So Many Mystery Writers, So Little Time: Finding the Right Mystery Writers for You

Are you looking for a new mystery writer to read? Have you ever picked up an anthology and felt overwhelmed? There are useful sites on the web, but how do you filter them down to a manageable level? Some estimate that fifty new mystery titles arrive every month!

There are many ways to look at mysteries, loosely defined as a story with a character who solves a crime. You can take a historical approach and read only the classic writers of the Golden Age (approximately 1913-1941). You can sort by the gender of the main character or the gender of the writer. You can choose a period of history that you like and only read authors who write about that period. Or maybe it’s the setting that interests you: California and New York are common settings. You can certainly learn a lot about a country from the crime solvers who live and work there.

To start your approach, ask yourself what you like about mysteries. Is it the style? If you like the puzzle element, then perhaps the whodunit type is your answer. If you prefer a lot of gritty action, maybe the hardcore genre is more to your liking. Avoid violence and graphic sex by reading cozies. Although gory and graphic, forensic crime fighters are all the rage right now. You may have started with Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew and can’t resist a series that delves deeper into the mysterious character of your favorite detective.

Perhaps one element that is often overlooked when selecting a good mystery is the quality of the writing. To do this, you can turn to the experts for a list of authors who have stood the test of time. Obviously, this list needed to be compiled and in the 1990s two “Top 100” books appeared to help you: one published by the British Crime Writers Association and the other published by the Mystery Writers of America (MWA). If you consider yourself a maverick and love supporting the underdog, consider They Died in Vain: Overlooked, Underrated, and Forgotten Mystery Novelsedited by Jim Huang.

If the older classics are no longer in your bookstore, try your local library. MWA, which began in 1945, awarded mystery writers an Edgar (for Edgar Allan Poe) the year after its organization. Award-winning authors are more likely to do a better job of writing. But don’t confuse best sellers with better writing. If you read enough mysteries, you’re sure to find big-name authors you don’t appreciate. What does Jane Austen have anyway? Even when you get hooked on a series, some of the books will be weaker than the rest, even if the author’s name is bigger than the book’s title.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t like some award-winning mysteries. If they were written fifty years ago, the treatment of women and/or minorities may be offensive to you. You can always start with the winners or nominees for the latest mystery awards and work backwards by year. If you come across an author you like, hopefully you’ll be able to find more of their work. Along with the Edgar are the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, Ellis Peters, Hammett, Barry, Dilys, Shamus and Nero Wolfe awards. Go to their respective websites for a full list of winners. In this way, you will have the certainty of modern writing and availability. There’s even a Lefty Award given by a group for the most humorous mystery.

Now go through the list of categories mentioned above and do some cross-referencing. If you prefer female writers, that eliminates many award winners and narrows your reading list. If you only want mysteries set in the West that narrows down your list even more. Of those, he can select series with a continuing character and he has now become an expert in his refined choice of mystery books. If all else fails, call a friend, who reads a lot of mysteries, for a recommendation. If book club catalogs list fifty new mystery titles every month, you’ve got a lot of work to do. I hope this gives you some clues on how to solve the mystery of choosing the right author.