All About the Atmosphere

We read and we write mysteries here at SleuthSayers (as well as other genres) for a variety of reasons, for the skill, the plots, the dialog, the puzzle, but sometimes what we're really interested in is the atmosphere. That fits our mood. Some of my favorites:

Maigret (Georges Simenon) - Paris; places like the Gai Moulon or the Liberty Bar, where no one who isn't a criminal or a policeman should dream of going; Mme. Maigret with her excellent cuisine; the team, detectives Lucas, Janvier, Lapointe, and Torrence; Maigret's pipe, his taste for beer and cognac, his intuition, and his occasional mercy to criminals...  Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful...

NOTE:  The 1960s British series Maigret, starring Rupert Davies, is available on YouTube. "Davies' portrayal won two of the highest accolades: his versions were dubbed into French and played across the Channel; and Simenon himself said of Davies "At last, I have found the perfect Maigret!" (LINK)

Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout) - The household, of course.  The voice of Archie Goodwin, the strict schedule, the orchids upstairs, the gourmet meals of Fritz (although I must confess I have the Nero Wolfe Cookbook, and I didn't like most of the recipes.  I fear they're better on the page than off it. I for one do not want apricot preserves in my omelet.).  Also the supporting team, especially Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin. Orrie Cather can stuff himself. 

Bernie Gunther (Philip Kerr) - Dark, atmospheric, scary, but... depending on the day and the mood...

Mma Ramotswe (Andrew McCall Smith) - It's the rhythm of the voice, the feel of the heat of the day, the smell of cows, the preciousness of rain, the customs, the courtesies, the myths, the secrets, the witchcraft, the traditions.  And the supporting team, her secretary and later assistant Mma Makutsi, her husband Mr JLB Matekoni, Mma Silvia Potokwani of the orphan farm, her stepchildren Motholeli and Puso, and Gabarone, Botswana itself.  As it says at the end of the first book, 

Africa Africa Africa Africa Africa

Africa Africa Africa Africa

Africa Africa Africa

Africa Africa

Africa

Spenser (Robert Parker) - To be honest, mostly for Hawk and the banter between the two of them. What drives me crazy is Susan and her perpetual wonder at the Hawk/Spenser friendship and total trust. Honey, I have girlfriends who if one of us called the other in the middle of the night, would drop everything to help, no matter what, and bring anything / everything needed, whether it's money, a bottle, a shovel or all three and more...  Why Parker wrote a woman who apparently has no women friends I don't know.

Dame Frevisse (Margaret Frazer) - First of all, it's the real Middle Ages.  Second, I really like Dame Frevisse, who is prickly, dedicated, and knows her stuff. She also sometimes gets fed up with her fellow sisters, and who wouldn't get fed up with Dame Alys? Related to Chaucer, her cousin is Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk, which gives Dame Frevisse her access to the nobility, and often gets her mixed up in their problems, mysteries, and murders. And, as I've said many a time, the motive in The Servant's Tale - well, I only wish I'd thought of it first.

Cadfael (Ellis Peters) - My second favorite medieval religious.  My favorite of the books is An Excellent Mystery.  

Brunetti (Donna Leon) - Venice. Venice. Venice. Venice. Venice.  I went to Venice and I fell in love with it the way a teenager falls in love with that sexy guy who is the LAST person she should ever be with and yes, she knows it, but she can't stop, can't stop, she's in madly, deeply, hopelessly, recklessly...  Brunetti gives me access from afar, full of its scents and sounds, especially the water lapping everywhere...  

Venice, by Eve Fisher:

Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) – I love her. Period. I hope to be her in my increasing old age, only with more profanity and sarcasm. 

Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle) – Straight back to my childhood.  

And thank you, Janice Law, for the amazing Francis Bacon series!  

• Fires of London (2012)
• The Prisoner of the Riviera (2013)
• Moon Over Tangier (2014)
• Nights in Berlin (2016)
• Afternoons in Paris (2017)
• Mornings in London (2017)

Somedays, there's just nothing like a seedy, louche adventurer with a nanny and a lot of bad habits to get you through the day...

Other notes:

Marion Halcome (Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White), who is the real sleuth, the real heroine. And she's up against Count Fosco, an Italian of uncertain past, huge girth, strong personality, and incredibly dangerous. "This in two words: He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes, as his wife does—I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds hers." (Don't worry, he never manages to tame Marion. In fact, he falls in love with her, but that doesn't stop him from being excessively dangerous.) Plus I love the different voices that Collins uses to tell the tale, such as the most useless person ever to take fictional breath, Frederick Fairlie:  

"It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone.  Why—I ask everybody—why worry me? Nobody answers that question, and nobody lets me alone. Relatives, friends, and strangers all combine to annoy me. What have I done? I ask myself, I ask my servant, Louis, fifty times a day—what have I done? Neither of us can tell. Most extraordinary!"

I consider this the best of Collins, and I have reread it many times, with great pleasure.  

Also, thank you, Elizabeth Zelvin for clueing me in to Abbi Waxman's One Death at a Time!  The most truly Hollywood novel I've ever read.  (Let's face facts, Chandler romanticized L.A. even if it was a dark romanticism.)  

Which reminds me, I also want to see Lodge 49 again.