Man, the Brits love mysteries

I was at the town library yesterday and decided to peruse the mystery DVDs. I've done so and checked out some videos in the past, but it didn't really hit me until then just how many of the shows they have are British. By and large our cousins across the pond outnumbered the domestically made fare and it made me think about just how much in general the Brits love a good mystery. Certainly our TV networks over here aren't slackers when it comes to producing a police show (hell, Hallmark even has a channel specifically for mysteries*), but nothing on the level BBC and the other channels over there are putting out.

I think the Brits have us beat on quality too. The broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) tend to play it safe and come out with cookie cutter shows. They also tend to cling to the really successful shows until they've long since grown long in the tooth (*coughcoughSVUcoughcough*).

We could and should take lessons from the British when it comes to mystery television. Certainly wouldn't hurt.

*When it isn't airing Christmas movies.

A book review omnibus

I was planning on doing individual posts for each of these books, but given how faulty my memory is when it comes to books I've read weeks or months ago, I decided just to do a quick review in a single post.

NYPD Red - James Patterson & Marshall Karp. Not a bad book, but I'm not sure if I'll read any of the sequels. Very much reads like one of those cops shows you'd see on a broadcast network like ABC or CBS.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Sins of the Father - Lawrence Block. I'm most definitely a fan of the Matthew Scudder series. I think this is where I decided that I was going to like detective fiction. Scudder is a flawed, but noble man. I plan on writing a whole post about him sometime this year.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Time to Murder and Create - Lawrence Block. See above.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Godwulf Manuscript - Robert B. Parker. So I pretty much read this because I have vague memories of watching reruns of Spenser: For Hire with my mom back when I was a kiddo. The book was very short, but told a good story for its length. Not a great book, but good enough to make me want to read more in the series.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Last Bus to Woodstock - Colin Dexter. This book had more red herrings like a cannery. Did not expect the reveal of who the killer was at all and I loved it. The only thing keeping me from reading the next book is that none of the libraries in my area have it.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Housekeeping note: Imported posts

I just imported a few mystery related posts from an old book blog of mine, so that's why there's suddenly a bunch of posts that pre-date the intro.

Also, hi, I didn't forget about this blog and plan on posting here now that I'm solidly a fan of the mystery genre. Expect reviews to follow shortly.