Reading Lists!

 

At the Alaska Library Association's 50th Annual Convention, held on March 5 & 6th 2010 at the Hotel Captain Cook, Alaska Sisters in Crime Panel Members agreed to put up a list of Recommended Reads on our website and Social Networking site (see link at right). Below are the recommended reads from Dana Stabenow and I will continue to update as the lists become available. If you have a list you'd like to share, please email us: info@aksinc.org.

Dana Stabenow:

The Sir Robert Carey series by P.F. Chisholm.  A swashbuckling hero keeping the peace on the border between England and Scotland in Elizabethan England.

The Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson.  The twenty-first century heir to Wyatt Earp fights bad guys in Wyoming, in company with a displaced Philadelphia cop with hard nose and a Cheyenne Indian with a smart-ass sense of humor.

The Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood.  An Australian flapper in the tradition of Beryl Markham takes up private investigation in 'tween wars Melbourne.  She smokes, she flies, she shoots, she drives her Hispano Suiza like the devil, and she loves and is loved by many men.

The Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin.  A woman in the medieval man's world of medicine, Adelia travels to England to discover who is torturing and killing Jewish children.  A terrific ensemble cast includes Henry II of England, who arrives onstage at the end of the first novel in best deus ex machina fashion.

The Charlie Hood novels by T. Jefferson Parker.  The battle between Mexican drug lords and American law enforcement agencies reaches an epic level in this you-are-there series, one of whose recurring motifs is the head of California thief/Robin Hood (take your pick) Joaquin Murietta, which floats in a liquid-filled jar and is a family heirloom.

The Matthew Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom.  Henry VIII goes through wives as hunchback attorney Shardlake investigates cases.

Talking about Dectective Fiction by P.D. James.
A lively little volume that examines the author's genre in a literate and often gently acerbic style. Of 221B Baker Street, she writes, "We also learn that the sitting room was Sherlock Holmes's office and the place where he received his visitors, which meant that Watson had to be banished to his bedroom when anyone arrived on business, which was not infrequently. It hardly seems a satisfactory arrangement and I am not surprised that eventually, despite the moderate cost, Watson moved out." Well, when James puts it that way, neither am I. There is a lot about craft here, too, her own and others, as in Evelyn Waugh: "When asked why he never described what his characters were thinking, Waugh replied that he didn't' know what they were thinking, he only knew what they said and did." A lot here of practical value delivered with wit and style for both paid whodunniter and wannabe. Highly recommended.