February 2009 - If you like mystery novels with a good sense of place, this is the
site for you. There are more than a thousand books for you to browse by place or by author's name,
with links for you to buy or just find out more about the authors. Find new books for your enjoyment, and contribute your
own suggestions of authors you recommend.
I'm doing this site in the first place because it is fun to do (I've read most of the books
by most of the authors in this initial release of the site) and because I'm always looking
for new authors of interest. If other people find it useful and interesting, and particularly
if it brings in some income (through the small referral fees from Amazon), I hope to
expand it with additional features. Adding new authors is easy, so with your help I hope
it can grow regularly.
In addition to my own reading,I have found particularly helpful the "Landscapes of Crime" essays
by G. J. Denko (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gjdemko),
Mystery Novels Around the World (
http://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/booksf/mystery/internat.html, Eurocrime
(http://www.eurocrime.co.uk, Detectives Beyond
Borders (http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com, and
Philip Green's blog entry on the 50 greatest mystery novels (
http://ivecometosay.blogspot.com/2007_02_04_archive.html),
The criteria I am using for including an author are that the author has written several books
set in the same place, and that the place itself contributes to the interest of the book.
Enjoy!
About the editor
See my other websites: http://www.africafocus.org and
http://www.noeasyvictories.org, and, in particular,
http://www.africafocus.org/about.php
Technical Notes
This site is built on a postgresql database of authors, and the pages are generated
with custom php scripts.
About Accents
In general I prefer to put in the proper accents, particularly for author's names.
But in some cases, such as some Nordic accents in particular, that confuses the.Amazon
search engine. So I have reluctantly spelled "Å" as "A," etc. My apologies to
Nordic readers.
Features Added to the Site in March 2009
Cities
Selected cities are now included among places listed, in addition to countries and states.
For example, "C" now includes Chicago as well as Canada, China, and Connecticut.
More details about selected authors
As time permits, I'm adding pages with more details for selected authors,
particularly focusing on those authors I have read (or reread) recently.
I'm including authors with recent new books, classic authors worth rereading,
and less-known authors who deserve more attention. The first ones on the list
are Eric Ambler,
John Harvey, and
Paula L. Woods.
Links to BookMooch
I've added links to the bottom of pages for looking up authors on BookMooch,
an international site for exchanging books. It works this way: you list books you
are willing to give away. You gain a tenth of a point by listing a book, a full point
when you give a book away to someone requesting it. You get books by "mooching" them,
and use up points. Your only cost is postage for the books you give away.
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