9 novels to read over the holidays from The Next Chapter's mystery book panel
Spirits may be bright and the fire delightful, but it's also the time to get frightful, dark and perhaps even diabolical with The Next Chapter's list of mystery books.
As is The Next Chapter tradition, our 2021 mystery panel — McMaster University professor P.K. Rangachari, journalist and mystery writer Angela Misri and Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Cannon — spoke with Shelagh Rogers about nine books that mystery fans should read over the holiday season.
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Margaret Cannon: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is a book that is kind of sweet. If you only read one book this year, make it this one. It's one of the best books I've ever read. It's a family saga, a great heist mystery, a wonderful look at Harlem, not during the Renaissance, but on the cusp of social change.
It simply has everything. But I particularly loved it because it reaches back to a writer named Chester Himes, who was a wonderful writer. There's a tribute paid to him here in the snappy dialogue, but there's also a twist at the end.
It's one of the best books I've ever read.- Margaret Cannon
I've loaned this book to several friends and given it as gifts, and they tell me that they just can't believe how good it is. He won his first Pulitzer Prize for The Underground Railroad and recently won another Pulitzer for The Nickel Boys. So I think we know he's a great writer. But wow, what a wonderful subject — early 1960s Harlem just as the civil rights movement is taking off. It's really good.
The Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura, translated by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Lida
Angela Misri: At 600 pages, I have to say that this book is a big bite. So you've got to want it. This is called the Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura, and this is actually only the first volume in a two-volume series. It took Powell and Lida four years to translate from the original Japanese. But it's such an incredible view into a time period. It's a couple of time periods. It's 1947 when the book starts, then Tokyo 1995, when you actually get into the actual story.
But it's such incredible vision into this culture that I love.- Angela Misri
There's 27 named characters, so there's a really useful part of the first part of the book, which is the dramatis personae in the opening pages. But it's such an incredible vision into this culture that I love. It has a lot of comparisons to India's caste structure, which I personally find very interesting. It reminded me a lot of The Wire in that the characters drew me in so much, and each chapter is focused on a specific character. So it's dramatic and slow moving.
It's a big bite, but one of the best books I've read this year, and I just love Lady Joker and I can't wait until the next book comes out next summer.
These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall
PK Rangachari: These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall introduces you to the interesting profession of a digital archeologist. Mickie Lambert is a graduate in narrative studies from the University of Southern California so she's fond of storytelling. She works for a super high-tech company that catches your memories and converts them into a memory bank. So for $5,000, you can get a specially curated, next-generation digital scrapbook that can recall those special places that you visited in the past. She transforms these memories into a different experience, but finds herself in a lot of trouble because she has offered to capture the memories of a woman who runs an odd store of collections.
She works for a super high-tech company that catches your memories and converts them into a memory bank.- PK Rangachari
This lady gives her a number of souvenirs that she wants to be captured. But before she goes much further, she's found dead. The question is, is it suicide? Is it murder? What is it? The book goes into more and more trouble and explores a different side of downtown Los Angeles.
Hell and Gone by Sam Wiebe
Margaret Cannon: I'm crazy about Hell and Gone by Sam Wiebe. This is his fourth book, the third one with the series of his two detectives, but he also did a wonderful Vancouver noir collection of short stories. He's a terrific writer located in Vancouver.
So you get a bit of everything and people who like this book are going to like the other two just as much. - Margaret Cannon
Hell and Gone is a traditional noir mystery, but it begins with a massacre in a nondescript shopping plaza on the edge of Vancouver. And I'm not going to tell you any more, because to go from there is to miss a great little mystery. And as is traditional, Vancouver plays a role, is a character in the story. So you get a bit of everything; people who like this book are going to like the other two just as much.
The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Angela Misri: The Man Who Died Twice is the second book in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, and it focuses on a bunch of "detectives." So these are a bunch of detectives that live in — I'm going to say detectives because they are the detectives in the story — but they live in Cooper's Chase, which is an upscale retirement village in the British countryside. You get to follow along with the journal entries of one of them. Her name is Joyce. Then you've got a whole bunch of other septuagenarians who are working on different cold cases.
I love the first book and this second book really delivers as well.- Richard Osman
I love the first book and this second book really delivers as well. I have to say I love Richard Osman, and I'm crazy about both these books. And they didn't quite make it onto my best top 10 list, but they were close.
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
PK Rangachari: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich is a remarkable book. It begins with one of the funniest opening sequences you can find in a book. It's about a body snatched from one state to the other. The problem is that not only is body snatching a crime, but this body happens to contain a packet of cocaine along with it.
So this Indigenous lady is sentenced, and the book is all about words, sentences and books. So she finally gets rehabilitated and then she becomes a bookseller in a bookstore; one of the characters in the bookshop happens to be the author of the book herself, Louise Erdrich.
This is a beautiful book, poignant and tragic book.- PK Rangachari
This is a beautiful, poignant and tragic book. The really interesting part about the book is that it's the story of a haunting. The bookshop is haunted by the ghost of the most affectionate customer, who is most annoying but didn't want to leave the bookstore. So even after she's dead, she continues to haunt the bookstore.
It's an absolutely lovely book.
Silverview by John le Carré
PK Rangachari: This is a book by and an author I've recommended several times in the past and that's John le Carré. Silverview picks up on themes that he kind of echoed in an earlier book called A Delicate Truth.
It's about collateral damage and what happens in a war when people all around get damaged.- PK Rangachari
It's about collateral damage and what happens in a war when people all around get damaged. It's set in a bookshop, of course, in England, East Anglia. But all along, there's a very melancholic tinge about it.
State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton
Margaret Cannon: Well, people know I detest celebrity books, but I have to say I really like State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny. And I do think that Louise Penny is why this book is so good. She's had a little experience, right? It's too long by 100 pages. But even at that, the characters are really engaging and the plot works.
It's a really terrific thriller, and if you need something to really get yourself out of Christmas, this is the read.- Margaret Cannon
You've got a lady politician running back and forth, and she lives on planes. It's a really terrific thriller, and if you need something to really get yourself out of Christmas, this is the read.
No Going Back by Sheena Kamal
Angela Misri: I had the opportunity this summer to be on and moderate a panel with Sheena Kamal for Word On The Street, and I was on there with Dorothy Ellen Palmer and Andrea Gunraj. And I read the latest of the Nora Watts series, which I've been a huge fan of since it started. So No Going Back is the one that I would recommend. That's my short pitch.
It's very Vancouver again. It's really dark with lots of skepticism.- Angela Misri
It's very Vancouver again. It's really dark with lots of skepticism. I just love Nora, I think she's one of those friends that you would want to go for a drink with, but not to spend too much time with. The crime in this involves her daughter, which as a mom with a daughter, it escalates everything, right? It escalates everything in the story.
So I really recommend No Going Back. I love Sheena's writing and Nora is great. She's also a big dog lover, and we've got to give her props for that.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
