![\"\"](\"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/miss-silver-comes-to-stay.jpg\")
<\/a>In the golden age, Patricia Wentworth stands out, as she always foregrounded romance as part of her stories.\u00a0 Unlike some of the other authors I\u2019ll mention, she wrote a series, but the romantic characters didn\u2019t recur or involve the main characters, with one exception: Miss Silver Comes to Stay <\/em>(1948), where Rietta Cray and Randal March, a former pupil of Miss Silver\u2019s and now a Chief Constable, find slightly late in life love. \u00a0March is a re-occurring character, and he and Rietta appear in other books, complete with a family to Miss Silver\u2019s doting delight.\u00a0 Love in a Wentworth novel is quiet, intense and somehow dignified.<\/p>\nAnother favorite golden age couple is of course Ngaio Marsh\u2019s Rory Alleyn and Agatha Troy, a Chief Inspector who meets a successful artist and whose coupling is prickly but inevitable.\u00a0 They meet in Artists in Crime <\/em>(1938) and agree to marry in Death in a White Tie<\/em> (also 1938, a very good year for Marsh).\u00a0 These are two of my favorites in the series and part of the reason is Troy and Alleyn\u2019s budding relationship.\u00a0 Troy is somewhat put off by Alleyn\u2019s profession but comes to be a valuable sounding board for him.\u00a0 Marsh has an astonishing array of passionate, artistic, opinionated, strong women in her books, and Agatha Troy is the apex.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t give into Alleyn, and he doesn\u2019t expect her to.<\/p>\n A bit past the golden age, in what I think of as a \u201cbridge\u201d period, there\u2019s Patricia Moyes\u2019 delightful Emmy and Henry Tibbets.\u00a0 Henry is a Scotland Yard Inspector, and true to the time, Emmy is a housewife, but I kind of doubt Henry would have solved any case without the advice of the practical Emmy.\u00a0 Some in this series are far better than others, but Johnny Underground <\/em>(1965) where Emmy digs into her past despite Henry\u2019s misgivings, is a real standout. While the books are varying, Henry and Emmy\u2019s relationship never varies: it\u2019s always strong and stable.<\/p>\n Sneaking in an historical series, I and every other lover of historical fiction was captivated by Tasha Alexander\u2019s first outing, And Only to Deceive <\/em>(2005), where Lady Emily falls in love with her dead husband, after the fact.\u00a0 She also meets her future and swoon worthy husband to be, Colin.\u00a0 This series drips with romance but it\u2019s somehow sweet and balanced by the smart crime stories Alexander lays on top of the relationships.<\/p>\n That series to me is equaled by the relationship of Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne in Miller\u2019s Kill, New York.\u00a0 Their obstacle is not faith and culture as in Kellerman\u2019s books, but the fact the Russ, in the first several books, is married.\u00a0 It allows Clare and Russ to engage in many discussions where faith and logic play opposing and surprising roles.\u00a0 One of my favorite mysteries of all time is Spencer-Fleming\u2019s remarkable debut, In the Bleak Midwinter<\/em> (2002), which showcased Spencer-Fleming\u2019s skill at place, at story, and most of all, with characters.\u00a0 At one of our book signings with Julia, a member of the audience could bear it no longer, and shouted out \u201cWhen are they going to get it on?\u201d\u00a0 Mystery characters are real, people!<\/p>\n And who can forget\u2026<\/p>\n Denise Swanson\u2019s Wally & Skye<\/p>\n Robert B. Parker\u2019s Spenser & Susan<\/p>\n Laura Lippman\u2019s Tess & Crow<\/p>\n Louise Penny\u2019s Gamache & Reine Marie<\/p>\n Simeon\u2019s Maigret & Madame Maigret<\/p>\n Deborah Crombie\u2019s Gemma & Duncan<\/p>\n Love rules!<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever since Nancy Drew met Ned Nickerson, love stories have been a part of crime fiction.\u00a0 Maybe not the main player, but some books have relationships that help define them.\u00a0 Here are some of my favorites. In the golden age, Patricia Wentworth stands out, as she always foregrounded romance as part of her stories.\u00a0 Unlike … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[247,118,307,309,61,310,184,311,60,308,221,312,275],"class_list":["post-3559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-deborah-crombie","tag-denise-swanson","tag-dorothy-l-sayers","tag-faye-kellerman","tag-julia-spencer-fleming","tag-laura-lippman","tag-louise-penny","tag-maigret","tag-ngaio-marsh","tag-patricia-moyes","tag-patricia-wentowrth","tag-robert-b-parker","tag-tasha-alexander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3565,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions\/3565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>And it\u2019s hard not to mention Dorothy L. Sayers Lord Peter and his Harriet in the same breath, as their relationship, quite similar to Alleyn\u2019s and Troy\u2019s, blooms and completes itself with Sayer\u2019s masterpiece, Gaudy Night <\/em>(1935) and the more sweetly toned Busman\u2019s Honeymoon<\/em> (1937).\u00a0 Harriet is a writer of detective stories and is somewhat ashamed of her profession, as was scholar Sayers, though a practical discussion of academia versus commercial success is explored in Gaudy Night.<\/em>\u00a0 I think Sayers was on the fence, just like Harriet.\u00a0 She and Lord Peter are an almost perfect couple.<\/p>\n<\/a>In the more contemporary present, two of my favorite series are written by American women, and both feature characters who are the yin and yang of one another, and whose relationships seem impossible.\u00a0 Faye Kellerman had me hooked with her stunning debut, The Ritual Bath <\/em>(1986), where cop Peter Decker meets Jewish orthodox widow Rina Lazarus when he investigates a rape at the mikvah.\u00a0 While Kellerman, like her husband, Jonathan, can sometimes be brutally graphic, the characters make her books so worthwhile.\u00a0 How a secluded orthodox woman comes together with a very worldly policeman is a fabulous story that plays itself out through the first four or five books, all of which I inhaled.\u00a0 I learned about Jewish culture, I got a good mystery, and I met characters I\u2019ve never forgotten.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n