Donna Andrews

Donna Andrews: Dashing through the Snowbirds

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Donna Andrews’ Dashing Through the Snowbirds will have readers dashing to solve the crimes alongside Meg Langslow. Christmas cheer abounds in Caerphilly, only broken up by a few grumpy guest programmers, who work for the small AcerGen company. Ian Meredith, the head programmer, seems determined to make everyone around him as miserable and uncomfortable as possible. Meg does her best to manage her constantly active family and their house guests, but thanks to Mr. Meredith she and her Mother are finding hosting more of a chore than a pleasure. read more

The Cozy: a Purely American Art Form

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In 1962, a woman named Phyllis James sat down and wrote Cover Her Face, the first Adam Dalgleish mystery.  Two years later, in 1964, Ruth Rendell wrote her first Reg Wexford mystery, From Doon with Death.  These two women pulled the golden age format created by Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers into the present, and as they wrote, they deepened the form psychologically, writing darker, more intense and longer books as their careers progressed.  They were the godmothers of what I think of as the contemporary noir police novel, and writers like Jill McGowan, Colin Dexter, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Peter Robinson, Elizabeth George and many others have carried it forward. read more

Our Eleven Favorite Christmas Mysteries

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Duck the Halls, Donna Andrews (2013). Skunks loose in the choir loft a few days before Christmas, a missing boa constrictor – do I need to say more?  Donna Andrews at her witty best, which is saying a LOT.

The 12 Clues of Christmas, Rhys Bowen (2012).  The body count is high as Lady Georgie hosts a holiday party in tiny Tiddleton-under-Lovey. While Bowen herself denies any resemblance to And Then There Were None, there are really far fewer people in Tiddleton by the end of the book than there were at the beginning – and the deaths are so creative! Delightfully, Bowen includes a guide of English Christmas traditions at the end. read more