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I am loving the Da Vinci Code. I loved "The Eight" and "The Magic Circle."(Katherine Neville)I love the Sister Fidelma Mysteries(Peter Tremayne.)
I need more! Now that I have broken through my reading block, I can't stop. I am on to the George RR Martin series next, which will take me a while, but any more suggestions for this subgenre?
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I'm reading The Night Inspector, by Frederick Busch right now. I haven't finished it, but I like it so far. It's about a Civil War veteran in New York City.
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It's not a mystery, but an excellent historical fantasy is Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles by Pat Murphy. The protagonist is a werewolf in meticulously researched early 19th century frontier America.
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May I suggest the Alvin Maker series by OSC. The mystery there is figuring out what is fantasy fiction and what is historicaly accurate
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Elizabeth...I also really enjoyed Katherine Neville's books.
Have you read "Daughter of Time" by Joespheine Tey? It was written in the 1950s, and concerns a detective who is laid up in the hospital (with a broken leg, I think); as a way to pass the time he tries to solve the mystery of Richard III and the princes in the tower. It's a good book, very readable for all that I know of history professors who assign it to their classes as an example of how the historian is really a detective.
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Other authors I like are Jasper Fforde and Ellis Peters.
Eoin Colfer is good at sort of young adult fantasy mystery. I've really enjoyed the Artemis Fowl series.
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Christy, I just finished the third Artemis novel and was disappointed. The first two were great. When we do silent reading with the kids in class, I always read books at their level so I can recommend and discuss them. Truthfully, it is an excuse. It is some of my favorite reading!
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My daughter loves the Artemis Fowl books! I haven't read the third one yet, but the first two were excellent.
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I think of the Artemis books more as thrillers than history mysteries, but I love them. It was just that the third one wasn't as good as the other two. It seemed rushed, more like TV than novel.
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Elizabeth...another suggestion just occurred to me. You might want to try "Declare" by Tim Powers. It is a combination of Cold War espionage novel and fantasy - I found it on the science fiction/fantasy shelves of my local library.
The thing that makes it so fascinating is that Powers has apparently researched the era and the life of Kim Philby - a real British subject who spied for the Soviets, and one of the characters in the novel - in a very detailed way and fit his plot into known history and the facts of Philby's life, so that nothing that happens in the novel conflicts with that history. It's a really good book - I'm currently reading it for the second time. This is quite an amazing thing, considering that I generally very much dislike espionage novels.
Good reading.
Edit: to insert a phrase that I left out. Twice. It's getting late, isn't it.
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Thanks. The trouble with finding these linds of books are that they are often in different sections of the bookstore or library than I would think they should be. There are many mysteries in the fiction section, and there are often some in the fantasy section. I think they should have their own shelf, dang it all.
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Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis. Combination of fantasy and mystery, as a Civil War researcher tries to figure out the source of a young woman's disturbing dreams.
EXCELLENT novel. Should have won awards.
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Do not forget Ron Brown's Angels and Demons if you haven't already read his "other" work behind The DaVinci Code
Many consider it fiction, but the author tries to tell a compelling tale in Laurence Gardner's works:
Bloodline of the Holy Grail Genesis of the Grail Kings The Ring Lords
Not exactly history, not exactly fiction, these works are strange yet compelling to figure out which is bunk and which might be true...
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You know what terrible hand fate dealt me? I have been pretty lucky about most things, but why the irony of getting carsick when I read? It takes away so much reading time in my life!
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Thanks for the warning. I shall make sure that I have suitably protected myself with garlic and crucifixes, and have holy water on standby in case of emergency.
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Elizabeth, I don't really think of them as mysteries either, but I really enjoyed them so I debated adding them to the list. I was a bit disappointed with the third Artemis book as well. The others were just so much more creative.
Edit: I also find the mysteries section to be rather frustrating. There are so many popular "thrillers," which I don't like as much and the genre really has exploded into a million different directions that its hard to browse the section and find something you know you'll like.
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Christy, I think they should just use DD Shade's list of speculative fiction styles, instead of sci fi-fantasy, horror, and mystery. It would make it so much easier on us. Katherine Neville's work is listed under regular fiction. I would never have discovered it if a friend hadn't handed me a book. The same with Stephen King's The Talisman, which, I think, is listed under horror. I would never have ventured into the King world, yet that is one of my favorite books. I say we have a Million Geek March, and clear this whole thing up once and for all.
[ March 14, 2004, 08:33 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
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I second lma's suggestion.
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