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.

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.

Something remained?

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.

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)

Turing Hopper, is a sentient AI

grumblecakes. that riff is getting old.

I'm toying with the idea of finding a more public place for my reading diary next year. It's currently on my very low-traffic blog, but I have some connections at reasonably high-traffic Seattle blogs, and one of them suggested I try to get my reading diary on board.

Any thoughts on pros and cons? It wouldn't be a hard-hitting review blog, but something more conversational, with a name like "One Reader's Diary" or "That Bookworm on the 303" (my bus route, where I get in at least half my reading these days). I'd talk about the books I read and try to get in some general commentary of interest to readers, especially Seattle readers--things like what I spy the 303's other bookworms reading, how long it takes to get a popular new title from the Seattle library, why Ichiro is like Mr. Darcy, maybe a bit on genre perceptions based on my experiences starting out writing romance ("Someone as smart as you writes THOSE?") to writing military historicals ("You're a woman and you're writing WHAT?"), etc.

Does that sound interesting? Can you think of anything to give it a stronger hook?

The pros that I've thought of are getting to talk about books to a wider audience, a wider audience that might buy my books if/when I'm published, and generally building name recognition. The con is that it'd take more time and energy than my current bare-bones reading diary. Anything I'm missing?

Christmas gift suggestions sought: for my father in law. He is interested in mystery series.

Dick Francis? Bernard Cornwell? C. S. Forester? Patrick O'Brian? John le Carré? Kenneth Roberts?

Okay, so only the first one wrote mysteries, the others did historical fiction, but worth a try.

How about Jan Burke? (I can't tell what's cosy if it doesn't have a recipe or some shit in it somewhere.)

Bernard Cornwell wrote one mystery that's very good, IMHO, Gallows Thief, though it's not part of a series.