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Dear Liz,

You have known since about the age of seven that pasta shells (you know, the hollow ones) fill up with boiling water when cooking. Thus, if you bite into one to see if it's cooked, the boiling water transfers itself to your mouth. And the thing about boiling water is that it's, well, boiling. Do you think you could stop doing it ?

Thanks
Liz

And irrelevantly, can someone recommend me a decent whodunnit?

Whodunnits are my chosen form of mental bubblegum, but they have one huge flaw. Like fantasy, there's an awful lot of bad books for every good book. Over the years, I've collected a reliable phalanx of people who read fantasy voraciously and recommend me the good bits. At present, though, there seems to be no one performing this function for detective novels, and dammit I don't want to have to wade through all the rubbish myself.

For preference I'd like recommendations by author rather than specific book - most of my bookshopping is done in second-hand shops, so too-specific criteria are unlikely to be met.

I filched an Inspector Morse omnibus from Dad's bookshop, expecting good things. I made it through all three books contained therein, but only just - Morse mysteries are confusing, poorly explained at the end (and in one case, I don't think it hung together at the end at all), and written in an unbelievably leaden manner.

Here is a choice excerpt, from The Secret of Annexe 3 which I'm told is a good Morse:

He's looking at...

... the tiny bathroom, only some seven feet by five feet, whose door stood a few feet inside and to the right of the main entrance to Annexe 3. Immediately facing was the WC, a unit of the usual white enamel, the bowl a sparkling tribute to the administrations of the conscientious Mandy; on the left was a wash-basin by which stood two tumblers and a diminutive bar of soap (unopened) in a pink-paper wrapping bearing the name 'Haworth'; to the right was a bath, fairly small, with shower attachment, and a ledge let into the wall containing a second bar of soap (also unopened); finally, on the wall opposite, to the left of the WC, were racks for a whole assortment of fluffy white towels (all seemingly unusued), and fixtures for toilet paper and Kleenex tissues. The walls were tiled in a light olive-green, with the Vinyl flooring of a slightly darker, matching green.

Now I appreciate that you may need to explain in detail the set-up of the room in which the murder was committed if that's going to be relevant (which I don't think it is in this case). Even just setting the scene is necessary, and I know that (having bugger-all spatial awareness) I tend to let these descriptions wash over me. But really. I don't think it need be quite so catalogue-like.

I must admit it isn't all like that, and does have flashes of wit. But overall, I found Morse a most unsatisfactory detective to hang out with. A few people have suggested that Morse's fame (and continued literary existence) is mostly down to the TV series; I could well believe that.

While in Whitby I ran out of book, and raided the only charity shop still open late on Saturday to furnish myself with a Patricia Cornwell. And d'you know what ? She gets up my nose as well. "I did this, because it's in accordance with some random bit of US police procedure which you don't know about, but which I'm going to explain in a patronising manner. Then I did this complicated medical thing, and made this amazing discovery on account of this unusual genetic ability I have." Bleh. And she writes stilted dialogue, too.

They may well be realistic, but that makes them terribly dull. I fear the crimes may also be a little more plausible and realistic, too, and that makes them terribly uncinematic. Dammit, I don't want an international terrorist organisation doing some complicated arms smuggling and offing a bloke as a side effect. I want a fearsomely intricate plot by a nice country gentleman to feed his wife to the pet cobra whilst being able to prove that he was 200 miles away in Bognor at the time.

I like my whodunnits cosy. A body discovered, and all 12 of the possible suspects coralled without means of escape in a stately home on a windy moor - now that's the ticket. The sort of murder you can really hum, just like granny used to bake.

I'm also coming to the conclusion that murders are better set pre-1950 or so. I'm sure forensic teams and police procedure and the like are terribly useful nowadays, but they don't half have a depressing effect on one's plots. Of course, it's also a lot easier to write whodunnits set in some random historical period - no swift communications, no tiresome forensics, no one to object to some utterly irrelevant aristocrat butting in and solving the crime and, of course, a large chunk of your readership won't notice if you make a few blunders in the historical background - and so an awful lot of them are really rather bad, too.

I recently read a Michael Jecks novel I'd given my Dad as a present (and which I now feel slightly guilty about, because it wasn't very good). It was set just after the dissolution of the Templars, was a little light on background, and frankly wasn't that well-written or that well-plotted either. It's difficult not to see it as an inferior author cashing in.

So, who do I like ? Dorothy Sayers ("Lord Peter Wimsey"). Her plots are always so tight that you can't get a razor blade in, they're entertaining and the characters could walk off the page to greet you.

Lindsey Davis ("Falco"), whose first detective novel

spindlemere presented me with years ago. She has developed series-rot a little, but the early ones are both cleverly written and very funny. Ditto Ellis Peters ("Brother Cadfael"), who had gone rather pot-boiler by the end of her writing career, but had some lovely ideas. She also wrote rather good modern-day detective novels ("Inspector Felse") which managed to mention police procedure without spoling the story. Ngaio Marsh ("Inspector Alleyn") also handles the modern day quite nicely, and I don't mind Ruth Rendell ("Inspector Wexford") when she isn't having one of her mad pyschological fits.

They're mostly known names, though. Raking about in the back of my brain I seem to recall very much enjoying Mollie Hardwick's novels, but just now can't remember very much about them. Susanna Gregory's series of Matthew Bartholomew mysteries, set in a newly-established Cambridge University start well, thought they get series-rot quite speedily.

Possibly a surprise, but I'd also rate Jonathon Gash's novels very highly. He created the character of Lovejoy - yup, the smiley antiques dealer chappy of TV series fame - who in the books is seedy, dirty, criminal, and very, very readable. And yes, I think it's fair to count them as whodunnits.

Lastly, Edmund Crispin writes vaguely surreal but really rather entertaining novels. I forget who his detective is, but the two of his I've read are great.

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Try some John Dickson Carr - his "locked room" mysteries are meant to be true classics of the genre. I particularly recommend The Hollow Men, containing as it does the detective launching into a chapter-long lecture on different types of locked room mysteries in fiction and how they all work. It's like a magician debunking his entire art and then proceeding to amaze you anyway, and one of the absolute best things I've read in the whodunnit genre.

Other things? Raymond Chandler is someone that everyone ought to have read already, but if you haven't, pick up The Big Sleep or something, not just a great whodunnit but also actual high literary art. Dashiell Hammett is good too, try one of the Continental Op tales, not as well known as his Sam Spade stuff but possibly even better. Red Harvest is well worth it, off the top of my head.

OK, thanks - The Hollow Men in particular sounds like a book well worth investigating.

Though given that, until this recent bout of purchasing, my default book-selection method is to grab anything in a 'green' Penguin binding, I'm bound to run into some of the authors you mention sooner or later :)

Cornwell's use of computers as plot hinges is excrutiating.

Fortunately, I can't cite you any concrete examples. But once her neice gets involved, your only choice is to get the hell out of there.

And she also catalogues things, in the same way as you've ascribed to Dexter/Morse. But in this case, it's the damn cooking recipes. Which, really, aren't germaine.

But in this case, it's the damn cooking recipes. Which, really, aren't germaine.

Non-germainety isn't necessarily a problem. There are some great books where the narrator diversifies off into chatting about cooking, or similar. Cornwell's aren't among them, though.

And yes, I'm with you on the computers. Which is odd, because I think Cornwell has been a computer analyst or somesuch, you think she'd know better.

I went through a phase of really liking the mysteries of PD James. I haven't read anything of hers in years, of course, but I recall enjoying them - they were somewhat more introspective and psychological, though, so as much drama as mystery.

If you like Lord Peter Wimsey, you may wish to read Thrones, Dominations, in which a modern writer takes Dorothy Sayers' unfinished manuscript and competes the novel. Not up to the original author's finest, of course, but a nice revisit of the characters.

Aye, PH James, I'd forgotten her. Also Marjorie Allingham.

I've the Jill Paton Walsh mystery - also A Presumption of Death, which is her completing another unfinished DLS. It was much, much better than I'd have expected a one-author-writing-someone-else's characters to be.

Sara Paretsky can do little wrong in my estimation. Though you rather have to like Chicago and environs.

But what's not to like about Chicago, and VI Warshawski?

Nothing, in the case of Ms Warshawski. However, Chicago winters are distinctly average, as is the beer.

Damn. Now I want Leona's pizza and several bottles of Linenkugel's.

OK, never even heard of her - will keep an eye out. Thanks.

I don't know if our tastes in these things coincide, but I like Rankine's Rebus novels. He keeps threatening to leave the case unsolved, though, because he feels the journey's more interesting than the destination, but he hasn't done it yet.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is extrremely good too.

*nods* With you on both of those ...

An Instance of the Fingerpost was a very original idea ... And Rebus is a complete individual.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is extrremely good too.

Yup. I'm very bad at choosing a 'favourite' anything, but usually cite that if asked to name a favourite book. Oddly, I don't think of it as a whodunnit, though.

Iain Pears' other novels (the 'art' whodunnts) featuring er, thingy and other thingy, are quite entertaining, too. They're very light and fluffy and you can eat a whole one at one sitting.

Rankin. Yes. That was my recommendation too. I especially like the way that even when Rebus is slogging through the ranks of the lowlife of Leith and Pilton etc., that I still have cravings for Edinburgh.

My Mum is a detective novel afficionado and keeps recommending Val McDermott to me. She does, however, also have the noisome taste for Patricia Cornwell's slash'n'shopping extravaganzas even though they are ALL BASICALLY THE SAME.

I like my whodunnits cosy. A body discovered, and all 12 of the possible suspects coralled without means of escape in a stately home on a windy moor

Leave out the windy moor, and I think you've got Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot ...:)

I'm a whodunnit whore ... And I'll admit I read to escape and don't necessarily read very critically, but anyway pre-1950's ...

Paul Docherty writes whodunnit's set in England in the Middle Ages and Ancient Egypt. I found the Brother Anselm mysteries entertaining in a quirky way. They're set in the East End of London and his parishioners remind me of the inhabitants of Dibley.

Anne Perry has written two series set in Victorian England, Inspector Pitt, and Monk (who is an "Agent of Private Investigation" having left "The Force"). I quite like the way Victorian morals and attitudes to the police force creep into these. And I think if Jane Austen had written whodunnits thy'd have turned out rather like the Inspector Pitt series.

Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteies are set in seventh century Ireland ... Interesting, for the picture of Irish society and culture before Catholicism.

These are light entetainment ... No police procedure or forensics.

Or, of course, there's Sherlock Holmes ...;-)

The problem I've found is that, as you say, almost every author that writes prolifically about one sleuth seems to develop series lag in the end, I think.

For old-fashioned English detective novels, you could try Margery Allingham's Albert Campion novels, although you'd have to scour second-hand shops for them. Josephine Tey is also very good, and her books seem to have been reissued fairly recently.

Oh aye, yes, I forgot both of those. They're both pretty fine.

Right up untiul the end of this post, I was thinking "Ooh, Edmund Crisping; you have to love Gervase Fen!"
Ronald Knox is good, as is Michael Innes, and I second the recommendations for Marjory Allingham and PD James. Ngaio Marsh is quite good, if a little histrionic at times. Some of Ruth Rendell is OK. Dorothy Sayers, obviously, is the Queen of Crime Fiction. if you don't mind going a little further back in time, try the Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton; they're beautifully written, very intelligent, and the detection is high-class.

Actually, hell, comew and visit, and I shall lend you shedloads of 'tec fiction. Do you like short stories, or just novels? (The Father Brown stories are short stories; his novels are fantastic too, but they're not 'tec stuff.) I have lots of collections of short crime stories, if you fancy borrowing any?

Oh, actually, I should add that most of the above are out of print (which led to howls of anguish when I got most of the way through The Three Taps by Ronald Knox, only to find that the last 17 pages, complete with denouement, were missing...), so your best bet is second hand bookshops, particularly those that sell Penguin Greens. There's an excellent place in Pickering, but failing that, and assuming you can afford 2-3 quid per book, there are plenty of places in Oxford which have them. Alternatively, I have lots, and am happy to lend them out!

Ooh, actually, I believe I have an orange-Penguin Father Brown or so tucked away waiting for a suitably rainy day. I'd forgotten about that - never read any, but like Chesterton's full-length novels.

In general, I'm not big on short stories, but I think this might be because I read an awful lot of bad ones before I found any good ones. I should probably attempt to rectify this imbalance.

Would love to come and visit some time and steal all your books. Definitely not until I've given back the borrowed books I'm hoarding at the moment, though, or I shall be Unpopular!

Oh, and: Gervase Fen! Thanks, it's been bugging me mildly since Friday night :)

Re: the pasta - there is a way to beat this. Pick up the shell with a fork, and shake it or blow on it hard before biting it.

Indeed. I know this. I have known this for many years.

And, on the occasions I remember to do it, it works remarkably well :)

You've just listed all of my least favourite mystery authors, so I'm tempted to list my favourites just so you know who to avoid!

Saying that, I do recommend Elizabeth George. The novels are long (which, when you read as quickly as I do, is a good place to start when choosing!), there's only one truly bad one out of a series of twelvish (and it appears to have been a mid-season slump, as later ones have been up to scratch), and, while they're not set pre-1950, the detective hero (and one of my ficitonal crushes) is young, dashing, and landed gentry with brains and class. Oooer. They're all set in Britain/Channel Islands, it's the same gang of people investigating - Famous Five for grown-ups? - and although Scotland Yard are involved, it's deducing, not technology, that solves the case. There is a long-running backstory that runs through the books, but it's more to give the main characters depth than for anything else, so it's not vital to read them in order, although I would recommend doing so.

Oh, and Elizabeth Peters, too! She's very prolific, and has written a number of modern books, but also has a huge series (20-odd?) set in Victorian-era Egypt, with a female feminist explorer archaeologist who's always stumbling upon secrets and getting kidnapped and solving crimes, and stuff. I've not read them all, and I've not read any in about ten years, so they might be ghastly, but I remember them fondly as fun frolics in the desert with crime and adventure thrown in.

Otherwise, the Morse books were great when they were still books. Once it got on telly, however, Colin Dexter began to approach the books as TV scripts, hence the short chapters, verbal fade-outs, and sterile set descriptions. Or at least, that's how it seems to me.

If you can find anything by this guy: Jose Carlos Somoza

I totally rate his work, I have only read one of his books so far but I believe

lathany can vouch for a second one.

Yeah - The Art of Murder. Can lend via the Tao Express if you like?

Globally, yes please, but locally, not til I've given back a whole bunch of other borrowed books, or I shall get a Bad Reputation :)

Drop me an email when you're ready then. :-)

I can lend you Poe's short stories "The Case of the Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

It's not clear to me that anything of substance has since been added to the genre, although of course there are authors interesting for reasons other than the actual whodunnit mechanism (e.g. Hammett).

Not really a "whodunit" but in the related realm of crime fiction, Natsuo Kirino's Out reads like a well-scripted thriller mixed with social commentary on the role of women in Japan. The end's a bit gory, but otherwise it's quite engaging.

Authors I've had recommended to me on the whodunnit front are Reginald Hill, Val McDermid and Elizabeth George. Oh and a new series written by someone (I think) called MC Beaton which boasts titles such as "Agatha Raven and the Quiche of Death".

Not read any of them myself (you see what use recommending books to me is!) but I'd trust the judgement of the recommenders.

Unless you get comments mailed to you, I've a feeling you'll miss this one. However, I have a whole bookcase full of whodunits in my hosue and am hppy to rec and lend.

Minette Walters and Barbara Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell) are my top recs. Also with the Whimsey love though.

I do get them mailed to me :)

And thank you, I shall come tapping at your door when I next need a fiction-fix .

I think Christopher Brookmyre broadly comes under the term who dunnit and can heartly recommend any of his books.

He's the frog-boiling dude ? Have heard his books recommended, though didn't realise they were whodunnits.

He is the boiling frog dude, I said broadly - they are the sort of thing where you find out who does it about half way through the book - then realise that you've missed a load of clues up to that point where you may have worked it out!

Then you spend the rest of the book wondering if they'll get caught and the good guys will survive.

Does that class as a who dunnit?

How about The Brothers Karamazov?

Is that a book, or an authors' collective ?

A book!

Juct checking ;p

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When I was young -

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