Mystery Book Suggestions, Please

[ChrisB]

DD15 needs to pick a mystery book for her high school lit. class.  She'd like a clean, shorter, page-turner.  You're a great group to ask!  Ideas?

One idea I had was The Man Who Was Thursday, but maybe it's not quite a mystery and more of a suspenseful thriller.  What do you think?

[Tiberia]

Hound of the Baskervilles

 

[gardenmom5]

a Lord Peter Whimsy mystery by Dorothy Sayers.

[ChrisB]

I also thought Agatha Christie...which one is the most attention grabbing?

[Myra]

louise penny 

[ScoutTN]

Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie

[MercyA]

Agatha Christie for sure. Clean, short, page-turners, all! 

And Then There Were None would be at the top of my list for her.

Edited March 7, 2020 by MercyA

[Laura Corin]

I'd be a bit careful about dated racial references in Sayers if giving to a young person. One book has the N word in it and there is frequent stereotyping of Jews. She's a great writer but a young person might find all that hard to parse. I don't know if Christie has the same problem.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Laura Corin

[Storygirl]

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie would be a fun mystery for her, because the amateur detective is young (12 years old, I think, in this first book in the series).

[ChrisB]

Thanks for all your suggestions!  She tends to like current reads so I'm sure she'd like some choices in that vein, too.

[KathyBC]

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey sprang to mind, but it was written in 1951.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie was another, but yes there could be dated references in there that I no longer remember.

Would the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency count?

[KathyBC]

5 hours ago, MercyA said:

Agatha Christie for sure. Clean, short, page-turners, all! 

And Then There Were None would be at the top of my list for her.

The three Christies that stand out most for me are
And Then There Were None
Murder on the Orient Express
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

There's nothing like a quality murder mystery to work on critical thinking, in my mystery fan opinion. :-)

Edited March 8, 2020 by KathyBC

[Liz CA]

"Trent's Last Case" by E.C. Bentley.

[J-rap]

There's a mystery series called the Mrs. Pollifax series, about an elderly woman who joins the CIA and solves mysteries, usually in exotic countries.  They're fun books, although not traditional Agatha Christie-like mysteries.

[leahtalbot96]

What about the Nancy Drew series? They are fun to read but are not what I'd consider proper literature. 

[Emba]

Okay, tastes vary but I’d just like to register my opinion that And Then There Were None is a depressing read. Put me off of Agatha Christie. But I very much enjoy her Tommy and Tuppence novels, which have a more lighthearted tone.

i just read the first Mrs. Pollifax (The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax) and loved it. Lots of fun. It was for the most part clean, but did have some hells and damns, and one b***ch. Don’t know exactly where you draw the line for “clean” for kids.  It was more of a spy novel than mystery, others in the series may skew more mystery, i don’t know.

 

[ChrisB]

Again, thanks for these ideas!  She told me she's read And Then There Were None and Sweetness, liking the former more than the latter. 

She likes spy/CIA type of books so Mrs. Pollifax may interest her.  A few bad words aren't as big of a deal as romantic scenes.  I think Louise Penny novels might be an option, too.   

Nancy Drew is too young for this class, unless I'm thinking of a different series than the traditional Nancy Drew.

Reality is that she may bring a book to her teacher, and it be rejected because we're not sure how strict she is with the mystery label.

[ChrisB]

18 hours ago, KathyBC said:

There's nothing like a quality murder mystery to work on critical thinking, in my mystery fan opinion. 🙂

I know, isn't it fun!!

[Emba]

1 hour ago, ChrisB said:

Again, thanks for these ideas!  She told me she's read And Then There Were None and Sweetness, liking the former more than the latter. 

She likes spy/CIA type of books so Mrs. Pollifax may interest her.  A few bad words aren't as big of a deal as romantic scenes.  I think Louise Penny novels might be an option, too.   

Nancy Drew is too young for this class, unless I'm thinking of a different series than the traditional Nancy Drew.

Reality is that she may bring a book to her teacher, and it be rejected because we're not sure how strict she is with the mystery label.

Tommy and Tuppence are actually more spy than mystery too if I remember right, but might slide through on the Agatha Christie name. 

[ChrisB]

That's good to keep in mind! I could see any book by Agatha Christie being approved.

[leahtalbot96]

9 hours ago, ChrisB said:

Again, thanks for these ideas!  She told me she's read And Then There Were None and Sweetness, liking the former more than the latter. 

She likes spy/CIA type of books so Mrs. Pollifax may interest her.  A few bad words aren't as big of a deal as romantic scenes.  I think Louise Penny novels might be an option, too.   

Nancy Drew is too young for this class, unless I'm thinking of a different series than the traditional Nancy Drew.

Reality is that she may bring a book to her teacher, and it be rejected because we're not sure how strict she is with the mystery label.

The original ND series is too much but the new Nancy Drew, Girl Detective series might be appropriate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew:_Girl_Detective

[katilac]

I love the Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith. Modern, easy read, and I'd consider it quite clean - there are unmarried couples who have sex, but it's not described, it's more like a shall we go upstairs? then, the next morning . . . kind of thing. 

The main character is literally a philosopher, so there's always a side helping of ideas like moral proximity, but still an easy read. 

You don't have to start with the first one. It's the Isabel Dalhousie Mystery Series, so a safe selection for the assignment. 

He has at least two other mystery series, but I'm not familiar with them. I'm pretty sure all are modern, though, and generally readily available at the library and bookstore. 

On 3/7/2020 at 5:15 PM, Laura Corin said:

I'd be a bit careful about dated racial references in Sayers if giving to a young person. One book has the N word in it and there is frequent stereotyping of Jews. She's a great writer but a young person might find all that hard to parse. I don't know if Christie has the same problem.

She does or did; newer editions will have clearly troublesome things edited out. While I enjoyed some Christie as a young person, it's not my go-to recommendation for high school students. Even if the language is updated, If they're just dipping their toe into the genre, I'd go much more modern. The style can be a bit much: 

“Very simply. This street, it is not aristocratic, mon ami! In it there is no fashionable doctor, no fashionable dentist—still less is there a fashionable milliner! But there is a fashionable detective. Oui, my friend, it is true—I am become the mode, the dernier cri! One says to another: ‘Comment? You have lost your gold pencil-case? You must go to the little Belgian. He is too marvellous! Every one goes! Courez!’ And they arrive! In flocks, mon ami! With problems of the most foolish!” A bell rang below. “What did I tell you? That is Miss Marvell.”

[Emba]

I have also read several books from the Amelia Peabody series by Ellis Peters. I believe they were published in the 90s, though the books are set in the Victorian era.  The main character is an Egyptologist. They’re amusing and lack the dated references that older books might have. As I remember they are clean, maybe a few kisses and romantic references between a married couple but nothing explicit by any means.