Polite Dissent

Since David Welsh is giving us some of his favorite mystery writers this week, I thought I’d chime in with some of my own overlooked mysteries that are worth the time to track down and read.

• The Brother Cadfael series, by Ellis Peters, is a captivating mystery series set in the England of the late 12th century*. Its main character is Brother Cadfael, a former crusader who is now a Benedictine monk. The mysteries themselves are well written and the history is fascinating. The first book is the probably the weakest, but still well above average. Brother Cadfael was turned into a BBC series, shown on PBS’s Mystery, that is supposed to be very well done.

• Malcolm Shuman has written a brief series of mysteries focusing on professional historian and archaeologist (but not in the Indiana Jones sense) Alan Graham, who finds himself involved in a variety of mysteries mostly around the Baton Rouge area. All of the books have a historical tie and topics covered include Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark), Jim Bowie, Indian burial grounds, Lee Harvey Oswald and the Mayans.

• Tonya Huff has a five-book series involving Victoria Nelson, a former police detective now P.I., her ex-partner and sometimes-lover Mike Celucci, and Henry FitzSimmons, a vampire “romance novelist” around since Tudor England. The books combine mystery with horror, and each book addresses a classic horror staple (i.e. demons, mummies, Frankenstei’ns monster, werewolves, etc.). A sixth book was recently published focusing on Henry and minor character Tony.

• G.K. Chesterton’s series of books and stories involving Father Brown, a quiet shabby priest who solves mysteries in an almost “by the way” manner remains a wonderful read well over a hundred years after they were written. Inexpensive because of that whole public domain thing. As a comic book reference, G.K. Chesterton is who Gilbert (aka Fiddler’s Green) is based on in the Sandman “Doll’s House” storyline.

Warning! Footnote involving a small history lesson:
*Historically, the Brother Cadfael books take place in the period of time when both Stephen and Matilda were fighting for the throne of England. Ultimately, Stephen wins, though to preserve peace Matilda’s son Henry is named as his heir. To put this is in a historical perspective, Henry is better known as Henry II, husband of Eleanor of Aquitane and father of Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John (or Magna Carta and Robin Hood fame), and murderer (albeit indirectly) of the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket — which leads down the line to Chaucer’s Canturbery Tales. Clear as mud?