Mystery Book Discussion Group
Bring your lunch and join us the third Tuesday of the month from noon to 1 in the conference room on the second floor of the Main Library, at 361 Washington Street.
Copies of the book to be discussed will be available at the front desk 4 weeks before the meeting.
If you have any questions, please contact reference librarian Liz Mellett at (617) 730-2369 or via email.Jan Burke, Goodnight, Irene
Oct 21, 2008 Main Library
"He loved to watch fat women dance. I guess O'Connor's last night on the planet was a happy one because that night he had an eyeful of the full-figured." Former newspaper reporter Irene Kelly is drawn back to her old job when her best friend O'Connor is murdered…and all because of an unsolved, three-decades-old murder the veteran newspaperman wouldn't let rest in peace. Burke's clever debut was an Agatha and an Anthony Award nominee.
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
Nov 18, 2008 Main Library
"I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be." Los Angeles P.I. Philip Marlowe is hired to collect the gambling debts of General Sherman's daughter Vivian from a small time hood named Eddie Mars who may also be blackmailing the family. Time magazine included this classic hardboiled mystery in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923-2005.
Peter Robinson, In a Dry Season
Dec 16, 2008 Main Library
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is assigned the case when Thornfield Reservoir dries up and a skeleton is exposed, wrapped in World War II blackout curtains. This novel won the Anthony, Barry, France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, and Sweden's Martin Beck Award. And as if that weren't enough, Stephen King says this is "the best series now on the market."
Lindsey Davis, The Silver Pigs
Jan 20, 2009 Main Library
Davis received the 1999 Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective for her creation Marcus Didius Falco, an Informer in 70 AD Imperial Rome. In his debut, Falco is hired to discover who murdered a Senator's niece, which sends him to Britain, where, according to the author, "the weather is filthy, the natives restless, the women angry, and his mission turns into a nightmare from which he only narrowly escapes alive."