Next Week: Margaret Millar Week
Ed Gorman is the author of the Dev Conrad series and the Sam McCain books. You can find him here.
For what to me are obvious reasons I've never been a particular fan of the famous Jacques Barzun mystery list. I find his writing pedantic and his selection 
of books sometimes questionable. I'm sorry--it's just the reaction I've always had to it. I'll take H.R.F. Keating's 100 Mystery novels any day.
of books sometimes questionable. I'm sorry--it's just the reaction I've always had to it. I'll take H.R.F. Keating's 100 Mystery novels any day.So I've had to look elsewhere for lists to help rubes like me find treasures I'd never come across otherwise. My favorite book is 1001 Midnights edited by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller. I've read at least forty of the novels recommended in this massive compendium. And sometimes for pleasure I just pick it up to read it.
Every genre is covered here. So are writers great and small. And who are some of the reviewers recommending books? How about Max Collins, Crider, George Kelly, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg, Robert Randisi, Art Scott and Julie Smith? Among many, many others including the Mulzinis themselves. (I have two reviews in here myself.) You can share the pleasure they have in touting overlooked books. And in a few cases downgrading a book that was so fashionable a few decades back.
God I love this book and you will too.
Patti Abbott: Montana, 1948, Larry Watson
Montana 1948, Larry Watson. I’d be hard pressed to think of a short novel that 
captured so vividly a summer in the life of a twelve year old boy. David’s father is a small town sheriff who lives under the shadow of the father that once held his office and the brother who came home a war hero. When the housekeeper, a Sioux woman, becomes ill, that brother, now the town doctor is called on for help despite protestations from the ill woman. Is it native lore that makes her fearful? What happens next splinters both the family and the town. This is a gem: lucid and long-lasting.
SergioAngelini, Blood on the Mink, Robert Silverberg
Joe Barone, Sins of the Father, Lawrence Block
Brian Busby, Thinking the Unthinkable: Armageddon, John Wesley White
Bill Crider, Best of Damon Runyon, ed. E.C. Bentley
Scott Cupp, Star Well, Alexi Panshin
Martin Edwards, The Grindle Nightmare, Quentin Patrick
Curt Evans, Todmanhawe Grange, J. S. Fletcher and Torquemada
Elisabeth Grace Foley, Skyrider, B.M. Bower
Jerry House, The Woman Suffrage Cookbook (second edition), edited by Mrs. Hattie A. Burr
Randy Johnson, One Endless Hour, Dan J. Marlowe
Nick Jones, Undertow, Desmond Cory
George Kelley, THE DEVIL WEARS WINGS By Harry Whittington
Margot Kinberg, Never Apologise, Never Explain, James Craig
Kate Laity. The Fall: Lyrics by Mark E. Smith; John Hodgson's A Hard Road to Nowhere: The Blitzkrieg Bop Story
B.V. Lawson, Murder in the Borough Library, John Austwick
Evan Lewis, Flash Casey, George Harmon Coxe
Steve Lewis/Allen J. Hubin
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris
David Rachels
James Reasoner
Richard Robinson
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Bill Selnes
Michael Slind
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple
TomCat
Prashant Trikannad
WutheringWillow
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