The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

And the winners are:

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris
Cat 1: Postmortem
Cat 2: The Dante Club

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It’s that time again.
Nominations are open for the Oct/Nov 2011 Group Reads.

Nominations will be open until Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011 with voting until Monday, Oct 10, 2011.

Category 1: Open - a book from any category in the Mystery, Crime and Thriller genre.

Category 2: Historical Mystery - a story that takes place before 1900.


General rules for Group Reads

1) If your nomination wins - you will be the moderator.
2) If the nominator, for any reason, cannot lead the discussion, the winner will be the second place book.
3) One nomination only per person. Authors: no self-nominations, please.
4) Please do not repeat an author we have read in the last year.
5) For your nomination please indicate: Category, Title, Author and Link (use the "add book/author" link at top of comment box).

Since we are an international group, please check to make sure the book is readily available. Is it available in paperback? Used? Your local library? The last thing we want is to nominate a great book that no one can get!

Finally, a word about series - the joy or bane of a mystery reader’s life! Please consider whether the book you are nominating would be best read by someone who has read all the previous books in the series or can be enjoyed by someone new to the series too.

Thanks for your cooperation!

Category 1
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell (Bea)
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosely (Jerry)
Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke (Les)
The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears (Paul 'Pezter')
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell (Lucy)
Under the Beetle's Cellar by Mary Willis Walker (Renee, mt. lake)
An Accidental American by Alex Carr (Suzzette)
McNally's Secret by Lawrence Sanders (columbialion)
The Assault by Harry Mulisch (Rob)
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (Vince)
Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King (Anna)
The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (manugw)

Category 2
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (Liz)
The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (Patrick)
Drood by Dan Simmons (Es135)
Absolution of Murder by Peter Tremayne (Renee, no pic)
Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon (Debra)
The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton (Diane)

I would like to nominate Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell for the open category. Lucy @12:30p.m. on 9-29-11

I haven't been in the group very long so I don't know if you have read this or not, but I would like to nominate the Dante Club by Matthew Pearl to category 2.
It is an intriguing mystery where Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell match wits with a serial killer recreating vivid scenes from Dante's Inferno.

Sounds good! I'll put it on my list tbr books. Thanks,Lucy @12:35 0n9-29-11

I nominate Cloud Atlas For both OPEN & HISTORICAL....It fits both the category perfectly.. Cloud Atlas

One of the most amazing novels I've read in years, and right up there with James Lee Burke's best. His writing is almost angelic, despite his book is all about hell on earth. I'll probably never forget this one.

Persistence is my middle name. Once again, I nominate Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell for the open category.

I haven't read her. I'll have to put her on my TBR list Lucy on 9-28-11 FOR BEA

Shabbeer wrote: "I nominate Cloud Atlas For both OPEN & HISTORICAL....It fits both the category perfectly.. Cloud Atlas"

Hi Shabbeer. Cloud Atlas seems to be classified most often as literary fiction, historical fiction or science fiction. Would you care to make another nomination for one category?

Lucy wrote: "I would like to nominate Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell for the open category. Lucy @12:30p.m. on 9-29-11"

Hi Lucy, Scarpetta is book #16 in the series. Is it okay to read as a standalone?

Les wrote: "
One of the most amazing novels I've read in years, and right up there with James Lee Burke's best. His writing is almost angelic, despite his book is all ab..."

Same question Les. It's book #3... can it be read on its own or would #1 be a better place to start?

I'd like to nominate Walter Mosley's first Easy Rawlins book Devil in a Blue Dress as a nominee in Category #1, Open. This is the first of an excellent series by the author.

One can read "Feast Day of Fools" to begin with; it's only distantly related to the first two books in the series. Having written 15 novels in a series of my own, I believe that new readers of my work can start anywhere. If I waited until they got through fourteen books before reading #15, I'd probably wind up living under a bridge somewhere and panhandling for meals.

May I nominate The Raphael Affair, the first book in Iain Pears' art mysteries series.

edit: Open category

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King for category#1

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stephanie Pintoff for category #2

Hayes wrote: "Lucy wrote: "I would like to nominate Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell for the open category. Lucy @12:30p.m. on 9-29-11"

Hi Lucy, Scarpetta is book #16 in the series. Is it okay to ..."
Hayes, You really should start at the beginning with the Scarpetta novels as there is a story line that runs through all of them.

I'd like to nominate for Category 1Under the Beetle's Cellar by Mary Willis Walker. She is a fantastic author, and this is an incredible book on so many levels: mystery, story, characters etc.

For Category 1:

An Accidental American by Alex Carr
An Accidental American: A Novel

a heroine with an unusual background. Nicole Blake, the daughter of a Lebanese violin teacher killed by a car bomb and a corrupt American playboy whose primary contributions to her life have been U.S. citizenship and a prison term for forgery, reluctantly trades her quiet ex-con life in the French countryside for gunfire and skullduggery in Lisbon, where she tries to track down the players in a triple-cross that goes back to the 1983 bombing of the American embassy in Beirut.

For Category 2:

The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
The Silver Pigs

This is the first of a series of detective stories set in Vespasian's Roman Empire and featuring the informer Marcus Didius Falco. Funny, exciting, and based on a painstaking effort to re-create the world of 70AD. By chance, Falco rescues a 16-year old girl called Sosia Camillina from a gang of thugs. She turns out to be the illegitimate niece of a senator, who suspects that an illegal trade is going on in silver pigs (ingots) from a godforsaken remote corner of the empire - Britain. To Falco's disgust he has to return to this barbaric spot where he had once served with the legions ..

Anna wrote: "Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King for category#1

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stephanie Pintoff for category #2"

Hi Anna, just one nomination per person please. Which one would you like to nominate?

Lucy wrote: "Hayes wrote: "Lucy wrote: "I would like to nominate Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell for the open category. Lucy @12:30p.m. on 9-29-11"

Hi Lucy, Scarpetta is book #16 in the series. ..."

So I'll put #1 as your nomination, okay?

Suzzette wrote: "For Category 1:

An Accidental American by Alex Carr
An Accidental American: A Novel

a heroine with an unusual background. Nicole Blake, the daughter of a Lebanese violin teacher ki..."

Just one nomination per person please. Which one would you like to nominate.

Perhaps I should have put that rule as #1 in the list above *she said testily*

Hayes wrote: "Suzzette wrote: "For Category 1:

An Accidental American by Alex Carr
An Accidental American: A Novel

a heroine with an unusual background. Nicole Blake, the daughter of a Lebanese ..."

The Accidental American. I thought it was one nomination per category.

Thanks Suzzette

Cat 1: McNally's Secret- Lawrence Sanders

My nomination for Category 1 is The Assault by Dutch author Harry Mulisch.
A literary thriller, first published in 1982, translated into English in 1986. There's an English paperback edition available (also used). I'm not sure about the availabilty in US libraries. This summer an English ebook version was released.
The Goodreads link gives some useful information.
Harry Mulisch (1927-2010) is considered one of the 'Big Three' of postwar Dutch literature. When asked why so many of his books deal with WWII, his answer was "I am WWII".

I would like to nominate "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey" by Walter Mosley. Mosley is a consistently enjoyable storyteller and I'm looking forward to reading his new novel.

Vince wrote: "I would like to nominate "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey" by Walter Mosley. Mosley is a consistently enjoyable storyteller and I'm looking forward to reading his new novel."

What category Vince?

Hayes wrote: "Vince wrote: "I would like to nominate "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey" by Walter Mosley. Mosley is a consistently enjoyable storyteller and I'm looking forward to reading his new novel."

What cat..." I'm nominating it for the Open Category.

Thanks... there's another Mosley book in category 1, so if you want to change your nomination, let me know.


Everyone: ⇧⇧ the list of nominated books is in message #1 ⇧⇧

Cat. 2 Drood - Dan Simmons

Perhaps we can go waaaaay back to Sister Fidelma in The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne, for category two.

Renee wrote: "Perhaps we can go waaaaay back to Sister Fidelma in The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne, for category two."

That's #20 in the series. Would it be better to start with Absolution by Murder ?

Hayes wrote: "Renee wrote: "Perhaps we can go waaaaay back to Sister Fidelma in The Dove of Death by Peter Tremayne, for category two."

That's #20 in the series. Would it be better to start with ..."

Yes, it would. Sorry about that. I should read directions better!

Es135 wrote: "Cat. 2 Drood - Dan Simmons"

Excellent, I have this on Mount TBR, quite close to one of the base camps...

For Open category I nominate The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson

I nominate for Category 2: Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon

Manugw wrote: "For Open category I nominate The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson and for historical I nominate The Alienistby Caleb Carr"

Please see messages #1 (rule 3), #20, #22, #23. Thank you.

Let me add a vote for "The Alienist" for Category 2.

David wrote: "Let me add a vote for "The Alienist" for Category 2."

Hi David, we're not voting yet, just nominating. Would you like to nominate The Alienist?

Sorry. Yes, I'd like to do that.

For Cat. 1, I'd suggest "Void Moon" by Michael Connelly. It's a stand alone.

David wrote: "Sorry. Yes, I'd like to do that.

For Cat. 1, I'd suggest "Void Moon" by Michael Connelly. It's a stand alone."

David, take a look at the nominating rules please (message #1). Only one nomination per person, and you can't nominate an author we have read in the previous year. This month's group read is a Connelly book, so that's out.

It wasn't clear if you would you like to nominate the Alienist or not.

Everyone: ⇧⇧ the list of RULES is in message #1 too ⇧⇧

I really liked the Alienist. The Dante Club is on my TBR. Loved Devil in a Blue Dress. While I haven't read The Raphael Affair I did read The Bernini Bust, also in the same series. Drood is also on my shelf waiting for me.

Thus far, I am having trouble coming up with a nominee this month.

Hayes wrote: "Anna wrote: "Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King for category#1

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stephanie Pintoff for category #2"

Hi Anna, just one nom..."

"Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King for category#1

For #1 Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

For #2 The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton

Hi Diane. It's one nomination per person. Since we have fewer nominations in Category 2 would it be OK if we went with The Ninth Daughter?

Donna

We all keep doing the same thing. I really thought we nominated one for each, guess I didnt read it too well. Yes Category 2 will be fine, Thanks Donna

Great. Thanks for understanding Diane. The Ninth Daughter looks very interesting.

I will say this upfront, i am new to goodreads and would have difficulty moderating (chronic illness, especially cognitive prob.), that aside I would still like to nominate #1 Jeffery DeaverThe Broken Window