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Recent Features:

2008 Edgar and Agatha Awards

2008 Edgar Awards

2008 Agatha Awards

Best Selling Books & Authors in 2007

Best Selling New Books in 2007

Best Selling Authors (used titles) in 2007


Gift Certificates

Our gift certificates will make your shopping easy this holiday season. Just click on the Gift Certificate and complete the information. Leave the rest to us. And if mysteries are your favorite gift to receive, you might suggest to your family and friends that you'd like a Grave Matters gift certificate this year.

To order a gift certificate, click here.

Quilt Mysteries

Quilts have had a place in mystery fiction since the 1930s. In 1985 Charlotte MacLeod, writing as Alisa Craig wrote Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee. In the 1990s quilting became popular subgenre, with series by Lizbie Brown, Earlene Fowler and Jean Hager.Other writers with quilt mysteries include Barbara Michaels, Katherine Hall Page & Jennifer Chiaverini.

For all the quilt mysteries in our stock, click here.

Mystery Reference

Our mystery reference section includes biographies, bibliographies, books about mystery subgenres, literary criticism, puzzle & quiz books & more. One pair of popular titles is Murder Ink & Murderess Ink, both compiled by Dilys Winn, founder of one of the first specialist mystery bookstores, Murder Ink. These two books are a combination of articles in several of the above catagories. The most popular set of mystery reference books have been Willetta Heising's Detecting Women, & Detecting Men. Popular reference subjects include Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Also popular are readers' guides to mystery fiction such as Art Bourgeau - The Mystery Lover's Companion; Ellery Queen - Queen's Quorum; Swanson & James - Killer Books and Jim Huang - 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century.

For all the mystery reference in our stock, click here.

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is arguably the best known mystery writer in the world. She was a prolific writer with several series characters including the ever popular Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Miss Marple in particular is the protagonist in a number of movies & television features including a current series on PBS. We usually have a good stock of her books in both paperback & hardcover. We currently have a large selection of the recent Bantam Agatha Christie Mystery Collection in elegant padded hardcover volumes.

For all the Agatha Christie mysteries in our stock, click here.

Golf Mysteries

Of mysteries with sports themes, golf mysteries may be the most popular. Writers from Agatha Christie to James Ellroy have written golf mysteries. Keith Miles (better known as Edward Marston) has written a series of golf mysteries as has James Y. Bartlett, Charlotte & Aaron Elkins, Roberta Isleib, and Ralph McInerny. The non-mystery stories of P.G. Wodehouse often feature golfing and are popular with our readers.

For all the golf mysteries in our stock, click here.

Dog Mysteries

Dog mysteries, although not as popular as cat mysteries, have several popular perpetrators. In older mysteries, vicious dogs are often tools of the villains. In recent years, dog lovers have ventured to do for dogs what so many authors have done for cats. Popular authors of dog mysteries include Carol Lea Benjamin, Laurien Berenson, Melissa Cleary, Susan Conant, Patricia Guiver, Gerald Hammond, and Virginia Lanier.


Cat Mysteries

Lawrence Block is alleged to have said that there were two catagories of mysteries: mysteries with cats and mysteries without cats. Certainly, cats are popular in mysteries. Frances & Richard Lockridge's Pam & Jerry North series is an early example, though the cats did not help much with the mysteries. Cats probably began helping to solve mysteries with the introduction of Lilian Jackson Braun's series with Koko & Yum Yum. Other popular cat detectives are Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy, Carole Nelson Douglas' Midnight Louie & Shirley Rousseau Murphy's Joe Grey. Lawrence Block has written mysteries both with & without cats.


New Kittens at Grave Matters

Perhaps not everyone loves a kitten, but many mystery readers do. Witness the number of cat mysteries. In any case, we have two new kittens and have set up a photo page for them. They are named after characters is the Shrek movies, which are among our favorite movies.

For more kitten pictures, click here.

The Bestsellers of 2006

Best Selling New Books in 2006

Best Selling Authors (used titles) in 2006


Seasonal Mysteries

It is the time of year that seasonal mysteries are popular. Most popular of all is the Christmas mystery. With many of the books that we list as Christmas mysteries, the designation chiefly comes from the seasonal setting of the story. However, with many more, the spirit of Christmas somehow affects the resolution of the story, with forgiveness of the culprit, a fortunate outcome for the victims, etc.

Other holidays, particularly in recent years, have become subjects for mystery fiction. We have tagged both Thanksgiving & Halloween mysteries for collectors of theme-based mysteries. Leslie Meier, Valerie Wolzien & Joanne Fluke are prominent among writers who include other holiday themes in their stories.

The Latest Mystery Awards

2006 Anthony Award Winners announced at Bouchercon 2006

  • Lifetime Achievment Award: Robert B. Parker
  • Best Mystery Novel: MERCY FALLS, by William Kent Krueger
  • Best First Mystery: TILT-A-WHIRL, by Chris Grabenstein
  • Best Paperback Original: THE JAMES DEANS, by Reed Farrel Coleman
  • Best Short Story: "Misdirection," by Barbara Seranella (in GREATEST HITS, edited by Robert J. Randisi)
  • Best Critical/Nonfiction: HEIRS OF ANTHONY BOUCHER, by Marv Lachman
  • Best Fan Publication: Crimespree Magazine, edited by Jon and Ruth Jordan
  • Special Service to the Field: Janet Rudolph, for Mystery Readers International

2006 Shamus Award Winners (The Private Eye Writers of America)

  • The Eye Lifetime Achievement: Max Allan Collins
  • Best Hardcover Novel: THE LINCOLN LAWYER, by Michael Connelly
  • Best Paperback Novel: THE JAMES DEANS, by Reed Farrel Coleman
  • Best First Novel: FORCING AMARYLLIS, by Louise Ure
  • Best Short Story: "A Death in Ueno," by Michael Wiecek (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March 2005)

2006 Barry Award Winners (Deadly Pleasures)

  • Don Sandstrom Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Mystery Fandom: Janet A. Rudolph
  • Best Novel: RED LEAVES, by Thomas H. Cook
  • Best First Novel: COLD GRANITE, by Sturart Macbride
  • Best British Novel: THE FIELD OF BLOOD, by Denis Mina
  • Best Thriller: COMPANY MAN, by Joseph Finder
  • Best Paperback Novel: THE JAMES DEANS, by Reed Farrell Coleman
  • Best Short Story: "There Is No Crime on Easter Island," by Nancy Pickard (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September-October, 2005)

2006 Macavity Award Winners (Mystery Readers International)

  • Best Novel: THE LINCOLN LAWYER, by Michael Connelly
  • Best First Novel: IMMORAL, by Brian Freeman
  • Best Nonfiction: GIRL SLEUTH: NANCY DREW AND THE WOMEN WHO CREATED HER, by Melanie Rehak
  • Best Short Story: "There Is No Crime on Easter Island," by Nancy Pickard (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September-October 2005)
  • Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award: PARDONABLE LIES, by Jacqueline Winspear


The Spy Novel

The history of the spy novel is a long one. The prolific E. Phillips Oppenheim was one of the early & popular practitioners of the spy story. John Buchan wrote his early Richard Hannay (Thirty-Nine Steps & others) novels during World War I. Eric Ambler & Graham Greene began their careers in the years leading up to World War II. Manning Coles started writing the Tommy Hambledon stories at the beginning of the war.

The Cold War brought a host of spy novelists, including Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, John LeCarre & later Robert Littell, Charles McCarry, Ken Follett & Frederick Forsyth to name a few. Also popular were writers of romantic suspense such as Mary Stewart & Helen MacInnes.

With the end of the Cold War, the spy novel went into decline until the early years of the 21st Century. The intellegence failures leading up to 9/ll, plus the second Iraq War and the War on Terror have brought us a new crop of "international thrillers" with Francine Mathews (Cutout & Blown), Gayle Lynds (Last Spymaster) and Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon series).


Dick Francis

Dick Francis was a World War II pilot, horse racing jockey, journalist & starting in 1962 with Dead Cert, a mystery novelist. He has published nearly forty novels, an autobiography of his racing life and another biography of jockey Lester Piggott. His suspense novels centered on the world of horse racing have included numerous best sellers. His works have won him silver, gold & diamond daggers from the British Crime Writers Association and three Edgar Allen Poe awards for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America. His wife Mary was a major collaborator in his work and when she died in the year 2000, his output stopped. He has recently announced the publication of a new novel Under Orders, to be released in September 2006

For a complete list of our current stock of Dick Francis mysteries, click on this sentence.

Locked Room Mysteries

One of the most enduringly popular subgenre of mystery fiction is the Locked Room mystery or the Impossible Crime. The locked room mystery was probably invented by J.S. LeFanu. His Uncle Silas is perhaps his best rendition of this subgenre. It was a popular theme of early mysteries, but one of the best practitioners, John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson, wrote most of his between WWI and WWII. Mystery writers today still take up the challenge of the locked room mystery.

For a complete list of our current stock of Locked Room Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Horicultural Mysteries

Gardening is a major interest here at Grave Matters and thus we've noted those books for several years. Generally the gardening lore part of a mystery belongs to the detective who loves plants (China Bayles and her herbs and Nero Wolfe and his orchids, for example). Or maybe if you're lucky the body is found in a mulch pile! If you believe in blue roses, check out Anthony Eglin's new series.

Authors who specialize in horticultural mysteries include Charlotte MacLeod with her Peter Shandy series and as Alisa Craig writing about the Grub and Stakers, John Sherwood, Kathy Lynn Emerson, Ann Ripley, Nancy Means Wright and Mary Freeman, to name a few.

Use our Instant Keyword Search for all the horticultural mysteries we now have. And if you'd like to see Alice Ann's flowers from last summer, visit our Photos section.

For a complete list of our current stock of Horticultural Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Mystery Awards

Looking for something new to read? Try an award-winning mystery. Here is a list of the major mystery awards.

The Edgar is presented by Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel, Best First Novel by American authors, Best Paperback Original, and Best Critical/Biographical.

The Gold Dagger is presented by the Crime Writer's Association of Great Britain for Best Crime Novel.

The Anthony is voted on by fans who attend Bouchercon, the annual world mystery convention, for Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Critical Work.

The Shamus is presented by the Private Eye Writers of America to the best writers of private eye fiction for Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Paperback Original.

The Macavity is presented by Mystery Readers International, the largest mystery fan organization, for the readers' choice of Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Critical/Biographical.

The Agatha is presented by attendees of Malice Domestic Mystery Convention to the best traditional writers for Best Novel & Best First Novel.

The Arthur Ellis is presented by the Crime Writers of Canada for Best Novel, Best First Novel.

In addition, we note titles in the Haycraft-Queen list of "cornerstones" of crime and mystery fiction. Other awards we list are the Hammett, the Barry & the Dilys. To search for these or other criteria do a keyword seach on our Search Page.


Private Investigators

Although Sherlock Holmes was probably the first famous fictional private investigator, the "private eye" novel really came into its own with the writings of Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler and other American writers of the 20s and 30s. Succeeding popular writers include Brett Halliday & Ross Macdonald.

In the 1980s there was a resurgence with the advent of women writing about women private investigators. Best known of these writers are Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller & Sara Paretsky. The form continues to be popular with Bill Pronzini, S.J. Rozan, Robert Crais and Laura Lippman among its practitioners.

For a complete list of our current stock of books featuring Private Detectives, click on this sentence.

Black protagonists & themes

Starting in the 1950s Chester Himes wrote a series of stories about two African-American detectives in Harlem.

John Ball's In the Heat of the Night, published in 1965, was filmed with Sidney Poitier in the role of Virgil Tibbs.

Current popular writers of crime fiction featuring Black protagonists include Walter Mosley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Gar Anthony Haywood, Barbara Hambly, James Patterson and Valerie Wilson Wesley.

For a complete list of our current stock of books featuring Black detectives, click on this sentence.

Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes in 1887 with A Study in Scarlet followed in the 1890s by the short stories that make up the first collection, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

January 6 is celebrated as Sherlock Holmes' birthday because Doyle mentioned Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night" twice in the canon.

It was not long before other authors wrote the first of the parodies and pastiches. This literary activity continues to produce stories in one of the largest of the sub-genres of detective fiction.

For a complete list of our current stock of Sherlockiana, click on this sentence.

Christmas Mysteries

Ever since Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), Christmas has been a popular subject for mystery writers. Many of the works in this subgenre are "Christmas Mysteries" primarily because they take place during the holiday season. Others particularly reflect some aspect of Christmas such as forgiveness and redemption. Writers of culinary mysteries often combine them with a Christmas theme since it is a season of feasting. It is also becoming common for authors to publish a new novella especially for the Christmas Season. Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark have a couple of novellas. Janet Evanovich has one and Anne Perry now has three.

For a complete list of our current stock of Christmas Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Thanksgiving Mysteries

As mystery writers search for topics & themes for their work, they often turn to holidays for inspiration. The Christmas mystery is very popular and we will be featuring it next month. There are a handful of mysteries that use the Thanksgiving holiday as a focus and we have provided a link here.

For a complete list of our current stock of Thanksgiving Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Historical Mysteries

Since the advent of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael series, historical mysteries have become one of the most popular subgenres in mystery and detective fiction. From Ancient Rome (Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, John Maddox Roberts, etc.) through the Middle Ages (Ellis Peters, Sharan Newman, P.C. Doherty, etc.) and the Renaissance (Edward Marston, Elizabeth Eyre, Kathy Lynn Emerson, etc.) to the late 19th & early 20th century (Anne Perry, Harold Adams, George Baxt, etc.) readers have been taking their mysteries with a dose of history.

For a complete list of our current stock of Historical Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Creative Arts - Black Lizard

In the late 1980s, Creative Art Book Company's Black Lizard imprint sought out & published noir fiction from the 1940s to the 1960s. Few reprints become as collectible as the Black Lizard titles have. The success of this venture was due to two factors. They reprinted rare titles by such noir writers as Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, James M. Cain, David Goodis & others. In addition, the dark cover art is quite attractive to collectors.

For a complete list of our current stock of Black Lizard titles, click on this sentence.

Clerical/Religious Mysteries

Clerics have been a presence in mystery and detective fiction since the advent of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown in the early 1900s. Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael has been so popular that the series was filmed for PBS's Mystery! The church as a location for murder scenes and plots has been featured in any number of stories by Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ralph McInerny and others. Currently popular series in this subgenre are being penned by Margaret Frazer, Margaret Coel, Faye Kellerman, Julia Spencer-Fleming and Andrew Greeley.

For a complete list of our current stock of Clerical/Relious Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Bibliomysteries

The bibliomystery has been a popular subgenre of from the very early days of mystery and detective fiction. Dozens of authors have penned one or more mysteries about books, bookstores, libraries and writers.

Agatha Christie penned early entries with The Body in the Library and The Secret of Chimneys. Michael Innes' Appleby series contains several bibliomysteries. Detective Henry Gamadge, penned in the 1940s and 1950s by Elizabeth Daly, is a biblio-detective. More recent entries include series by John Dunning, Carolyn Hart, Joan Hess, Orania Papazoglou & M.K. Wren.

For a complete list of our current stock of Bibliomysteries, click on this sentence.

Mystery Reference

At any given time Grave Matters has approximately 200 volumes of biography, bibliography, commentary and criticism about mysteries and mystery authors. The most popular subject is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous fictional character, Sherlock Holmes. Also popular are bibliographic works and book lists.

Willetta Heising's lists of women and men's mystery series have also been extremely popular. Other subjects include writing guides, lists & commentary of favorite mysteries and mystery subgenre guides.

For a complete list of our current stock of Mystery Reference, click on this sentence.

Culinary Mysteries

Perhaps the earliest culinary mysteries were titles by Rex Stout, writing about his gourmet detective Nero Wolfe. In 1982, Virginia Rich started a series of culinary mysteries with the Cooking School Murders, but only wrote three books before she died. Nancy Pickard later picked up the series about Eugenia Potter.

Diane Mott Davidson began a series in 1990 featuring caterer Goldy Bear. Other culinary series writers include Claudia Bishop, Ellen Hart, Janet Laurence, Amy Myers, Katherine Hall Page, Joanne Pence and Lou Jane Temple. The culinary mystery has become one of the most popular sub-genres of cozy mystery series.

For a complete list of our current stock of Culinary Mysteries, click on this sentence.

Evan Hunter aka Ed McBain
1926 - 2005

Evan Hunter, known to millions of mystery fans as Ed McBain, died on July 6, 2005. Under the name Evan Hunter, he gained early success for his novel Blackboard Jungle. But it was as Ed McBain that he came to be known & loved by the mystery world for his 87th precinct novels.

The first of the 87th precinct books was Cop Hater, published in 1956. The series revolutionized the police procedural and became the standard for the sub-genre. He wrote more than 50 stories for the series, with one still to be published. Other works are also in the pipeline. In addition to the 87th precinct titles, he wrote a series featuring Matthew Hope, a Florida lawyer, with titles taken from fairy tales, several non-series titles and a number of best-selling novels as Evan Hunter.

For a complete list of our current stock of Ed McBain titles, click on this sentence.

Ngaio Marsh 1899 - 1982

Ngaio Marsh was the author of more than 30 novels, all of which featured the aristocratic Scotland Yard inspector Roderick Alleyn. Her first story - A Man Lay Dead - was published in 1934. Her last was Light Thickens, published in 1982. In Artists in Crime, Inspector Alleyn meets Agatha Troy, a portrait artist whom he courts over the course of the years and eventually marries. Marsh referred to the courtship as "the siege of Troy".

Ngaio Marsh was born in New Zealand, but began her writing career in England. Most of the novels take place in England, but at least two, Colour Scheme & Died in the Wool take Alleyn to New Zealand.

Marsh had a love for the theater and wrote a handful of plays. Many of her novels feature theatrical and artistic circles.

For a complete list of our current stock of Ngaio Marsh titles, click on this sentence.

©2005 by Grave Matters.