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Authors, Fiction, Reading, Reviews

My top ten mystery list

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Photo credit, Getty Images via Unsplash license.

Today is my birthday. Don’t ask which one. If anybody out there wants a birthday, you can have one of mine. I have a lot more than I need.

My friend Hunter Baker, of North Greenville University, has given tongue to the voice of multitudes, thus: “When, oh when,” those multitudes ask, “will Lars Walker offer a Top Ten list of his favorite mystery novels?”

To which I reply, “Why would anybody care what my favorite mystery novels are?”

Nevertheless, the challenge has been delivered, and I shall endeavor to give satisfaction.

First, some clarifications.

This list is not, and does not purport to be, an actual list of Best Books. There are whole swathes (I’ve grown uncertain how to pronounce that word: I’ve always rhymed it with “moths,” but other people rhyme it was “lathes.” Most troubling) of the mystery genre which I’ve rarely or never tried. Especially in the Cozy vein. Many passionate (sometimes frightening) people are devoted to Cozies; I haven’t got the nerve to laugh at them. I’ll just note that Cozy is not my cuppa arsenic-laced tea and, having writ, move on.

Agatha Christie remains, I believe, the most popular mystery writer in the world. I’ve read some Christie, but was not won over. Her focus is on the puzzle, not on the characters. Her readers delight in following clues and trying to figure out whodunnit before the Big Reveal at the end.

Me, I gave up solving mysteries long ago. On the rare occasions when I’m able to outthink the sleuth in a story, it’s usually because the author tipped his/her hand through trying to misdirect me in some way, and I caught him/her at it. I’m a better storyteller than a detective.

I read mysteries mostly to live vicariously through the characters and to observe them acting in extreme situations. I am not a man of action; I’ve managed to cram, I’d estimate, ten or twelve years of living into my three-score and several years of life.

With all this understood, here’s my Top Ten list. Purely personal, biased and subjective. Delivered with no authority whatever.

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Fiction, Reviews

‘Pale Gray for Guilt,’ by John D. MacDonald

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The shape of larceny is, in time, written clearly enough on a man’s face so that it can be read. Constant greed and sharp little deals and steals had left the sign on Preston LaFrance. There is the old saying that God and your folks give you the face you’re born with, but you earn the one you die with.

Ah, the joys of settling down with another Travis McGee novel. Even when author John D. MacDonald’s philosophy rings a little tinny, and the predictions have proven wrong in hindsight, Travis himself remains the best of friends – not only highly entertaining but reliable. Pale Gray for Guilt came out in 1968 and is one of the best in the series.

Tush Bannon is one of Travis McGee’s best old friends from his football days. He’s a big, cheerful, uncomplicated fellow, running a small business, raising a nice family. He has everything Trav can never have unless he alters his lifestyle, and Trav knows it. Then somebody decides to take Tush’s business away, and they take his life along with it. Travis is guilty that he wasn’t there to help. So he makes up his mind to get something back for the widow and the kids. And if a bad guy happens to get in the way of justice, he won’t hesitate to extract some blood too.

With the help of his economist friend Meyer, Trav sets up a neat and appealing con. The author of the book had a business degree from Harvard, and this sting, involving inflating a stock and getting out ahead of the pigeon before it crashes, was a little complex, but convincing. Along the way, McGee and Meyer have ample opportunity to look into the Abyss themselves, and glimpse it looking back at them.

Pale Gray for Guilt has the added element, in retrospect, of setting up a poignant plot element that will only bear fruit years later, in the last book of the series, The Lonely Silver Rain.

An outstanding entry in a classic series, Pale Gray for Guilt gets this reader’s highest recommendation. Cautions for adult situations, somewhat racy for the quaint old days of the 1960s.