Dear Match Book: International Books of Mystery

Ian Rankin's marvelous series about Inspector Rebus, set in an Edinburgh where it always seems to be raining. The classic Inspector Maigret books by Simenon, set in Paris. I'd second Alan First, too, because of the high quality of the writing.

Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series.

Absolutely love "The Lewis Trilogy" by Peter May. Three books of mystery, The Blackhouse, The Lewis Man & The Chessmen, will familiarize you with the beauty and culture of the Hebrides islands of Scotland along with having you enjoy a well written story. Characters are very realistic. Wish it would become a Masterpiece series on PBS!

For italophiles, Donna Leon's mysteries set in Venice are a treat. These stories are not translated from Italian, but the American-born author has lived in Venice for many years, and she gives a rich sense of place, both visually and emotionally, exposing the fraying social fabric of a city long past its prime.

I recently read "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan, which isn't a detective story but definitely a murder mystery, with a good twist at the end.

There's always Nordic noir (Nesbo is a too bleak/violent for me) but Arnaldur Indriadson from Iceland is good and he has a new trilogy--first one is in the US The Shadow District, 2nd coming soon, and 3rd...in the future. Tana French and Dublin homicide crew - she is really good at surprises and plot twists and gets deep into her characters.. Philip Kerr and his 13-book (14?) Bernie Gunther series. Bernie is a cop in Nazi Germany--he's not a Nazi, he's a cop. Volker Kutscher's Babylon Berlin, the first of three and maybe more. It's now a TV show. Weimar years. I second recommendation for Alan Furst. Tom Rob Smith trilogy. Child 44 (made into an awful movie), Secret Speech and Agent 6. Read in order. Lev Domidov is our Russian.

Try Colin Cotterill's Siri Paiboun series. It's set in Laos in the 70s. Coterill has some fun depicting the absurdities of Communist life without being glib or overly reductionistic (poor elderly Dr. Siri ends up being the country's coroner because he is the only doctor left around and all he wants to do is retire) Wonderful series.

Robert van Gulik translated a Chinese novel about Detective Dee, who lived in China in the 7th Century. Van Gulik then continued, writing his own detective novels starring the same detective. The novels are more "how dunnit" as opposed to "whodunnit" but they're a lot of fun.

There is a terrific series of novels set in 1950s Dublin by Benjamin Black (mystery pen name of the great John Banville), featuring Quirke, a pathologist at a Dublin hospital. Through the 8 or 9 volumes in the series, you get to know Dublin and its environs of this dark era. The first novel, Christine Falls, is a good place to start. For a similar portrait of Paris in the post-war era, through to the 1960s, try Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano's dark novels and novellas; while not classic "mysteries", they are as dark and mysterious as noir can be. The three novellas published together in Suspended Sentences are good introductions.

Check out: Alan Furst, (Europe during WWII-masterfulwriting and in depth knowledge of history and geography) Andrea Camilleri, (Sicily-erudite, funny, with glossary of terms, and descriptions of food) and Martin Walker, (Dordogne region of France-(interesting, full of descriptions of food, the locale). All