Mysteries
Some of our favorite mysteries.
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The Theban Mysteries
by Amanda Cross
Knopf, 1971
Mystery novel, 191 pages
Witty dialogue and literary allusions are the great delight of the Amanda Cross series of mysteries. In The Theban Mysteries, Kate Fansler, university professor of literature and amateur sleuth, interrupts her sabbatical to teach "The Antigone" to high school seniors at her alma mater, an exclusive private school in New York. As Kate and her students discuss the ancient Greek drama, they grapple with questions that are strikingly relevant in this novel's turbulent Vietnam-era setting-how do you weigh the responsibility to obey authority against the dictates of your own conscience? Do you owe greater loyalty to the state or to your brother? Kate uses her scholarly skills to explore these ideas and solve the murder mystery. L.H.
Excerpt
"Writers prefer rear guard battles-the issues are clear and tragic. In life, however, I suspect the important actions, though they will never make an epic, are fought in the beginning before anybody knows what the battle is all about."
"No doubt you're right damn it. If I like the battles which are epic, what is rearguard me doing in a seminar room with the vanguard young? Answer me that."
"What you need," Reed said, "is to go home to bed."
"Not so soon after dinner, as the lady said in 'Private Lives'," Kate responded looking pleased with herself for the first time that evening.
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Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman
Harper Paperbacks, 1990
Mystery novel, 237 pages
Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police Department has the keen sense of a police officer, but often uses his Native knowledge and intuition to solve crimes. He needs both in order to understand the connections among two brutal murders, a disappearing helicopter, an armored car robbery, an attempt on his life, and a kidnapping. Set in the Southwest, this novel describes with beauty and awe the often-mystical land of Wolf-witches, Skinwalkers and Margaret Cigaret, the blind woman who listens to the earth for answers to the troubles of her people. It is a great scenic ride on a tour of mystery and suspense. J.M.
Excerpt
Listening Woman sprinkled the pollen carefully over the shoulders of Hosteen Tso, chanting in low, melodic Navajo. From the cheekbone to the scalp, the left side of the old man's face was painted blue-black. Another patch of blackness covered his bony rib cage over his heart. Above that, the colorful figure of the Rainbow Man arched over Tso's chest from nipple to nipple-painted by Anna Atcitty in the ritual tints of blue, yellow, green and gray. He held his wiry body straight in the chair, his face stiff with sickness, patience and suppressed pain. Listening Woman's chant rose abruptly in volume. "In beauty it is finished," she sang. "In beauty it is finished."
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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Warner Books, 1980
Novel, 601 pages
It is 1327. Mysterious and terrible murders are happening at the monastery of Melk. But this is more than a murder mystery. Based on a fourteenth century memoir written by Adso of Melk (also the novel's narrator), it is a historical novel with a wealth of details about medieval times. It is also a story written for the love of books and scholarship.
After extensive and sometimes frustrating research author Eco said, "I am full of doubts. I really don't know why I have decided to pluck up my courage and present, as if it were authentic, the manuscript of Adso of Melk. Let us say it is an act of love."
The Name of the Rose may be the most scholarly mystery novel ever written. Do not be discouraged by the first one hundred pages. They are extremely complicated. The Italian author has said to think of them as a small penance for the pleasure of the ensuing five hundred pages. The novel is a page turner, but be prepared to turn the pages forward and backward as part of a strenuous exercise for the mind. N.P.
Excerpt
Having reached the end of my poor sinner's life, my hair now whiteconfined now with my heavy, ailing body in this cell in the dear monastery of Melk, I prepare to leave on this parchment my testimony as to the wondrous and terrible events that I happened to observe in my youthand may my hand remain steady as I prepare to tell what happened.
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The Locked Room by Paul Auster
Sun and Moon Press, 1986
Mystery novel, 179 pages
Fanshawe, the boyhood friend of the nameless narrator, has disappeared and left behind his wife Sophie and an unborn child, boxes full of manuscripts, and instructions to contact the narrator should something happen to him. A search for the missing friend immerses the narrator in the hidden details of an unknown life and leads him on an odyssey into the depths of his own psyche. C.W
Except
Fanshawe's praise, therefore, left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I knew that he was wrong. On the other hand (and this is where it gets murky), I wanted to believe that he was right. I thought: is it possible that I've been too hard on myself? And once I began to think that, I was lost. But who wouldn't jump at the chance to redeem himself-what man is strong enough to reject the possibility of hope? The thought flickered through me that I could one day be resurrected in my own eyes, and I felt a sudden burst of friendship for Fanshawe across the years, across all the silence of the years that had kept us apart.
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Shattered Moon by Kate Green
Dell Books, 1986
Mystery novel, 352 pages
Theresa Fortunato is a Tarot reading psychic whose visions help solve the mystery of several brutal murders. As her visions lead her and the police deeper into the crimes, Theresa confuses her own troubled past with the facts of the murder case, resulting in a complex, psychological story. In addition, author Green uses the technique in which the psychotic killer narrates his own story, intertwining this interior monologue with the rest of the narration. Finally, we reach a hair-raising climax complete with a shoot-out and victims hanging over ocean ledges. Shattered Moon is an exciting, intelligent mystery that gets the reader into the thoughts of a deranged killer. It is a book that pulls the reader along, even those who are not usually mystery fans. R.T.
Excerpt
I get confused out here in the world. Too many people. Streets go every which way and the houses all have windows like eyes eyes eyes and the people walk after you. They're spies. They know and they know. Like the nurses white and good, they always seemed to know. Aren't we feeling good today? Aren't we bad? Let's settle down now in our bed. It's only your head, my dear. You're dead. Oh, dying could be so quiet and white.
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Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
translated from Danish by Tiina Nunnaly
Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1993
Novel, 453 pages
Smilla Jasperson, part Inuit Greenlander, part Dane, is 37, single, a student of mathematics, and an outfitter and guide for expeditions to Greenland. She is a tough, if unlikely, heroine of few words but with a rich, inner thought life. She becomes entangled in international intrigue when the circumstances surrounding the death in Copenhagen of an Inuit child she has befriended arouse her suspicions. Her knowledge of snow and ice involves her in an attempt to unravel the mystery in Copenhagen, and leads her to the exciting conclusion in the Sea of Fog off the icy coast of Greenland. J.G.
Excerpt
I'm not perfect. I think more highly of snow and ice than love. It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings. But I am anchored to something in life that is constant. You can call it a sense of orientation; you can call it woman's intuition; you can call it whatever you like. I'm standing on a foundation and have no farther to fall. It could be that I haven't managed to organize my life very well. But I always have a grip-with at least one finger at a time-on Absolute Space.
That's why there's a limit to how far the world can twist out of joint, and to how badly things can go before I find out. I now know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is wrong.
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