A winner and another draw

    

     Thankyou to everyone who entered the recent Cornflower birthday book draws - I so enjoyed reading about all the fictional characters you'd most like to meet and I noted with interest that Mr. Rochester cropped up several times! The winner - drawn at random - was Nancy, and her prize (I'm not saying what it is so that Nancy gets a surprise when she opens the parcel) will be on its way to her soon.

   

     As luck would have it, a duplicate copy of the delightful The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (the second in the Flavia de Luce series) by Alan Bradley dropped into my lap this morning, so let's have another draw and I'll give that away to the winner. I wrote about the book a few months ago and I know a lot of you will have read it already, but if you'd like a copy, or an extra one to give to a friend, just leave a comment, this time giving us the name of a favourite mystery/crime/detective novel if you have one.

    Good luck!

Comments

[Claire]

Ooooo can I be first in the hat please. Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time" would be my choice of a mystery/crime novel.

[Georgina]

Oh Claire. I was going to put The Daughter of Time forward too! In fact I will anyway. Can't have too much of a good thing. I could also add any and all of P D James, with whom I would have liked to have dinner, but I was too late to enter that one...

[rhonda]

Daughter of Time is mine to

[Susan in TX]

That is hard, because I love several mystery writers, but I must go with Dame Agatha as she was my "first love" as a teen so many moons ago, and the first title I ever read...The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

[Nancy]

It's very difficult to pick just one!! Arrrrgghhh... :-) It's easier to pick writers - writers like Colin Dexter, P.D. James, Edmund Crispin, (and much) etc. But, for a quick, off the top of my head selection, I'll just choose a title (for the sake of its title) "The Moving Toy Shop" since I have just returned from a trip to Rye, East Sussex where I once found a tiny, tiny shop by that name (the first time I visited there by myself) and met a very fascinating person who just happened to be sitting in for the owner who was out for lunch. That shop, btw, was in Needles Passage, for anyone who's been there before.

[Ros]

I like Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon equally, I think. I have certainly worn out at least two copies of each!

[Sandy]

It will just seem like currying favour, given the city involved but my favourite Detective is Rebus. You have to read the whole series - one book doesn't do. All the great stories, characterisation & macho-vulnerability was just a bonus after I discovered a shared liking for The Blue Nile. Start with 'Because of Toledo' if you haven't heard them!

[Cornflower]

Thanks for that tip, Sandy!

[Julie Fredericksen]

Hi, Karen,

Don't put me in for the book as I already have read (and liked)it. I really like Ariana Franklin's "Mistress of the Art of Death" series about a female "forensic anthropologist in the time of Henry II. So far I have read "Mistress of the Art of Death", "The Serpent's Tale" and "Grave Goods". "A Murderous Procession", the fourth in the series, is next on my list.

[margaret46]

Can anyone remember John Creasy novels involving the 'Toff'? I read them as a teenager and now they are out of print.So many authors go out of fashion-but maybe one of these days they may decide to republish them.

[m]

I don't read a lot of detective fiction but I'd go for The Nine Tailors (D L Sayers).

[Lisa M.]

Hands down, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I just love the entire premise of the novel and how she ties it all up in a neat little bow at the end.

[Sandy]

er... Yes I can remember them. All very exciting for me at that age!

I have nostalgia of doubtful political correctness for the paperback covers of that era. Thanks for evoking that!

[Kristina]

I'm choosing Karen Alvtegen and her book 'Missing'.

[Dark Puss]

I too like PD James, and the "Rebus" books, but perhaps I'll throw my hat into the ring with the novels by the late Michael Dibdin that feature Aurelio Zen. Now your rules state I have to chose one of them, so I'll go for his (and the author's) final bow End Games.

My father was very fond of Dibdin's Zen and someday I'll re-read all the books in the series.

[Ruth M.]

Good choices all. Dorothy L. Sawyers might be my favorite mystery writer, with Josephine Tey a hot contender also. Gaudy Night for the first, Daughter of Time for the second. Not original, I know. Blame it on the time lag from Virginia and having to do this on my lunchhour. Thanks!

[Gill]

My favourite has to be Busman's Honeymoon, the first Peter Wimsey book I read. My copy is falling apart from re-reading.

[Jo]

So many to choose from. A more recent one that I have found and loved is Deanna Raybourn Silent in the Grave.

[Jackie]

This is really difficult to choose! I love Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books, P D James and also Ian Rankin's Rebus.

[Carol]

Mikael Blomkvist - great new fictional investigator along with his partner Lisbeth Salander.

[Jenny]

I'm not a reader of crime fiction but I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' a fascinating book which analyses a real-life murder that took place in the 1800s. Does that count?

[Tracey]

I do love all types of crime writing, Christie, Sayers, Crispin, PD James etc, but my favourite at the moment is Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series

[Margaret Powling]

I loved the two novels by Michael Cox, The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time. But other than that, dear old Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. If I was a heroine in a novel, I'd be Maisie!

[Mystica]

There is a lot to choose from. P D James, Colin Dexter, Agatha Christie, Patricia Cornwell, Elizabeth George!