I like trying to figure things out. (A natural enough trait for somebody who's a computer programmer and amateur naturalist.) So, on occasion I like to read mysteries. I like mysteries where the reader gets the clues as the detective does, and so has a reasonable chance of figuring out the solution on his or her own. I don't like mysteries where the author cheats by having the detective get information the reader doesn't. Fortunately, there are enough of the first type around that I can avoid the second type. Of the mysteries I've read, most of the ones I really liked enough to keep around belong to either Dick Francis or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sir Arthur, of course, is the inventor of the world's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. I have a couple of collections of his original Holmes stories, plus several books of more recent stories by other authors starring Holmes, or written in the Holmes style:
THE CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED SHERLOCK HOLMES
This is a thick hardcover including all the original Holmes stories that were published in The Strand magazine: thirty-seven short stories plus the novel THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. It also includes all of the original illustrations from The Strand.
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
A collection of sixteen new stories starring Sherlock Holmes, written by a variety of fiction authors. Many are typical Holmes stories, but several are not. My favorite out of the book is a story that features a perfect locked-room mystery: a murder done in a locked room, door locked from the inside, window locked from the inside, no other possible means of entry. To double the fun, this case is solved by Watson, not by Holmes.
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN ORBIT An anthology of 26 new stories by different authors, all starring or in some way relating to Sherlock Holmes, all with science fiction elements to them.
Dick Francis is a modern English author who specializes in mysteries that in some way involve horses and horse racing. He also almost always writes first-person narratives. He isn't for everyone -- most of his books include some violence, and on occasion it's rather gratuitous or described in needlessly complete detail. However, they're still good yarns. I've kept a number of Francis's novels:
- BREAK IN -- Champion jockey Kit Fielding is drawn back into an old feud when his sister and her husband become pawns in a vicious game of cat and mouse between two ruthless business tycoons.
- BOLT -- Kit Fielding has two new problems on his hands: a nasty business associate is trying to blackmail his employer, and someone is killing the horses he's ridden to championship victories.
- ODDS AGAINST -- Sid Halley was once a champion jockey, but his racing days were ended by a fall that left him with a crippled left hand. Now he's a private investigator specializing in cases involving horses and racing, with an uncanny knack for getting in way over his head. In this case, he's been asked to investigate a series of 'accidents' at an old racecourse that's trying desperatly to recover. It appears that somebody doesn't want the racecourse to reopen, but who? And why?
- WHIP HAND -- Sid Halley is back. This time he has a string of cases to deal with, including finding a con man who set up his ex-wife; investigating a series of crooked racing syndicates; and trying to outwit a master criminal who knows exactly how to frighten him off.
- BANKER -- Young, upwardly-mobile merchant banker Tim Ekaterin arranges a loan to finance the purchase of a champion racehorse. When the loan is threatened by an apparent defect in the horse, Tim begins a private investigation that will take him several places he shouldn't go.
- REFLEX -- Philip Nore is a champion jockey and amateur photographer who is nearing the end of his racing career. He never figured that photography would bring him nearer death than racing, but that's exactly what happens when he starts getting curious about the death of a singularly unloved professional photographer. The problem isn't figuring out who might have wanted George Millace dead; the problem is figuring out which of Millace's many blackmail victims got to him first.
- THE EDGE -- The Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train has been years in the planning: a small, select group of racehorses and their owners, traveling across Canada by rail, being entertained by a troupe of players putting on a mystery play while en route. Unknown to most of them, there's also a real mystery brewing. Julius Filmer, a crooked racehorse owner, is onboard, and plans to disrupt the train any way he can. Also onboard is Tor Kelsey, an undercover agent of the Jockey Club Security Service, whose job is to save the train and get enough evidence to take Filmer down.
- TWICE SHY -- Jonathan Derry is a high school physics teacher and expert target shooter. His younger brother William is a former jockey and current manager for a very wealthy racehorse owner. Neither of them ever thought they would be thrown into separate but equally vicious fights against a psychopathic man bent on obtaining a secret racehorse betting system that can make its owner very, very rich. This is quite an unusual and interesting format for a mystery: the characters of Jonathan and William each narrate their own adventures with Angelo Gilbert, with a short interlude in-between to represent the years that Gilbert was in jail.
