I drive a lot and have to listen to audiobooks to fill the time. I am looking for a mystery book or series. I have NO experience with the genre (I usually prefer fantasy or horror but lately am super into UK-made TV serials about mysteries). I have literally tried a dozen different titles but none of them were bearable.
My wish list includes the following:
1. Decent-level prose — None of that James Patterson bullshit.
2. No superhuman-level detectives or protagonists that became police after, like, being a spy or a highly-trained military operative or a CIA profiler any of that other nonsense. I HATE that. Give me a protagonist who is normal or, even better, a fuck-up. A recovering drunk or a single mother desperately trying to balance work life and home life. Or like when a cop from a large department has to move to a smaller town. I like that.
3. NO I-THOUGHT-I-KNEW-MY-HUSBAND-BUT-THEN-MURDERS garbage!!!!
4. A CAST OF CHARACTERS. Not Special Agent Mary Sue, her gruff but supportive CO and one other agent who’s in love with her, facing off against Obvious Killer, Obvious Killer’s love interest and nameless witnesses 1 through 14.
5. A plot that doesn’t revolve around a serial killer. Serial killers are A. Incredibly rare and B. Not terribly complex. I’m talking a single murder, a discovered body, a missing person, or some other crime that a police officer or detective or lawyer or whatever might conceivably experience.
6. IF POSSIBLE, a story where the protagonist isn’t somehow secretly connected to the crime. “The murder was exactly like the one Detective John Dirk survived when he was a child.” Really? Cool. Then Detective John Dirk shouldn’t be allowed on the case. Detective John Dirk can do traffic detail so he doesn’t invalidate the results of the investigation when it’s time to prosecute.
7. No books where the author insists on giving me the model of the gun and the caliber of the bullets or any of that weird crap. “Samantha Cain drew her Smith-and-Walther X17, the first of its nineteen hollow point .44 rounds already chambered….” Gun. Just say gun. I know what a gun is.
8. When the mystery is unveiled, I want to think, “Well, I didn’t see that coming and am pleasantly suprised.” Not “Well I wouldn’t have guessed that because it’s too stupid.”
Please, please, PLEASE help me out here.
by LouieTwos