Mary Sue and all, the Laurie R. King books might be a good fit for your dad, flea. There's also Deb Grabien's murder ballads series -- mystery + ghost story + a dash of cozy (though the last two are also pretty skeery and disturbing). And yesyesyes to the Alexander McCall Smith series.
The girl's not playing with a full deck, Giles. She has almost no deck. She has a three.
Buffy ,'Same Time, Same Place'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
JZ - Nov 27, 2007 6:12:17 am PST #4358 of 28260
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.
§ ita § - Nov 27, 2007 6:16:44 am PST #4359 of 28260
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Good call, JZ. I'd recommend much of Deb's work as fitting your description, flea.
Dana - Nov 27, 2007 7:27:41 am PST #4360 of 28260
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
Patricia Cornwell asks her readers to prove that they are true fans by posting positive reviews on the internet. Because the government has organized a bad-review conspiracy against her.
hippocampus - Nov 27, 2007 7:47:57 am PST #4361 of 28260
not your mom's socks.
Flea - what about Tony Hillerman? a little cozy, a lot of southwest. they're a good friend's 'airplane books'.
Kathy A - Nov 27, 2007 8:26:42 am PST #4362 of 28260
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
I haven't read Hillerman, but I like the adaptations on PBS, starring Adam Beach and Wes Studi (who is amazingly sexay in them).
askye - Nov 27, 2007 9:13:26 am PST #4363 of 28260
Thrive to spite them
I'd recommend CF Roe's books about a Scottish doctor, whose name I can't remember. It's sort of country house murder stye, with the doctor juggling responbsilities of being a doctor, a mom, and solving crimes.
My dad likes those and he really liked the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency stories as well.
erikaj - Nov 27, 2007 9:16:17 am PST #4364 of 28260
Always Anti-fascist!
Patricia Cornwall has lost what remains of her shit. I think she is down to forensics and a three. Which makes me sad, at the risk of sounding like one of those "I used to love x, but then he/she did y" posters.
amych - Nov 27, 2007 9:30:14 am PST #4365 of 28260
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?
Something remained?
Kathy A - Nov 27, 2007 9:30:16 am PST #4366 of 28260
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil
If you like the forensic mystery book, I can recommend Eileen Dreyer. Her books are all meticulously researched (she took an extended break from writing to get her forensic investigation certificate), they share a dark, almost bleak, sense of humor, and are usually set in St. Louis. She started out writing romances under the pen name Kathleen Korbel, which I also recommend--the Harlequins she wrote were equally dark, dealing with Vietnam PTSD (for her nurse heroine, one of the first times I've seen female PTSD addressed outside of China Beach), illiteracy, child abuse, and Down's Syndrome.
Sheryl - Nov 27, 2007 1:54:40 pm PST #4367 of 28260
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"
Hmmm, for the cozy-but not too girly, maybe Donna Andrews? The series that starts with Murder with Peacocks is fun, but not too fluffy. Her other series is a bit darker and crosses over to SF.(The main character, Turing Hopper, is a sentient AI)