Top mysteries: changes and ranking

I’ve found a more reliable source for both the lists I am using and have discovered that the lists I was using weren't entirely correct, so I am changing the combination list accordingly. Out go 10 books and in go 9.
Interestingly, a book I read and reviewed as a Wednesday Reading Experience earlier in the year gets added to the list: The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.

The lists I am now working from give the ranking of the books, and I think it would be useful to include this information with the reviews. However, I don’t want to repost the reviews I have already posted because it plays hell with the feed readers and annoys real readers, so here is an list of rankings for the books I have already reviewed, alphabetised by author. CWA stands for the British Crime Writer’s Association and MWA stands for the Mystery Writers of America.

Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolate Case; CWA # 41
Christianna Brand: Green for Danger; CWA #84
Truman Capote: In Cold Blood; MWA # 54
Vera Caspary: Laura; MWA #44
Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades; CWA # 76
Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent; MWA #86
Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop; CWA # 25, MWA #72
Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist; CWA # 88
Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho; CWA # 37
Fyodor Dostoevski: Crime and Punishment; MWA # 24
Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift; CWA # 80
Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon; CWA # 10; MWA # 2
Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man; MWA # 31
Thomas Harris: Red Dragon; MWA # 27
Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train; CWA # 38
Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley; CWA # 45, MWA # 71
Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy; CWA # 52
Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew; CWA # 27
Ed McBain: Cop Hater); CWA # 36
Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died; CWA # 96
James McClure: The Steam Pig; MWA # 98
Nicholas Meyer: The Seven Per-Cent Solution; MWA # 65
Susan Moody: Penny Black; CWA # 57
Ruth Rendell: Judgement in Stone; CWA # 39, MWA # 89
Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing; CWA # 12, MWA # 74

And just for fun, the listed books I had read before I started the challenge:
Desmond Bagley: Running Blind; CWA # 77
James M Cain: Double Indemnity; MWA # 34
James M Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice; CWA # 30
John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man/The Three Coffins; CWA # 40, MWA # 44
G.K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown; MWA # 57
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None; CWA # 19, MWA # 10
Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express; MWA # 41
Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; CWA # 5, MWA # 12
Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone; CWA # 8, MWA # 7
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories; CWA # 21
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Complete Sherlock Holmes; MWA # 11
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles; CWA # 32
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose; CWA # 13, MWA # 23
Ian Fleming: From Russia with Love; CWA # 35, MWA # 78
Ken Follett: Eye of the Needle; MWA # 25
Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca; CWA # 95
Sue Grafton: "A" is for Alibi; MWA # 51
John Grisham: A Time to Kill; MWA # 73
Thomas Harris: The Silence of the Lambs; MWA # 16
Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed; CWA # 54
Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time; CWA #69, MWA # 53
Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead; MWA # 37
P.D. James: Shroud for a Nightingale; MWA # 83
Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone; CWA #89
J.J. Marric: Gideon's Day; CWA # 87
John Mortimer: Rumpole of the Bailey; MWA # 26
Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the Sandbank; MWA # 82
Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones; CWA # 42, MWA # 100 (tie w. Rosemary’s Baby)
Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery and Imagination; CWA # 23, MWA # 32
Mario Puzo: The Godfather; MWA # 15
Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase; MWA # 40
Maj & Per Wahlöö Sjöwall: The Laughing Policeman; MWA # 46
Mary Stewart: My Brother Michael; CWA # 55
Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting; CWA # 62
Bram Stoker: Dracula; MWA # 70
Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time; CWA # 1, MWA # 4

I had posted reviews of some of these books online before I started the challenge and will be working on reposting them under the appropriate label.

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Dorte H said…

What a varied list! I like that.

I have just tried my first Josephine Tey and my first Mary Steward because I found them on the shelves in our holiday cottage. A great opportunity to try something new!

July 20, 2009 8:32 pm

Bibliophile said…

I like Tey very much. At her best she rivals or even surpasses Agatha Christie, and she only wrote a fraction of the number of mysteries Christie did.

When I was a teenager I devoured every Mary Stewart book that was published in Iceland. I found her combination of suspense and romance irresistible, but the book I really loved was The Crystal Cave. Imagine my delight when I found out it was the first in a series of four!

July 20, 2009 9:22 pm

I enjoyed all the new authors I found during my holiday, but Mary Stewart was the best, and the one I plan to read more by first!

July 21, 2009 1:49 pm

Reading in Reykjavík

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