Mystery Authors

Ron Faust is one author who I think is vastly underrated. He writes literate thrillers with international settings. Many take place at sea or involve the sea as a secondary character. There are oftentimes elements of noir and there is usually a femme fatale. Lord of the Dark Lake, When She Was Bad, and Fugitive Moon are three of his novels I have read and I was extremely satisfied with all of them.

I think what hurts him is that he does not have a series character, he does not write traditional mysteries, and the settings are not tied to a single locale or region. Nevertheless, if you like intelligently written crime stories with exotic locales, Ron Faust is the author for you.

Mitchell Smith is another mystery writer who is relatively unknown. His Stone City is an absolutely absorbing read about an imprisoned accountant who is coerced by a fellow inmate into investigating a prison death.

Daydreams is a police procedural with a rookie female protagonist.

He's wrote three or four additional thrillers before moving on to a well-received sci-fi series (The Snowfall Trilogy) set in post-apocalyptic America.

I've just learned he also writes a series of westerns under the name Roy Lebeau.

I checked out Ron Faust on Amazon and it appears that in his later books he does develop a series character--the most recent three all feature Dan Shaw. They look pretty good, so I'm ordering the first one.

Great overlooked mystery writer: Doug Allyn. Mostly a short story writer, but does have at least six novels out (and at least 2 short story collections). His books tend (or appear to) to go out of print about a month after publication.

Paul Mann writes mysteries set among the corruption of modern India. The protagonist, George Sansi, is a half-Indian, half-British police detective. Mann's books make it into mass market paperback, so I'm not sure if he qualifies as underappreciated, but I never hear his name mentioned anywhere. Season of the Monsoon and The Burning Ghats are two of his books.

Elizabeth Cosin has a couple of good mysteries with bad titles - Zen and the Art of Murder being one of them. The mysteries are set in LA and star a hard-bitten female detective Zen Moses.

TheBlindHog (#2):I loved Stone City! Unfortunately, the other two books I've read by him, Due North and Karma, were big letdowns ... a couple of recommendations: Colin Harrison writes some very good thrillers, and James Sallis's series starring Lew Griffin are excellent books, although more for their characterizations, etc., than the actual mysteries.

The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem, by Rudolph Fisher is arguably one of the best American detective-novels. It improvises upon and blends conventions of the amateur sleuth, forensic investigation, police procedural, village cozy (Harlem of the '20s is a kind of small town), and ghost story. Dart and Archer are as amusing to see interact as Watson and Holmes. Like Conan Doyle, Fisher was a physician.

#7 ostrom - The Conjure-Man Dies sounds really interesting. I'm definitely going to look for it.