Mystery Authors and their series.

As a great reader of mysteries from an early age I have come across in my reading many,many authors of the Genre. Some are great, some are good and some should just be forgotten. I have several favorite authors and I am going to hopefully encourage my readers to check out a few of them. I have three particular authors whose books I re-read every year as a sort of comfort,return to old friends and a winter tradition. I am not a huge fan of "Cozy's" so these writers would also interest readers of the male persuasion. The three best,dare I say great authors alive today who write mysteries are Dana Stabenow, Nevada Barr and James Lee Burke.  All three have strong protagonists with great back stories and the characters are so "fleshed out" and dimensional that they come alive and spring forth as the snakes did from Medusa's head. Each author also thoroughly knows the place and the history in which their character resides it's as if one were standing in the midst of the story. Descriptions are so very lyrical, detailed and evocative  that the reader (me) falls right into the book/s and does not come up for air until the last page is read.  Thankfully all three of the aforementioned authors are still alive which ensures that they will continue writing for the foreseeable future.  If you are a fan of a tightly written mystery with great characters,location,depth in writing and a well thought out plot these three writers should be at the top of your list.

THOUGH NOT DEAD by Dana Stabenow

Critiquing a book that one has read on an E-Reader, in my case a NOOK, is a very different animal than writing a review on a hardback or paperback. Let me be clear, I love my NOOK but have yet to figure out how to "bookmark", "notate" or generally return to pages in which I wish to point out a discrepancy or favorite passage. THOUGH NOT DEAD by Dana Stabenow once again reeled me into the history of Alaska and the lives of Ms. Stabenow's most beloved and irascible characters. Her attention to detail and obvious love for Alaska is patently obvious  in her latest Kate Shugak mystery. However, I found this novel a bit disjointed at times and I felt that there were too many loose ends that did not get tied together at the end of the book. Make no mistake, Dana Stabenow is one of the best mystery writers today. Perhaps it was because I found several errors,(she needs a new editor or fact-checker or what have you...) that I was not so overjoyed with this book. Now I read this book in a day and a half, and it was for the most part engrossing but I would not recommend this book unless one reads the series or part of it before tackling this one. As Native Alaskans heritage is convoluted and intertwined so too is this latest book with Ms. Stabenow's previous novels. One needs a certain family history in order to connect all the branches of the various connections that form the basis for this novel. Even I who have read all of her books, and re-read them every winter as a tradition going back about five years, had difficulty with the familial bloodlines in this book. In conclusion, anything Ms. Stabenow pens about Kate Shugak, Mutt, Jim Chopin and "The Aunties" is definitely worth reading. I just would not start with this one.