Gaining traction

One of the important things about running a bookstore is keeping up with what is selling. Trends ebb and flow...Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri stories are sailing along quite well (with people buy multiple copies of The Coroner's Lunch to give to friends) while traditional bestselling authors don't ever seem to get traction at all. James Patterson's book have made no impression on our customers while Spencer Quinn's offbeat Chet and Bernie tales are becoming perennial favorites.
So, what's hot at the moment? Erin Morgenstern's Night Circus seems to have struck a cord and Laurie R. King's Pirate King sells surprisingly well. And certainly Lawrence Block's Getting Off isn't hindered by its dangerous cover featuring a nude woman with knife in the foreground.
And some authors are running on all four cylinders.

Louise Penny's latest, A Trick of the Light, currently rivals her sales in paperback for Still Life, her first in the series. That both ends of the series are selling steadily means that people are talking about the author and recommending her. Alan Bradley's stories of Flavia de Luce, 11-year-old chemistry genius and mystery solver, continue to gain fans as men and women of all ages discover The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. And Nesbo...Jo Nesbo...every day, all day...readers just can't seem to get enough of him, especially in paperback imports that have yet to be officially published in the U.S. 
But far and away, our best selling author is Archer Mayor, whose Joe Gunther novels pique the interests of locals readers and visiting mystery fans. In the four years that we've been here, we have yet to post a list which didn't feature one of Mayor's books at or near the top. With release next week of Tag Man, we can expect Mayor to occupy the top for weeks...nay, months to come.

Murder most foul

The news from Old Blighty is good and this week there will be some great reading from across The Pond. 

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Our pick for best traditional mystery (English village, vicar, hidden secrets, felonious fete) has to be G.M. Malliet's Wicked Autumn (St. Martin's, $23.99). You might know Malliet from her trilogy of Detective Chief Inspector St. Just mysteries that made her an Agatha Award-winning writer with Death of a Cozy Writer. Malliet has gone back to basics with a witty, thoughtful tale of village politics and the fatal price of hubris. In Wicked Autumn (on sale Sept. 13), vicar Max Tudor must find the killer of one of his flock. Luckily for the local constabulary, Max Tudor is ex-MI5 and unafraid, if reluctant, to tangle with the darker side of the quaint village of Nether Monkslip. If you like your tea Earl Grey, your scones with marmalade and your crime with a Christie edge, this very British cozy is for you. Spot on.

Also on Tuesday, Chief Inspector Wexford is pulled out of retirement in Ruth Rendell's The Vault (Scribner, $26). A chance meeting on the street with an old acquaintance finds Wexford recruited to advise on a case in which bodies are discovered underground. Wexford must follow a complex trail, only to have his life thrown into turmoil by personal tragedy.

And there is Barbara Cleverly's The Royal Blood (Soho Press, $25) Commander Joe Sandilands finds 1922 a very busy year. Returning to England only to discover that his role at the Metropolitan Police has expanded to include the Special Irish Branch, Sandilands struggles with regional terrorism while clashing with a Russian princess who is running a spy network out of Kensington, a situation that explodes in a high-profile assassination. 
Also, there's Val McDermid's Trick of the Dark (Consortium, $24.95), in which disgraced psychiatrist Charlie Flint agrees to help her old professor at Oxford solve the mystery surrounding the death of her daughter's husband – a case that leads her into the arcane world of Oxford colleges where nothing is what it seems.

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On this side of world, criminous behavior is also rampant and, it would seem, timeless.
Past: In Motor City Shakedown (Minotaur, $24.99), D.E. Johnson's followup to The Detroit Electric Scheme, Will Anderson is wrongly accused of a murder and stumbles on a vast mafia conspiracy at the height of 1911 Detroit's first mob war, one which he combats with the help of detective Riordan and the future members of the Purple Gang.
Present: Michael Brandman brings back Jesse Stone in Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues (Putnam (Penguin , $25.95) This latest entry in the best-selling series continues the story of Massachusetts police chief Jesse Stone, whose investigation into a violent series of car thefts is complicated by political pressures, the summer tourist season and the questionable goals of an ambitious PR executive. Brandman was selected by Parker's widow to continue the series; he's the executive producer of the Jesse Stone TV movies.
Future: New York to Dallas (Penguin, $27.95) finds New York homicide cop Eve Dallas in a race against time to prevent a formidable killer from resuming his attacks on child victims and exacting revenge on Eve herself. It is the latest in the J.D. Robb In Death series.

Listomania

Like everyone else, I make lists and quickly lose them...grocery lists left on the kitchen counter, mailing lists left at the post office, favorite book lists lost down the back of a couch seat. Since I've begun a new blog, I thought I should begin a list of what I currently think are the best novels written in in the mystery genre. So, on occasion, I will offer some thoughts on novels I've read and remember well. I expect that some will be light, some old fashioned; some, no doubt, will possess a decided edge.
I could simply make a straightforward list, refine it and present it whole cloth but I think each novel should stand on its own. I also thought that I'd pick books as I remember them and go from there -- no one-to-one-hundred countdown or alphabetized compilation. Each on its own, one at a time in no particular order, simply as I remember them.

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The first that comes to mind (and lurks in its dark recesses) is 1974 by David Peace. It's a grim bit of despair that begins his Red Riding Quartet. If you like bleak and violent, this should suit: It's a well-composed masterwork -- let's call it "jazz noir."
It's 1974 and Eddie Dunford is  a crime reporter for a newspaper in Yorkshire, England. It's a rough time for Eddie: His father has died, but Eddie can only focus on a 10-year-old girl who has disappeared. It may be just another story to Eddie, but following the case means headlines. So Eddie puts profession above family hoping to milk the story until Christmas.
As he digs into the story, Eddie discovers that there have been a number of similar cases that have gone unsolved, and neither his editor nor the police want him to dig deeper. Then the child is found, strangled, her body mutilated.
Like much of the best crime writing, Peace has given us a political story, here told in a choppy style -- a staccato riff as if played on a saxophone with a razor-blade reed. It is raw and disturbing, and its fractured prose conjures spasms of anxiety.
To tell the truth, I couldn't pick up another book for a week after reading 1974, and I've yet to work up the courage to read the three subsequent novels; maybe they are better; maybe I'll never know. I've yet to find myself willing to make another descent into Peace's mean streets.
1974 is that good.

Mysteries to die for

Just out today:  Headhunters by Jo Nesbo. This original paperback is not part of the Harry Hole series, but fans of Nesbo should eat it up at $14.95. This 2008 novel has been translated and brought out in paperback in hopes of catching Nesbo fans while he's so hot. The book follows Roger Brown, a successful headhunter who finances his extravagant life by way of dangerous art thefts. Upon meeting the Dutchman Clas Greve, he starts planning his biggest heist ever, but soon runs into trouble. The cover, with its torn paper design, gives it the same feel as the American version of Snowman. When Leopard is finally released here in America, it too will have that ripped edginess. Of course, Snowman, Leopard and Redeemer are currently available in paperback versions imported from England. With Leopard due to hit American bookshelves in December, it's hoped that Nesbo fans will be able to catch up with their European counterparts.

You can't keep a good dog down...at least not when it comes to the Chet and Bernie series by Spence Quinn. Bernie's latest case The Dog Who Knew Too Much, skillfully narrated by canine pal Chet, finds Bernie invited to give the keynote speech at a private investigator convention. Canine companion Chet is secretly targeted by the high-profile person in charge, an agenda that is complicated by a missing boy, a familiar-looking puppy and the return of Bernie's girlfriend's ex. If you can't get enough of Chet, you might want to log on to his blog: http://www.chetthedog.com/ Yep, even a dog can have a blog.

A fan of Charlie Parker ever since he first appeared in Every Dead Thing, it is always a treat when John Connolly brings us another story each year.

Just out is The Burning Soul (you didn't think this Connolly was going to go all cute and coy, did you?) detective Charlie Parker stumbles into a web of corruption and deceit involving the FBI, a doomed mobster and a missing teenage girl. For those who like a novel with vivid characters, a razor edge and a dark soul, these tales of Charlie Parker will keep you up late into the wee hours of the morning.

Finally, what seems like an event every time she does it, Laurie R. King has come up with a new novel featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. Sent to Lisbon and Morocco, where a British movie studio is filming a remake of The Pirates of Penzance, Mary Russell investigates a series of crimes targeting the production and confronts a high-stakes situation when actual pirates orchestrate a hostage situation. A little swash but no buckle...or to quote William Gilbert:

Away to the cheating world go you,

Where pirates all are well-to-do;

But I'll be true to the song I sing,

And live and die a Pirate King.

Sherlock Holmes meets Gilbert & Sullivan. Now there's an idea that needs looking into.