Having read mysteries for many years – and owning about 6,000 private eye novels, librarian Gary Niebuhr has written this reader’s guide primarily to help librarians in the reader’s advisory role in their jobs. Niebuhr has reviewed mysteries for years in a variety of sources. His credits include A Reader’s Guide to the Private Eye Novel (G.K. Hall, 1993), and one volume of the Reader’s Guides to Mystery Novels, published by G.K. Hall in the mid‐ to late‐1990s.
The first part of the book provides a history of mystery fiction, an analysis of the elements of mystery fiction that keep readers coming back for more, and some ideas about developing and building a mystery collection. The second part is devoted to the literature – approximately 2,500 titles with publication dates through 2002 – classified by lead character type. Niebuhr’s three main character types are the amateur detective, the public detective – the police, and the private detective. He begins each section with a brief discussion of the kind of detective, then subdivides each section, listing authors and their books with a brief annotation for each book. Authors are subdivided by series character. An indication of whether the book is soft‐boiled or cosy (little violence, a society that is ordered, and the solution of the crime is the primary focus of the story), hard‐boiled (lots of violence with the emphasis on the execution of the crime and everything in society is suspect), or traditional (violence establishes the seriousness of the crime and the intent of the story is to restore the sense of balance of right and wrong in a society where all is in chaos) follows many annotations. The annotations include, when appropriate, series subjects, special locations, and special subjects treated in the story, as well as an indication of any awards that a title has received. Publishing information is given for each book. An appendix includes bibliographies, book review sources, conventions, encyclopedias, a filmography, guides, sources of history and criticism, mystery bookstores, mystery journals, online resources, and publishers. There are indexes by author, title, character, subject, and location.
This is a very useful volume, both for the librarian working in a reader’s advisory capacity and for the mystery reader searching for new books. Although the annotations are brief, they give enough of the flavour for each story to enable librarians and readers to make informed choices on whether this is the book to recommend or read.
