Here are 100 books that The Mystery of the Blue Train fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mystery of the Blue Train.
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I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
What’s not to love about this? I first experienced The Big Sleep by viewing the classic Humphrey Bogart movie, and while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, I admit I was a bit perplexed over some of the plot points.
Reading the book cleared up some, but not all, of my confusion, and yet it’s a book I would read again and again. The classic 1930s setting of Los Angeles and Hollywood, the noir elements, and the hard-boiled detective, Phillip Marlowe, are an unbeatable combination in my mind.
Raymond Chandler's first three novels, published here in one volume, established his reputation as an unsurpassed master of hard-boiled detective fiction.
The Big Sleep, Chandler's first novel, introduces Philip Marlowe, a private detective inhabiting the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s, as he takes on a case involving a paralysed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder.
In Farewell, My Lovely, Marlowe deals with the gambling circuit, a murder he stumbles upon, and three very beautiful but potentially deadly women.
In The High Window, Marlowe searches the California underworld for a priceless gold coin and finds himself…
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 grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
I admit I was drawn to this book because of the author.
I grew up, as many did, reading all the beloved Winnie the Pooh stories by A.A. Milne, so when I discovered he had penned a murder mystery, I was curious. A large house, a murder, compelling characters, and subtle clues kept me reading until the very end. A clever who-done-it mystery with a satisfying ending.
The Red House Mystery (1922) is a detective novel by A.A. Milne. Known more for his series of Winnie-the-Pooh stories and poems for children, Milne also wrote novels and plays for adults, including this successful whodunnit. The Red House Mystery, Milne's only detective novel, was highly successful upon publication and is noted for its use of an amateur sleuth as well as its intricate, puzzle-like plot. Despite earning the ire of Raymond Chandler, Milne's novel was reprinted in the U.S. and in Britain numerous times.
At his house in the English countryside, Mark Ablett hosts a small party of…
I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
I have long held a fascination with the Sherlock Holmes stories, and this one was no exception.
Set in England in the early 1900s, it captures the feel of that period perfectly. I found the story and the mystery to be gripping and compelling, and Holmes was his usual brilliant self, while Watson bumbled along.
I found it a delightful and quick read, and as is often the case, far better than any of the film adaptations because it goes into more depth than a movie ever reasonably could.
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, his face distorted with shock and horror, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are faced with a sinister and difficult puzzle. A fearsome creature stalks the wild and barren hills of Dartmoor. Is it a demon from the spirit world? Will it defeat their skill and courage? Who is the tall, mysterious figure seen lurking on the moor at night? Can Holmes save Sir Henry, the new owner of Baskerville Hall, from the ancient family curse? Or will the terrifying hound claim yet another victim?
What Happened to Frank? is the first book in the Meg Sheppard Mystery Series. Meg is an amateur sleuth who owns racehorses and lives on a horse farm. Her beloved border collie, Kelly, is usually at Meg's side as she investigates murders and solves other mysteries. The books are action-packed…
I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
From the first chapter, I was drawn in by the descriptions and setting of 1938 in Europe, on the brink of World War II.
So many interesting and multifaceted characters! The mystery was also intriguing to me, and I found the puzzles and clues well-placed and engaging, keeping me guessing until the final reveal.
A luxury train, stranded on a legendary viaduct in the Alps, with a murderer on board.The Bernina Express, 1938. As Europe holds its breath for the Munich Conference, a disparate group of passengers boards the legendary alpine train: a nervous English courier, a sharp Hungarian journalist, a formidable British aunt and her niece, a mysterious Italian Contessa and her new companion, and two German “art historians” who are clearly something else. When a sudden rockfall strands the train high on the breathtaking Alpine Landwasser Viaduct, the isolation turns deadly. A passenger is found stabbed in his compartment, an empty satchel…
From early adolescence through my career as an English professor, I was deeply drawn to romance and romantic fiction as a form of pleasure, comfort, and hope. My new book is personal and intimate, not scholarly. Weaving together my expertise in the subject of romance fiction with the story of passionate love in my own life, my book Loveland: A Memoir of Romance and Fiction is about the experiences I've had, inside the culture of romance in which women are immersed. I have a view of passion that is not a conventional one as I trace a way forward for myself, and perhaps others as well.
A male author describing the adulterous passions of an unhappy woman, Flaubert tears into Madame Bovary as superficial and ridiculously narcissistic. Yet Flaubert was a terrific writer and also shows how empty and purposeless the restricted life of a middle-class woman was in his time–not poor enough to be preoccupied with surviving, but not rich enough to lead a glamorous life. It’s not like Emma Bovary can go to law school!
Flaubert’s dissection of Emma’s forbidden love life is brilliant. It’s downright painful to see Emma’s hopes and fantasies when the men in her life take what they want from her, and she pours all she has into them. I can relate.
Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of a married woman's affair caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. Its heroine, Emma Bovary, is stifled by provincial life as the wife of a doctor. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations, the consequences are devastating. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for…
“I didn’t like the characters.” “I couldn’t relate.” Whenever I hear someone bring up the matter of “likability” a single thought roars through my head: How ‘likable’ do you really think you are? A main purpose of fiction is to illuminate those nasty thoughts we all have but are rarely willing to admit. A book should be intimate, uncomfortably so, just as to actually occupy another person’s mind and body would be. It also seems to me “the characters” referenced by these kinds of critiques are always women. We expect fictional men to shock us and to struggle with their own desires; why should we expect women to only charm?
Our protagonist, Adèle, is a sex addict in a sexless marriage, longing to escape the quotidian boredom of motherhood. Her desires are clear. “She wants to be devoured, sucked, swallowed whole.” She also wants to not want this. The interesting question the novel poses indirectly: What do we want of this character? Slimani (of The Perfect Nanny fame) writes so deliciously about Adèle’s desires the answer is clear—we long to watch Adèle falter, we want to hear every terrible thought in her head.
"Fascinating . . . Adele has glanced at the covenant of modern womanhood--the idea that you can have it all or should at least die trying--and detonated it." --The New York Times Book Review
"[A] fierce, uncanny thunderbolt of a book." --Entertainment Weekly
From the bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny--one of the 10 Best Books of the Year of The New York Times Book Review--as well as Sex and Lies and In the Country of Others, her prizewinning novel about a sex-addicted woman in Paris
A traditional mystery with a touch of cozy, The Alchemy Fire Murder is for those who like feisty women sleuths, Oxford Colleges, alchemy, strong characters, and real concerns like trafficking, wildfires, racism, and climate change. This book especially works for those fascinated by myth and witches in history. Read for…
I think Zoroastrianism got it right: there's a constant knife-edge balance between good and evil, with neither quite winning; but we shouldn't be overconfident that one day that balance will tip to the bad side because that is always more dominant. Art in all forms has served dictators and tyrants as well as criticised them; few works have ever actually changed anything. If they have, it's been through literature most of all. Zola's 'j'accuse' and Sinclair's 'the jungle' are two obvious examples, but all the books I have chosen are powerful tools for self–examination, and as someone who is particularly interested in man's inhumanity to man I have found them useful.
I think this is a better book than MME Bovary. It's quite in the tradition of Marivaudage but Flaubert has such a light though ruthless touch that at times you just don't know where your sympathies lie. If Flaubert has been a surgeon he's have been an expert with the smallest, finest scalpels! His technique stands in great contrast to the work of Hugo and Zola, and he certainly outmanoeuvres Balzac! I often wish he'd written more, but what he's left us is pure gold. You might like to compare this book with Fontane's Effi Briest – another stunning novel–of–manners. I was hard put to it to make a choice between these two novels for my 4th choice.
"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation—or, more accurately, the history of their feelings," declared Gustave Flaubert, who envisioned "a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays—that is to say, inactive." First published in 1869, this novel fulfills Flaubert's conception with a realistic, ironic portrait of bourgeois lives played out against France's tumultuous revolution of 1848 and the founding of its Second Empire. Frédéric Moreau, a law student in Paris, dreams of achieving success in art, business, journalism, and politics. His aspirations take a romantic turn upon a chance…
I’ve always been fascinated by the failed revolutions of the 19th century and by the romantic socialists, democrats, and nationalists who made these revolutions. I think I have a better understanding of their world and the forces that brought them down than I have of the world I live in. But I do find in their writings remarkable echoes of my own fears and hopes about the future of democracy today.
This novel is both the story of an unconsummated love affair and an account of the experience and imaginative life of the generation of young people who came to maturity around 1840 and whose lives were either broken or redirected by the revolution of 1848.
Flaubert takes great care to establish a counterpoint between the collapse of political ideals in 1848 and the collapse of the dreams of the individual characters. But Sentimental Education can also be considered as a work of history that brings the past to life and, in the end, offers a deep and, in some ways, sympathetic picture of the inability of individuals to shape history or their own lives, in a world ruled by elemental forces that elude understanding.
A fresh and vivid translation of Flaubert's influential bildungsroman
Gustave Flaubert conceived Sentimental Education, his final complete novel, as the history of his own generation, one that failed to fulfill the promise of the Revolution of 1848. Published a few months before the start of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, it offers both a sweeping panorama of French society over three decades and an intimate bildungsroman of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris when protests against the monarchy are increasing.
The novel's protagonist, Frederic Moreau, alternates between aimlessness and ambition as he searches for a…
I have been a Francophile for as long as I can remember. Something about France and French literature grabbed me by the heart when I was a young man and continues to do so. I’ve lived in France twice–a year each time–and have written about those experiences in books and essays. It’s 19th-century French literature that especially draws me and has deeply influenced my own writing.
Most people declare Madame Bovary to be their favorite Flaubert novel. I don’t dispute its greatness, but I find this book, published in 1869, twelve years after Madame Bovary, to be the master at his most illuminating and embracing.
Set against the revolution of 1848, the hero, Frédéric Moreau, falls helplessly in love with a married woman. I identify—not with the love of a married woman—with Moreau’s life and times as a young artist living among others like him in Paris. He and his fellow artists live their bohemian lives with ardor and hope, and the passion of youth and creativity flows wonderfully through the book.
'For certain men the stronger their desire, the less likely they are to act.'
With his first glimpse of Madame Arnoux, Frederic Moreau is convinced he has found his romantic destiny, but when he pursues her to Paris the young student is unable to translate his passion into decisive action. He also finds himself distracted by the equally romantic appeal of political action in the turbulent years leading up to the revolution of 1848, and by the attractions of three other women, each of whom seeks to make him her own: a haughty society lady, a capricious courtesan, and an…
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…
I fell in love with opera history as an undergraduate exchange student in Vienna and went on to pursue my passion in graduate school. Rather than writing about opera composers and their music, I chose the unusual path of studying famous singers from the nineteenth century, especially the prima donnas who exerted extraordinary authority over composers, theater directors, and spectators. In my books and articles, I focus on the power of divas to thrill audiences and to shape the musical culture of which they are an integral part. The books I am recommending explore the lives and careers of some of the most fascinating prima donnas of the nineteenth century.
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was one of the most celebrated prima donnas of the nineteenth century, but she was much more than a typical diva. She was also one of the most versatile artists of the era, a talented composer, arranger, teacher, autograph collector, entrepreneur, salonnière, and promoter of early music. While fictionalized, this novel sticks closely to historical events of her life, focusing on her marriage to Louis Viardot, her long-lasting affair with Russian author Ivan Turgenev, and the unconventional and loving bonds that formed between these three extraordinary artists. If you’re looking for historical fiction about one of the most fascinating divas of the nineteenth century, An Unofficial Marriage is a great choice.
For Fans of Alexander Chee's best-selling novel, The Queen of the Night and opera fans everywhere.
Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous events of 19th century Europe, An Unofficial Marriage dramatizes the equally tumultuous real-life love affair of two great artists—the famous Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, and the celebrated French opera singer, Pauline Viardot. From the moment he encounters her on the St. Petersburg stage, Ivan falls completely for Pauline. Though Pauline returns his feelings, she is bound by her singular passion for her art and her devotion to her gentle, older husband, Louis. Nevertheless, Ivan pursues Pauline across…
