McGee did not like Mona Fox Yeoman. She seemed artificial, self-important. She was provocative rather than seductive, a dare more than a desire. She made a man want to shake her up, to mat that twenty-five-dollar hairdo and know that lady-of-the-manor style of hers on its can.

Not McGee.

Oh how I love a good mystery. After a childhood spent deep in the thrall of the Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, the Three Investigators and Harriet the Spy, I was primed and ready for the wonder that is Travis McGee when I hit high school. Lately I have been tracking down the original paperbacks, not only for sheer joy of rereading them but also for the delight of the back cover copy. These stories never get old and McGee will always and forever be a crime fiction icon.

In terms of contemporary authors I am currently burning - and I mean BURNING - through Martin Limon's The Wandering Ghost. This NCIS-type procedural set in Korea during the early 1970s is fantastic. It is the fifth in the Sueno/Bascom series following two agents with the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Div. Ghost starts with a missing female MP and spirals out from there to include the black market and the weight of the US presence in South Korea -especially when it comes to US soldiers committing crimes in Korea and being tried by US military courts. (Does that sound familiar?) Limon does such an outstanding job of meshing the investigation into the lives of Koreans who live near the DMZ (where the MP was stationed) that readers will likely get their first glimpse of that tense region of the world. All that atmosphere doesn't count for squat though if the mystery is no good. In this case (my first Sueno/Bascom novel), I am as caught up now as I was from the very beginning. With only fifty pages left, the picture is coming into focus but I still don't know who did what and why. This is an excellent story and for fans of police procedurals I highly recommend the series.

I reviewed Matt Benyon Rees' first Omar Yussef mystery, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, earlier this year and was completely absorbed by this story of a teacher who is drawn into the criminal elements of Gaza against his will. All the insane politics of the region (Israeli vs Palestinian, Muslim vs Christian, Palestinian vs Palestinian, criminal vs innocent) are explored by Rees alongside an incredibly indepth discussion of good vs evil and what one man must do to preserve the innocence of others. It was so well done - so smartly written - and I was thoroughly impressed. The second book, A Grave in Gaza, is due out in February - buy the first as a gift now and let your reader know they can grab the second shortly. (Or be a real peach and preorder it so it arrives as soon as its out!)

Jenny D. would want me to mention Australian author Peter Temple, whose latest, The Broken Shore, is out now in the US. (Read her brief interview with him.) I have the book sitting right here beside me and plan to include it in a review of mysteries for the spring issue of Eclectica. Here's a bit of what Jenny had to say about it:

Temple is an amazing stylist: I have commented before on his charming way with a hyphen ("The vinegary couple from the newsagency were in their shop doorway, mouths curving southwards. Triple-bypassed Bruce of the video shop was beside saturated-fat dealer Meryl, the fish and chip shop owner") and his excellent use of technical vocabulary and his general all-round greatness, see here and here for previous posts. His writing's also extremely funny (in a dry way amidst lots of violence and general dark-night-of-the-soul atmosphere), and he brings to fiction a top-quality journalist's understanding of the workings of money and power and land and the seamy side of human nature. But they're also great books about family and depression and despair (aren't they sounding cheery? No, really, they are the most delightful books) and the protagonists are curiously endearing, they make human bonds in spite of their jaundiced view of the world. I guess the thing that blows me away is what an all-rounder Temple is as a fiction writer (plus his writing's perfectly to my taste, I know some people like more extravagance but I prefer things that look deceptively plain at first glance): he's good at character and dialogue and description and sentence-writing and plot and setting and intellectual heft and politics and just EVERYTHING.

I wrote earlier this fall about the wonder that is Saskia Noort's The Dinner Club. My mom just read it and loved it, so you can chalk that one up as a generation-spanning wonder for anyone interested in the chaos and confusion of suburbia (albeit Dutch suburbia but still....) My formal (and very positive) review will run next month at Eclectica.

On the kid front I continue to look for some great YA mysteries, but for the younger crowd (8-12) I heartily recommend the Gilda Joyce and Enola Holmes series, both of which are smart and fun. (Enola actually skews a bit older and early teens who like historical mysteries will love it.) There is also a new young Sherlock Holmes series that just started - the first book is The Eye of the Crow. I reviewed it for a piece on historical fiction that will be in the winter Eclectica next month. It has a level of excitement and danger that certainly lends itself to edge-of-your-seat reading; I enjoyed it a lot.

I reviewed several mysteries for kids in the current issue of Eclectica and there are several good ideas for readers there. I also heartily recommend Thomas and Dorothy Hoobler's Samurai mystery series which I adore. Every one of those titles has been a winner.

You can read my entries from the last two Christmas lists on mysteries here and here.

Finally if you are in the neighborhood for a poetry anthology go take a look at what Kelly Fineman has to say about The Poet's Corner, which comes complete with a CD. And Jules is writing about holiday titles for kids over at Seven Imps - her first entry is up now and sounds delightful.

[Opening quote from A Purple Place For Dying, by John D. MacDonald.]