The flyleaf makes a grand claim about the 168 page book being “a comprehensive look at the evolution of one of the most enduring figures in American literary and film culture–the detective.” That may be a small stretch, but no one can deny that this is the most entertaining book on the American Detective in popular culture.

Siegel has the tone of a wise-cracking gumshoe and the smarts of the gumshoe’s gal Friday. He writes an entertaining and accessible history of the mystery, taking a quintessential American icon through film and penny-dreadfuls. The book is full of marvelous pulp fiction covers of mysteries and interesting profiles of the most popular types of detectives: lawyers, cops, private eyes, and international ops.

Take it to the next mystery book group meeting and have fun with the illustrations and trivia. And have fun debating Sielgel’s take on the introduction of women into the hard-boiled genre. He makes some interesting points.

I’m also a bit of a history buff, and the early 20th century is one of my favorite eras. Many works of historical fiction are set in the big cities of this era–New York, L.A., Chicago–and many are set in America’s rural places, but secondary cities are rarely featured. Salt Lake City is a place that many people think they understand but most don’t, so it’s a great location in which to place a 1930s mystery.

Andrew Hunt’s City of Saints did not disappoint, using both place and time well to good effect. Hunt is an Ontario history professor, but like me, he’s a transplant from Utah. He originally wanted to write about a true crime case, the murder of socialite Dorothy Dexter Moormeister, but ultimately he couldn’t find quite enough information to do justice to the story, so he turn to fiction instead, changing some of the details of the case. Setting is not just window dressing in this book. Hunt uses the places and people of Salt Lake City to great effect, giving the reader a real sense of Utah in the 1930s. I got a kick out of familiar street names and even surnames that filled the book. Salt Lake City is not the place that many assume: most polygamy in Utah ended before statehood was granted in 1895, and railroads and mines brought people into the state who weren’t Mormon. While the LDS Church had (and still has) strong sociopolitical sway, Salt Lake wasn’t free of other influences–crime, nightlife, bootlegging–and key to this story, adultery and abortionists.

Hunt’s protagonist is Art Oveson, a Mormon lawman just beginning to make his place in the Sheriff’s Department. His partner, Roscoe Lund, is a much worldlier man who likes to bait Mormon colleagues with a steady stream of curses, smoking, and drink, all prohibited by the Mormon religion. When a wealthy doctor’s wife is found murdered, the two are drawn into a hidden world of affairs, bribes, and political maneuvering. Art is particularly thwarted by Sheriff Fred Cannon, who wants Art to report on the loyalty of colleagues and quickly pin the murder on any convenient suspect, ignoring other leads. Between characters, setting, and an unusual political landscape, Hunt establishes much that could be explored in further novels. I hope he will make this work into a series.

Book clubs could find enough in City of Saints to support a discussion, but as a facilitator, I would approach a book like this in a different way. It might be fun to have a meeting where readers each choose a book set in a place or milieu that is well known to them, and then discuss how well the author uses that setting to enhance the story.  If your group lives in a place where fiction is frequently set, choose that as a common setting and get an even more direct comparison of how well sense of place is established.

Beautifully written but understated, Dybek’s debut is narrated by Cal, a teenager in the late ’80s in a fictional Washington State town, Loyalty Island, where most of the men go away to crab in Alaska every year. Dybek evokes a rugged, Northwest outpost where the town’s whole economy depends on its sole industry. When John Gaunt, the owner of the boating business, dies and his college-bred son, Richard, inherits, Cal learns that his father and the men of Loyalty will do anything to keep their livelihood.

When Cal’s mother, who subscribes to Film Comment and neglects her son to listen to records in the basement, leaves for California before the birth of her second child just before Cal’s father ships out to Alaska, Cal goes to live with his classmate Jaime for the season. An uneasy friendship builds between Cal and Jaime. And when Cal shares with Jaime a secret he discovers that could tear their community apart, things get even more uneasy and unpredictable.

When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man gets its title from Treasure Island and the stories Cal’s father spins of Captain Flint’s adventures and exploits before his life on the sea corrupts him. The metaphor is an apt one in this tale of fathers and sons, a story about loyalty and betrayal, about connection and disconnection and about the price we pay to live lives we can’t see beyond.

Nick Dybek creates a powerful and unexpectedly dark coming-of-age novel with an unreliable yet wistful young narrator. There is mystery, drama and a surprise twist I didn’t see coming at the end. I can’t wait to run into someone else who has read it so I can discuss this ending; I still feel stormy and conflicted about it, even though Cal provides enough haunted foreshadowing to provide insight and depth to what unfolds.

A recently published book group favorite, The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, takes a literary look at a 23-year-old crime and, since it’s fiction, takes the initiative to solve the  crime. The book also tells the story of Claire, a young painter who makes a foolish error early in her career that effectively tanks it. Instead of holding shows in galleries, Claire struggles to pay the bills by painting reproductions of masters. One day a well known art dealer, Aiden, visits Claire with a painting believed to be stolen in the great Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. He wants her to paint a perfect replica, then he will return the painting, Claire gets a one woman show of her original work, and everyone is satisfied. As Claire begins to work on her reproduction, she begins to suspect the original may actually be a fake and in order to prove it, she begins doing research on the Gardner Museum, it’s holdings, and Isabella Gardner herself.

Pair this compelling artistic thriller with a nonfiction account of the theft, The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser. The author inherited the case files from Harold Smith, the art detective who devoted his life to solving the theft. As this 2008 book concludes, Boser has theories about the crime, but only that.

In March of 2013, Boston authorities announced new leads in the case. Boser responded in The New York Times with an op-ed piece.

Readers will enjoy discussing a real life mystery and sifting through the clues along with the authors and detectives.

In August, fans of both can enjoy an anthology with a great title: Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense. Editor Sarah Weinman has gathered fourteen stories from authors who wrote some of their best work between the 1940s and 1960s.

If the term “domestic suspense” sounds rather tame, read Weinman’s great definition of it here. It gave me chills. I think we’re on the verge of a new term, “kitchen noir.” And there’s nothing more terrifying than a hard-boiled Betty Crocker.

Wait ’til the book groups get their hands on this one.

Start with Akashic Books ‘noir’ series and look for your book group’s city. If it’s not present, give it time.

Akashic is combing the world for atmospheric noir stories that capture an urban setting and city’s character and characters. The books go coast to coast, Boston Noir to Seattle Noir, and international, from Paris Noir to Delhi Noir.

Groups can discuss the elements of noir and how the authors were able pack them all into a short story. Readers may also enjoy discussing the historical neighborhoods of their cities.

Consider asking the readers to all read a different story from a collection and present it to the group.

GRAND MASTER
Ken Follett
Margaret Maron
RAVEN AWARDS
Oline Cogdill
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA

McDonald has been gaining popularity for his Hector Lassiter books, crime fiction with literary and historic elements. His first standalone, El Gavilan, belongs in a class that includes Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos.

Former border patrol agent Tell Lyon is starting over in a small Ohio town. He tragically lost his family in a fire set by a drug lord. As the police chief of a town that straddles two counties, Tell finds himself being manipulated by two sheriffs with differing views of crime and criminals.

But the issue at the heart of the book is the American Dream—who gets to pursue it, who decides, and what is it exactly? This is a theme readers can really sink their teeth into in addition to discussing the clues McDonald drops about the murder.

Expect readers to say there seems to be too many plot threads and for some characters not enough development. The story is complex and McDonald is trying to get readers to consider the issues of illegal immigration as the plot unfolds and character traits are revealed, not through paragraphs of preachy exposition. All of the plot elements come together at the end of the book and the most intriguing characters are the ones readers will hope make a second appearance in another book.

I went down under to find the next blog on my favorites list. Read Watch Play celebrates reading in all forms and their credo is available here.

For every month in 2013 RWP is running themed discussions on their blog and twitter feed. April was #CrimeRead month and while we’re dubbing May the merry month of mysteries, get some good ideas for reading from the delightfully bloodthirsty gals at the NSW Readers’ Advisory Group.

But now GQ provides a list of “new classics for the 21st century” and they claim that these are guy-bait. What I love best about the list? Those readerbros at GQ are man enough to include women on the list–Zadie Smith, Marilynne Robinson, Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Seriously, there are some great titles on the list and all are suitable for discussions. Many have already made the book group circuit, but in case your group hasn’t read everything and you’d like to entice male readers, check out the 21 gems on this list. And they included my favorite, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.