Next stop around the world – USA and Canada. Let’s start with my recent favorite Canadian author, Louise Penny (http://www.louisepenny.com/ ). She has written 12 books by now about a Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of Surete in Quebec. The way she describes the village of Three Pines, where many of the books in the series take place, makes me (and a lot of other people) want to move there, although it must be the most lethal place in Canada! One of the books, takes place in Quebec City in the middle of a winter, and despite the fact that I’m not much fan of snow, her descriptions of the city makes me want to move there too. Her murders are rather convoluted and tricky to figure out. Her books are quite thick, 350+ pages, but once you start reading them you don’t want to stop.
For lighter fare, moving south of the border to the USA, way south, to Louisiana swamps. If you have not yet met Jana DeLeon (http://janadeleon.com/ ) you should. She writes about a CIA trained assassin who has to go undercover and lands in town called Sinful in Louisiana where murder and mayhem starts the minute she arrives. If you are in need of a good laugh, her books are just the ticket. It may sound odd to have a murder mystery which is laugh out loud funny, but her books are. Fortune, the CIA assassin, joins forces with two old biddies who were undercover agents in Vietnam (during the war), and they do a weekly run for the best banana pudding through town, combined with few alligators and sharpshooting. Mayhem ensues. The plots are very well concocted, and the pace is full speed ahead all the time, and did I mention – they are funny. So if you’re looking for a few hours of good time, try her Miss Fortune series, last of those was published only a month ago. And don’t forget to check out her Sinful Ladies Society!
In case you didn’t know, Jana DeLeon is one of the big names in self-publishing. If I hadn’t read her books I don’t think I would have ever gotten the idea to try it myself.
Trivia for you – did you know this? The difference between a murder mystery and a thriller is apparently that in a murder mystery, murder happens first and the rest of the book is about how it gets solved, while in a thriller, all the action is about stopping something bad from happening.