mystery/suspense with literary edge

Check out Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey books.

Her level of education boggles my public school drone mind, and it shines in her writings.

A quote from Gaudy Night that covers her experience as a highly literate, classically educated mystery writer:

Miss Burrows: Excuse my saying so, Miss Vane, but given your own terrible experience, I wonder that you should still decide to write the sort of books you do.

Harriet Vane: You're saying that anyone with proper feelings would rather scrub floors for a living? Well, I should scrub floors very badly, and I write mysteries rather well.

I loved Gaudy Night. Loved all the Wimsey novels, but especially that one. So many vivid images. And such an interesting, sophisticated struggle between those two people before both gave in to their feelings and committed to the relationship.

I never read her for the mystery, but for the characters and language.

And it pissed me off no end that she spent the last ten years of her life and career writing "serious" books rather than more Lord Peter novels.

Dammit.

The Athenian Mysteries by Jose Carlos Somoza is a great example. Also Luther Blissett's Q.

Anything by P D James--her later ones are more literary than her earlier books. Wonderful stuff.

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. Loved it!

David Peace's Red Riding trilogy is amazing too.

gothicangel said:

David Peace's Red Riding trilogy is amazing too.

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Quartet now

A lot of the highly literary M/T/S fly in from the UK: I concur with Dorothy L. Sayers and P.D. James as being a cut above but would add the brilliant Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse) and Reginald Hill (Pascoe and Dalziel) to the list.

Nicholas Freeling's books featuring Inspector van der Valk, but especially those featuring Henri Castang are as literary as genre can get.

From the USA, I doubt there's anyone that can tackle Laurie R. King for her scholarship in both her series, one featuring Mary Russell and especially her Kate Martinelli books.

Melville said:

Quartet now

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Duh! I swear I've read all four (and not just the tv drama!)

gothicangel said:

Duh! I swear I've read all four (and not just the tv drama!)

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You may well have!... I'm waiting for my copy of the latest, due in Feb. 2010. As I live in the US, we get the UK novels a bit later than you lucky folks.

The entire series spans a full decade:
1974
1977
1980
1983
And I, too, would heartedly recommend these books.

And, IT'S BEEN DRAMATIZED! Hooray! Maybe we'll get to see that, too

Try Laura Lippman's stand-alones (Every Secret Thing, What The Dead Know). Definitely more on the literary side. I think both of Gillian Flynn's novels are considered literary suspense. I just finished Dark Places and was blown away. It's gritty and a bit gruesome, so not recommended if you prefer lighter fare. I also think Nancy Pickard's Virgin Of The Small Plains probably qualifies as literary mystery/suspense.

"Literary edges" are overrated.

Lisa Unger's thrillers tend to have a 'literary' feel to them. Great writing.

JJ

I'd also recommend Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine from the UK. Ruth Rendell is crime drama, but always very understated and subtle, and when she writes as Barbara Vine it's darker and more psychological. My favourite Ruth Rendell is Adam and Eve and Pinch Me and Barbara Vine is The Blood Doctor.

Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series has a literate and philosophical edge (the main character is an academic philisopher)
They are not fast paced, but are interesting and complex.

Any of Dennis Lehane's Kenzie/Gennaro novels:

A Drink Before the War
Darkness, Take My Hand
Sacred
Gone, Baby, Gone
Prayers for Rain

He's a fabulous writer.

Rebecca