Edgar Allen Poe is credited as the inventor of the detective novel.  I met Edgar while in the Army and quite frankly, his detective stories never appealed to me.  But the man himself was a detective in his own right, quite capable of using ratiocination to prove a marvelous chess playing machine of the day was in truth operated from inside by a man, and even pinpointing the identity of the man.
Napoleon was another master of ratiocination.  He was riding high as the master of war when the chess playing machine's owner challenged him to play chess against the machine. 
Napoleon was obviously tired when the game began.   Consequently, his playing was less than spectacular, and his strategy was far from brilliant.  His court had bet heavily on him and grew alarmed as the machine took piece after piece.  The loss of their loyalty made his playing worse.  Indeed, when he was close to losing the game Napoleon began to cheat; he made an illegal move on the board. 
The machine paused, then put the piece back where Napoleon had picked it up.   Napoleon studied the board for a moment, then made another, illegal move.   Once again the machine hummed, then moved the piece back to its original position.  
One more time Napoleon studied the board through bleary eyes and moved the piece to a square almost right and obviously more advantageous to the human master of war.  One more time the machine hummed and put the piece back.
Severely castigated by the spectators, Napoleon made yet another impossibly illegal move.  This time the machine did more than hum.  Its arm reached out, and swept the offending piece off the board.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"  Napoleon was asked as he stood up to face the music.  He grinned and pointed to the piece on the floor.  "Machines don't lose their temper."

Charlie Chan couldn't have sprung the trap any better. 

Okay, I invite you to pull up a chair, kick off your boots, and pick out a good mystery to read from among the hundreds I have enjoyed.  And know thou this -- when you find an author able to please you as I have there are two duties laid flat out before you.  One is to tell others about the author, and the second duty is to find out what else that author has produced.  Isn't responsibility awful?

T. Davis Bunn is one author I'd like to tell the whole world about.  His work -- The Great Divide -- has an intricate plot much like the mechanism of a wheel within a wheel, inside a wheel that is manipulated by a revolving wheel.  Where other authors use trumped up character traits to explain the actions taken in the plot, Bunn brings the plot to life by making the character traits BE THE PLOT. 

In a day when ministers and pastors are the bad guy or at least a fool, Deacon comes forth as an uncompromisingly strong supporting character.  He helps Marcus Glenwood, an ex-high-rolling, hard-boozing --down on his luck-- young Raleigh, N.C., corporate attorney, find the strength to deal with tragedy. Without embarrassment, T. Davis Bunn makes discovering spiritual truths the actual backbone of this novel.  

More than 90% of this book is perfectly written.  I am talking about writing flawlessly, perfect.  My chief condemnation of the book is found in the last chapter.  As the author sutures up all the dangling threads with abrupt participles the pace quickens to the point of abbreviation.  I admit closure is achieved but only because the author's skill makes it plausible.  If the author was telling this story in front of me I would grab him by the hair of the head and say, "Listen here you, you have got to do better than this."

You might wonder about Mickey Spillane being on the list of great mystery writers?   I thought Mike Hammer was really something, just breathe heavy and the other guy melts down like he was looking at a blowtorch.  Wow.  I don't know how many fights I tried to breathe my way out of before I finally realized Mickey Spillane was not writing mysteries, he was writing fantasy! 

Of course, there's nothing I like better than a GOOD mystery writer capable of throwing some humor my way, as Shirley McCrumb does in MacPherson's Lament.   A sample?  Sure!  "I hadn't seen her face look that bad since the day we used Miss Clairol on the cat."  It is hard for me to go through more than 2 pages without finding some twist of her words to laugh about.

My latest "greatest" mystery is Lyndon Stacey.  Her first book just came my way a few days ago, titled Cut Throat.  This took about three chapters for her to settle down, and from that point on her writing had me hooked.  Since reading the book I have corresponded with the author and found her to be a warm and wonderful person who is "still writing" and getting more successful at it all the time.  Her works are definitely, REreadable, a sign of true greatness.

Anyway, I'd love to hear about any good books you've read lately.
Please drop a line.

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