Episode 025 - Detective Fiction

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

In this (long) episode, Detective Fiction! Join us as we discuss our (least) favorite detectives, inspectors, and PIs in fiction. Also: the problem of pronouncing author names without ever having heard them out loud before, to read in series order or not, all the formats and mediums we can “read” in (Yay!), detective TV versus detective novels, and how much like a P.I are you?

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• Goldie Vance Vol. 1 by Hope Larson, art by Brittney Williams, colors by Sarah Stern
• The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime edited by Michael Sims
• Death in the Vines by M. L. Longworth
• The City & The City by China Miéville
• The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
• City of Glass: The Graphic Novel adapted by Paul Karasik from a novella by Paul Auster, art by David Mazzucchelli

Read

• Still Life by Louise Penny
• She Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated by Katherine Silver
• Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins
• Kop by Warren Hammond

DNF

• Written in Blood by Caroline Graham
• The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry, (audiobook) read by Pete Larkin
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Ala Bradley
• An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes edited by A.C. Thompson
• L.A. Noire (video game)
• An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

Links and Stuff

• Temperance Brennan series from Kathy Reichs
• Tattoo artist cozy mystery
• Seduction of the Innocent by Fredric Wertham (Wikipedia)
• Ghost in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones
• Welcome to Night Vale
• Review of The Manual of Detection from the New Yorker that describes it as “the kind of mannered fantasy that might result if Wes Anderson were to adapt Kafka.”
• Midsomer Murders (TV show inspired by the DCI Barnaby mysteries from Caroline Graham)
• Bubblegumshoe - roleplaying game about being a teenage detective
• Counterfeit Monkey - that odd little text game about breaking our language to get around
• chat with me (long distance relationship game)
• Spring Breakers (Wikipedia)
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
• Innocent Blood by P.D. James
• Scream in Silence by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Bangkok 8 by John Burdett
• Mind’s Eye by Håkan Nesser, translated by Laurie Thompson
• Harvest by Tess Gerritsen
• The City Watch books by Terry Pratchett
• The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett

Questions:

• Can you deal with a protagonist you don’t identify with or like very much?
• What are your favourite detective series or one-offs?
• Are there any detective stories set in prisons?
• Are there some detective fiction genres (other than straight out thrillers) that are more focused on large systemic evils and/or the impacts of history rather than interpersonal conflicts?
• Do you prefer your detectives via TV or in writing?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the Detective Fiction books people in the club read (or tried to read), follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, April 4th for a discussion of print versus digital reading and library borrowing versus owning.

Then come back on Tuesday, April 18th, when we will inflict upon you the “genre” of Non-Fiction Audiobooks!