intellectual than action oriented. And finally Joseph Conrad or Arthur Conan Doyle. Conrad wrote The Secret Agent, which was the basis for the movie Apocalypse Now. Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes series.

[ntndeacon]

Also I have just read the Maltese Falcon and the Big Sleep by Dashielle Hammett (sp). He is fantastic! Also the Nero Wolfe books are great reads as well, especially the Rex Stout ones. Death of a Doxy, for example.

[Barkeep49]

What kind of books do you like? I don't really read much mystery but I do enjoy the Mallory series by Carol O'Connell, which stars a psychopathic NYPD detective (Mallory's Oracle is the first in the series) and the Beekeepers Apprentice Series by Laurie King (Beekeeper's Apprentice also being the first in the series). This supposes that Sherlock Holmes was a real person who retired to keep bees only to be befriended in his 60s by a 17 yearold American heiress.

[moriarty]

This may be a bit more crime drama then mystery, but try some of the older books by Ross Thomas. Witty writing, and quick reads.

[jaeenox]

The Spenser and Jesse Stone series by Robert B. Parker are excellent. Parker is considered the modern day successor to Chandler and Hammett. If you enjoy the humor in Monk, you will like Parker, especially in the Spenser novels.
James Patterson is good but "choppy" sometimes, i.e. a book with 100+ 3 page chapters is not uncommon.
The Prey series by John San(d)ford is also excellent: the main char Lucas Davenport is a police detective\computer game designer.
The early McNally novels by Lawrence Sanders are also an excellent mix of humor and mystery and your vocabulary will expand tremendously! He uses words that most of us have never read\heard:) Since his death, McNally is being being ghostwritten by Vincent Lardo and the stories seem to lack the spark of the original Sanders.
If you like the CSI\forensic type mystery, the early Patricia Cornwell's are also highly recommended though the last 5 years or so they have morphed into some type of psycho-drama, lesbian political statement that turned me off completely.
And for a military\techno-thriller\mystery series ex-SAS member Andy McNab is very good.