traditional detective mystery

10 Favorite Private Detective Novels

People often ask me for book recommendations; especially PI mysteries, as they can be difficult to find.

A recent look at the Amazon Top 25 in the Private Investigator category had me dumping most of them because there wasn’t a shamus in sight.

When the category is Private Investigator I don’t know why Amazon allows FBI agents, amateur sleuths, DCIs, vampire hunters, and who knows what else to take over the category. ‘Tain’t right. ‘Tain’t fair.

So without further ado, I give you 10 bona fide Private Detective novels for your reading pleasure.

1. 1. This Doesn’t Happen in the Movies by Renee Pawlish. This the first book in the Reed Ferguson series, and it is a goody. A bit hardboiled, a bit noir, and a bit cozy.
  2. The Italian Affair by John Tallon Jones. The Penny Detective is fast becoming one of my favorite PI series. Moggs and Shoddy are super characters. You will love these guys. And this book is especially fun.
  3. Deadly Passion by Joe Congel. Tony Razzolito, aka The Razzman, is a great character. This is a fab series. I keep praying Joe will write faster.
  4. Turn on the Heat by Erle Stanley Gardner (as AA Fair) is one of the novels in the Bertha Cool and Donald Lam series. Not as well known as Perry Mason, the series, though, is quite good. Although, I think Gardner missed a bet by not giving Bertha a bigger role. She is a stupendous character.
  5. China Trade by SJ Rozan. I love Rozan’s Lydia Chin. A very refreshing character. Bill Smith, on the other hand, I’m not so taken with. Lydia and Bill aren’t partners. But they help each other out. Friends without benefits, one might say. Although Bill would love for their relationship to get to the benefits stage. The odd numbered books are in Lydia’s POV; the even, in Bill’s. Super series.
  6. The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout. I love the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Put me on a desert island with the Tom Barnaby Midsomer Murders and the Nero Wolfe mysteries and plenty of tea and I’m in heaven. Nero Wolfe is the yardstick by which I judge a mystery’s quality.
  7. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. I just finished reading the Marlowe mysteries. They are fab. Especially the later ones. This novel is probably my fav. I’ll be re-reading these in the near future. No one can beat Chandler for uniquely engaging descriptions. Do read the Marlowe books. They are amongst the best books you’ll ever read.
  8. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Poirot is, IMO, rather one dimensional. He’s peculiar, and noticeable, but not in a way that makes him a fan favorite like, say, Sherlock Holmes. Christie’s strong suit, IMO, is her complex storylines. Not her characters.
  9. The Case is Closed by Patricia Wentworth. The Miss Silver mysteries are good reading. Wentworth is on par with Christie, and deserves to be more widely known.
  10. The Shoulders of Giants by Jim Cliff. Excellent mystery. My great sadness is that Mr. Cliff didn’t write more than 2.

The above are 10 gumshoe novels I very much enjoyed and I think you will too.

I’m even going to throw in an eleventh:

But Jesus Never Wept

Tina and Harry quickly find themselves immersed in a bloody murder, an online sex empire, church politics, art forgeries, and the Yakuza.

And when the bullets start flying, will they survive long enough to pin the murder on the culprit?

Head on over to Amazon and find out!

That’s all for now.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright; award-winning poet; and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

Justinia Wright Private Investigator Mysteries on Amazon!

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The Lawyer: Meet the Characters of Magnolia Bluff

Magnolia Bluff, Texas. Situated in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, on the shore of Burnet Reservoir.

It’s a quaint little town, filled with all manner of interesting people. Of course some of those folk are deadly. You tick them off and you’re likely to find yourself six feet under and breathing dirt when you wake up.

The Flower Enigma, Book 5 in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles series, launched this past weekend, and Book 6, The Shine from a Girl in the Lake, is on pre-order and will be available in September.

I’ve read both books and they are well worth a buck. Heck, they’re well worth several bucks. So pick them up while they are at their launch and pre-launch special price.

Buy The Flower Enigma

Buy The Shine from a Girl in the Lake

In this post, I want to introduce you to Stanton Mirabeau Lauderbach, Esq. The lawyer we meet in Death Wears a Crimson Hat, which is the first book in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles.

If you visit Magnolia Bluff and find yourself in trouble, he’s the guy you want to call.

Attorney Stanton Lauderbach is hired to defend the reputation of a lady preacher who may or may not be accused of murder.

He’s tough.

He’s smart.

Two-bit cops don’t frighten him.

He knows how to play the game.

He’s played it before.

In Death Wears A Crimson Hat, Book 1 in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles, Attorney Stanton Lauderbach is hired to defend the reputation of a lady preacher who may or may not be accused of murder.

He doesn’t try to make fools of small town cops.

He lets them make fools of themselves.

And the lawyer loves every minute of it.

May the best team win.

***

There was a knock, and a man stuck his head in. Detective Reece Sovern turned around and said, “What are you doing here, Stanton?”

“I’m here to talk to Reverend Cole. I’m her legal counsel.”

“You’re what?” Sovern demanded.

“I didn’t hire you,” Ember said.

“No, you didn’t, Ms. Cole. A friend hired me on your behalf in case you needed legal advice.” Stanton Lauderbach nodded towards Sovern, to emphasize his point, and continued, “Stanton Lauderbach, Esquire at your service, and it looks as though I got here just in time.”

“Look Stanton, the Reverend and I are just having a chat. I’m not arresting her.”

“But she is a person of interest. Is she not?”

Reece Sovern took his glasses off and ran his hand over his face. “Yes, the Reverend is a person of interest.”

“Then I arrived just in time.” Lauderbach sat in the chair next to Sovern. “Continue, Reece.”

Sovern put his glasses back on, took in a deep breath, and exhaled. “Ms. Cole, did you know that your friend, Harry Thurgood, paid Mary Lou Fight a visit yesterday, and, according to her husband, threatened her?”

Lauderbach held up his hand to stop Ember from replying. “And what does that have to do with Ms. Cole? Shouldn’t you be discussing Mr. Thurgood’s alleged threat with him?”

Ember looked from Sovern, to the lawyer, and then back to the police investigator.

Sovern stood. “You want to make this difficult, don’t you, Stanton?”

“Just doing my job.”

“Yeah, right. Well, I’ll leave you two to whatever business you have. Ms. Cole. Stanton.”

The police investigator left, and Ember took in the man sitting before her. He was immaculately dressed in a three-piece charcoal gray suit. His dark hair was combed straight back from his high forehead, but stood out from his head, giving a very full appearance. He had an aquiline nose and thin lips. But what she found most impressive were his piercing, almost feral eyes. And his smile: genuine, but rather too genuine.

“Who hired you?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Really?”

“That was the condition your benefactor put on the arrangement.”

“I see. Why are you here?”

“To meet you and find out what Detective Sovern has asked you thus far.”

“And if I say no to your services?”

“If I may be direct…”

Ember nodded.

“You’d be a fool to do so. I’m the best in the county at this sort of thing.”

“Modest, aren’t we?”

Lauderbach smiled. “No, I’m not. But I am the best, which is why Sovern left. He was fishing. Which is good for him and bad for you. He has no evidence you are involved. Let him come back when he has some. Now, what has he asked you about?”

Ember filled in the attorney on her interactions with Reece Sovern.

When she was finished, Stanton Lauderbach fished a card out of his suit coat pocket and handed it to her. He stood. “Call me, no matter the time, whenever someone official shows up.”

“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m innocent?”

Lauderbach smiled, and Ember could’ve sworn his eyes glowed. “My job is to defend you. Period. Guilt or innocence is up to judge and jury. Good day, Reverend Cole.”

Ember watched him leave, and then studied the chair in which he’d been sitting. She pursed her lips, then picked up her desk phone. “This is Harry’s doing,” she muttered, started punching in numbers, but stopped before she was finished.

Her eyes took in her Bible, and she returned the phone to the cradle. She mouthed the verse: Be welcoming to strangers; because, by doing so, some have entertained angels and didn’t realize it.

She sat back in her chair, and softly said, “Maybe Harry is an angel.”

Please click HERE to find Death Wears A Crimson Hat on Amazon.

And you can find Caleb Pirtle’s original post which I borrowed with his permission on his website: https://www.calebandlindapirtle.com/the-lawyer-meet-the-characters-of-magnolia-bluff/

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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The Traditional Mystery

Riddles have been with us throughout our recorded history, and probably into our pre-history.

There’s something about the challenge of riddles and puzzles that draws us. Perhaps it’s like any other game: we want to be a winner.

In the world of literature, the traditional mystery, the mystery that began with Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin, became popular with Sherlock Holmes, and entered its Golden Age in the 1930s, is at base a riddle — a puzzle that demands to be solved.

Some of the finest examples are those penned by Agatha Christie. But other excellent mystery writers were Patricia Wentworth, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Rex Stout, S.S. Van Dine, Jacques Futrelle, Edmund Crispin, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Ellery Queen.

The traditional mystery is a game, as it were, between the author and his/her readers. The author must play fair by giving all of the clues to the reader so that he or she has the chance to figure out whodunit before the detective makes the great reveal at the end of the book.

This game aspect of the classic mystery story pushes it into the realm of fantasy. The classic mystery is, in fact, guilty of Raymond Chandler’s accusation that it isn’t real, or true to life. I’d argue that it was never intended to be true to life.

The traditional detective story is a literary game. It is not meant to be a slice of life. Its purpose is not to expose us to the mean streets and the sordid folk who populate them. The classic mystery is not about the people who really commit murder.

The classic detective novel is a game of Clue in book form. Nothing more, and nothing less. It’s a game, pure and simple. And as such, it is great fun.

Sad to say, the traditional mystery has been on the decline since the 1940s, when, first, the hardboiled novel and then the thriller pushed the classic detective story into the backwater of crime fiction.

And while the number of mystery aficionados continues to dwindle, I have to say that the older I get the more I prefer the mystery to any other genre.

There is something about its simplicity, its gentler pacing, its eccentric characters, and the formulaic settings that I like. After all, the world is too often mean, nasty, and brutish — why do I want my entertainment to also be that way? Isn’t the nightly news enough?

And isn’t life hectic enough? Why do I want my fiction to also proceed at a breakneck pace? Well, I don’t. Which is why I prefer the gentler and more natural pacing of the classic mystery novel.

For me, fiction is a ticket to another world. A world where I can vicariously experience triumph and victory through the exploits of the main character. I read to be entertained. I don’t want a rehash of the nightly news. I read to escape my world. I don’t want my books to put me back into what I’m trying to leave.

Fiction is for fun. And perhaps that is why I so very much enjoy the classic detective mystery: it is first and foremost entertainment. No different than a game of Scrabble, or Clue, or a crossword puzzle, or a riddle. It is a fantasy dressed up in a pseudo-reality. A world that we perhaps wish were our own.

The classic detective mystery is not meant to mimic real life. It’s meant to be a challengingly fun bit of diverting entertainment. And the best mysteries most assuredly are.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer; as well as an armchair philosopher, political theorist, and social commentator. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

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