Here are 100 books that Death in a Tenured Position fans have personally recommended if you like
Death in a Tenured Position.
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I’m a medieval historian, and I’ve written academic books and articles about the history of the medieval world, but I have also written two historical novels. I became interested in history in general and the Middle Ages in particular from reading historical fiction as a child (Jean Plaidy!). The past is another country, and visiting it through fiction is an excellent way to get a feel for it, for its values, norms, and cultures, for how it is different from and similar to our own age. I’ve chosen novels that I love that do this especially well, and bring to light less well-known aspects of the Middle Ages.
It is difficult to imagine a list of great novels about the Middle Ages that does not include this book.
I read it first when I was in graduate school, and it brought so much of what I was studying to life – the monastic world of its setting with all its contradictions and spectacular architecture; fights over religion and the true nature of spirituality; the non-linear nature of medieval literature.
I love how it can be read on one level as a page-turny murder mystery and on another as a post-modern novel that explores the nature of signs and meaning. Its mystificatory preface reveals the distance between the medieval world and what we can say about it.
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.
William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.
A big-city journalist joins the staff of a small-town paper in cottage country and finds a community full of secrets … and murder.
Cat Conway has recently returned to Port Ellis to work as a reporter at the Quill & Packet. She’s fled the tattered remains of her high-profile career…
My whole family shared a love for classic British mysteries, especially light-hearted, witty ones. With the enduring popularity of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, people sometimes forget there were lots of other great writers from the “golden age” of mysteries. I first found most of these books on my parents’ bookshelves when I was a bored teenager growing up in snowy central Maine. Several of the paperbacks were so well-worn the cellophane was peeling off their covers. For me, reading classic mysteries is like listening to Mozart—they are endlessly stirring and fascinating, and in the end, order is restored, and all is right with the world.
This book is one of my favorite mysteries of all time. It addresses one of the great unsolved mysteries in English history: Did Richard III kill the princes in the tower? Tey’s sleuth, Alan Grant, is a dogged investigator, and, in the hospital with a broken leg, he treats this historical mystery like a contemporary murder. His step-by-step investigation pulled me in and convinced me that Richard Plantagenet has been mistreated by history.
Miss Tey is so convincing that she inspired me to write the (very innocent) ghost of Richard III into one of my own mystery novels after the monarch’s body was found under a Midlands car park in 2012.
_________________________ Josephine Tey's classic novel about Richard III, the hunchback king whose skeleton was famously discovered in a council car park, investigates his role in the death of his nephews, the princes in the Tower, and his own death at the Battle of Bosworth.
Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the…
I’ve always thought that the most clear-eyed, unforgiving observers in literature are teenagers, not because adolescence is simple (it’s the opposite), but because young people haven’t yet learned to shrug and look away. The novels I've chosen here all have central characters who see the adult world's failures, hypocrisies, and prejudices with a directness that most of us gradually lose; and they all use coming of age as a way to confront a world that is already, in some fundamental way, broken – by grief, violence, or the gap between what adults promise and what they deliver. Those are exactly the themes I love to write about.
I’ve always been fascinated by strange social enclaves and secretive, sealed-off, private worlds, and this book has both.
But in fact, the thing I admire most here is the sense of place and atmosphere. Tartt writes with a lush, immersive style which I found is increasingly compelling as the book went on.
Using a murder as the gateway drug to what’s really a literary fiction character study is both sneaky and brilliant: I was hooked by the story in the first chapter, but once I’d finished the book, it was Richard’s voice, those eerie characters, their strange insular co-dependency, and the biting Vermont winter landscape that really stayed with me.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
The second in the new series featuring amateur sleuth Imogene Durant, a retired professor of Comparative Literature. This time she’s in Ireland, and in the right place to help out when her friend’s daughter is implicated for murder.
I am a literary critic and novelist, now serving as a Dean at Drexel University. I’ve written several modernized spin-offs of Jane Austen’s novels and several, including a YA novel, dealing with Shakespeare. What Alice Knew is my only thriller/mystery—and it was a painstaking labor of love to write. (I also wrote a nonfiction book on Hitchcock.) I am a great fan of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, and the idea for What Alice Knew grew out of my wanting to put the bedridden Alice James (a life-long invalid) in the position of Wolfe, with her brothers Henry and William serving as two versions of the legman, Archie Goodwin.
This is Eliot’s last novel about an ostensible British aristocrat’s journey to uncovering his real identity. Often referred to as Eliot’s “Jewish novel,” it reflects her unerring ability to empathize with the Other. It is very long but also un-put-downable, with two interwoven plots that complement each other masterfully. It’s at once a conventional 19th-century novel and an entirely original and surprising take on the genre. As a Jew with a love of nineteenth-century British novels, this one spoke to me most powerfully.
As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses everything and becomes trapped in an oppressive marriage, Deronda's fortunes take a different turn. After a dramatic encounter with the young Jewish woman Mirah, he becomes involved in a search for her lost family and finds himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with Jewish aspirations and identity. 'I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else', wrote George…
Most of my mysteries fall somewhere on a humor continuum from laugh-out-loud to edgy. Because of the tone and lack of graphic sex or violence, they are often labeled as “cozies.” But all humorous mysteries are not cozies. To explain the different types of humor, I developed a matrix of five categories—kooky, comic, amusing, edgy, and dark. I’ve done numerous guest posts on my matrix, identifying authors from each category and discussing why readers are drawn to different types of humor based on brain dominance profiles and personality types. I also refer to my matrix and the nature of branding when discussing the function of humor in mysteries.
The opening scene in this first in the series is one of the funniest I’ve ever read. I also like the character of “Izzy” Spellman, a twelve-year-old with attitude issues and a need to prove herself.
Although their dysfunctional family would drive me crazy if I were a part of it, I find the Spellman Investigations the perfect vehicle for occasionally dark humor and twisted plots.
From the award-winning author of The Passenger comes the first novel in the hilarious Spellman Files mystery series featuring Isabel “Izzy” Spellman (part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry) and her highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators.
Meet Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors—but the upshot is she’s good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family’s firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people’s privacy…
I’ve been fascinated by crime since I was young, at first reading historical true crime and then reading widely in the crime fiction genre. What intrigues me about crime is the sense of the world being broken, and although the perpetrator might be caught and punished, their actions forever change the world. I was a member of a crime book group that focused on crime novels, and I’ve reviewed a number of true crime books. I’ve also attended and spoken at the Bristol Crime Fest–an annual festival of crime writing. I regularly give talks on crime writing and how, as a crime writer, I go about picking the perfect poison.
I love the character of Kinsey Millhone because she’s so human and relatable. Her life is messy; she gets herself caught up in situations where she knows she ought to let things drop but just can’t let them go, and she has a kind heart. She also has the endearing quality of being self-deprecating and not taking herself too seriously.
This book is set in the 1980s, and I enjoy seeing Kinsey’s legwork to solve her case without the benefit of mobile phones or the internet. I also love her relationship with her elderly neighbor and how protective she is of him when she feels that new people in the neighborhood are taking advantage of him.
X is the New York Times number 1 bestseller and thrilling, twenty-fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series from Sue Grafton.
In hindsight, I marvel at how clueless I was . . . What I ask myself even now is whether I should have picked up the truth any faster than I did, which is to say not fast enough . . .
When a glamorous red head wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption thirty-two years ago, it seems like an easy two hundred bucks for private investigator Kinsey Millhone. But when a cop tells…
I’m a multi-genre writer who loves hearing the characters’ voices and getting their stories out there in the world. A lot of my characters are shaped by their gifts, whether they have supernatural ones or not. The things that happen to them shape who they are and how they react to future events. I exist on sarcasm, sass, and hot tea, so many of my characters do too.
It’s been a while since I read this book, but I remember thinking every place described felt real. It hits all the right notes of thriller with a fallible yet strong heroine who gets the job done, sometimes at great personal cost. Michael is as close to a shapeshifter as normal humans can be. She can become anybody. (Content warning – contains strong language)
Governments pay her. Criminals fear her. Nobody sees her coming.
Vanessa “Michael” Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running. After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in…
I am a British crime writer with a love of American crime fiction, particularly books with dark plots and quirky, unique characters. I am the author of the Sunday Times bestselling, multiple award-winning, Washington Poe series and the new Ben Koenig series but am first a reader—I read over a hundred books a year. I love discovering a new-to-me series that has a back catalogue for me to work through, and I appreciate recommendations. I’ve been a full-time author since 2015 and, as I suspected, it’s my dream job.
Although many fans consider Crais’s preceding book, L.A. Requiem, to be his masterpiece, I’ve chosen this because it perfectly encapsulates the relationship between flamboyant Elvis Cole and his partner, the enigmatic Joe Pike.
Pike is the ultimate sidekick. He’s taciturn, monosyllabic, and extremely complex. Dangerous as hell and completely loyal to Cole and anyone in Cole’s life; he’s taken bullets, knives—a whole bunch of weapons during the nineteen-book series.
In The Last Detective, the son of Cole’s girlfriend gets kidnapped and the evidence points to Cole’s service in Vietnam. Cole’s first call isn’t to the LAPD, it’s to Joe Pike. His message: ‘Joe, I’m scared.’ Pike drops everything and together they start hunting...
Pike is the third sidekick on my list to get his own series.
'THE LAST DETECTIVE is literally a thrill-a-minute read. Crais is on top form, which, believe me, is about as good as it gets. Don't miss it' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'The narrative is taut, the menace palpable, the suspense unbearable' DAILY TELEGRAPH
Elvis Cole has got a problem to solve - and this time it's personal.
Elvis Cole's girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town, and she has left her young son Ben in Elvis's care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately - not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be…
I'm the author of The Lake Pines Mystery Series, as well as a multi-genre-inspired reader and writer. The story is what motivates my interest and captivates my attention. From my early fascination with Nancy Drew that drove me straight into my love of Agatha Christie, I'm passionately drawn to the traditional whodunnit murder mystery genre. I love creating red herrings and revel in the ‘ah-ha’ moments that give the reader pause and enjoyment. As a writer, I wanted to bring stories to life – to entertain and inform. Through murder mysteries I hope to give readers of this genre the satisfaction of a good ending, layered characters, and a good whodunnit.
It was 1887 when the world was introduced to Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson. Since then, Sherlock Holmes has been synonymous with solving the unsolvable crime. Uniquely presented, Sherlock Holmes’ adventures take the reader on a mind-bending journey as clues are revealed and entertaining characters are introduced. I recommend this entire collection because they will be stories you read more than once.
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories contains, in two volumes, all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s world-famous detective.
Volume I includes the novels and stories that introduced the brilliant and unflappable Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Dr. Watson, to the world. A Study in Scarlet is a drama of long-simmering revenge that ranges from the fog-bound streets of London to the pioneer settlements of Utah. The Sign of Four weaves together a stolen treasure from India, poison darts, and double-crossing thieves, while The Hound of the Baskervilles sets the legend of a…
I’m a retired surgeon and have no expertise in espionage, law enforcement, or the legal system. But I enjoy thriller novels that feature these things, and I follow the adage, “Write what you like to read.” But I do have medical/surgical expertise and have followed another adage: “Write what you know,” so I have inserted medical situations into many of my stories and one of my published books is a medical thriller. What I like about thrillers is the ability to show each side of the conflict. The good guys against the bad guys, neither side knowing what the other is doing. But the reader knows, and this adds to the suspense.
Like with Robert Crais’s Cole/Pike buddy novels, Coben has a number of books featuring the teamwork of two “good” guys—Myron Bolitar, former pro-basketball candidate and now a literary/sports agent who somehow gets involved in solving mysteries; Win Lockwood, a business tycoon you don’t want to mess with physically. What makes this book stand out is that a line is crossed in the adventure, one that had not occurred in their previous collaborations and one that could affect their lifelong friendship.
Sometimes the ugliest truth is better than the prettiest of lies... From the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author of SIX YEARS.
A beautiful woman walking into Myron Bolitar's office asking for help should have been a dream come true. Only this woman, Suzze T, is in tears - and eight months pregnant...
Suzze's rock star husband has disappeared, and she fears the rumours questioning her baby's paternity have driven him away. For Myron, questions of fatherhood couldn't hit closer to home. His own father is clinging precariously to life, and the brother who abandoned the family years ago has resurfaced -…
