Mystery Muses: 100 Classics That Inspire Today's Mystery Writers

Very much in the mold of Huang's They Died in Vain collection, but each of the changes works to make this a less interesting book. This time, 100 authors have been asked for short commentary on the classic mystery that inspired them to be mystery writers.

Shifting from obscure books to classics means that the books covered are more familiar, and the commentary less surprising. Does any mystery reader really need two more pages of thoughts on "The Tell-Tale Heart" or And Then There Were None?

And changing the commenters from booksellers to authors is deadly for two reasons. First, recommending books and making them sound appealing to potential readers is what booksellers do; they have to be good at it. Get the customer to buy the book, and show more you stay in business. Authors, at least the authors gathered here, haven't spent much time developing that skill.

Second, most of these authors aren't all that interested in talking about the books they're ostensibly talking about. Those books are merely vehicles for them to plug their own books. The book becomes a long series of "if you liked classic novel X, then let me tell me you why you're going to love my books."

I suppose this book might be of some use to a reader looking to take their first steps into the mystery genre. Even if the recommendations aren't all that well written, they'd at least take from it a list of 100 worthwhile books, and maybe get just enough information about each to pick a good starting point.

They Died in Vain is a joyful meeting of a giant book club in which every member can't wait to tell you about their favorite book; Mystery Muses is a droning series of self-promoting commercials. show less

Really a pretty good overview of mystery authors who inspired other mystery authors to get started on their own books. A very few of the muses were new to me; a few short essays were a little too self-serving; but most of the entries here were just a lot of fun, filled with enthusiasm and joy.
Recommended to mystery lovers.