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Can anyone recommend some mystery or crime thriller books or series that takes place in California? I've read Sue graftons books already.
Thanks!
Have you read John Poswall's The Lawyers, Class of '69 or his The Altar Boys? Here's a blurb about him from Sacramento State's news. Both are set in California.
And yes, there's a typo regarding the spelling of his last name. It's correctly Poswall.
John Lescroart is quoted as saying, "Audacious, brilliant, and endlessly entertaining . . . this book sets the new gold standard for courtroom drama", referring to The Altar Boys.
Robert Crais is a superb crime writer that's written a great series of 16 novels about Los Angeles based private investigator Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. The first novel is "The Monkey's Raincoat" (1987). Bob is a true friend to law enforcement who researches the technical aspect of his books thoroughly.
He's written a number of other novels without Elvis and Joe including "Suspect". The protagonist in "Suspect" is an LAPD officer who becomes a K-9 Officer after he's wounded in an ambush where his partner is murdered. He's partnered with Maggie a German Shepard K-9 who was herself seriously wounded in Afghanistan during an IED attack that killed her Marine handler. It's a great crime yarn but also a superb story about the physical and emotional recovery of this officer and Maggie. If you love dogs "Suspect" is a must read.
The Kellermans, -- Jonathan, Faye and Jesse: The collected works involve several protagonists, psychologists as well as detectives, and an unlikely romance between a young Orthodox Jewish woman and a secular detective rediscovering his roots. Lots of interesting cultural sidelines here, and set mostly in the San Fernando Valley rather than Hollywood or downtown L. A.
As an aside, can anyone recommend a crime fiction series (other than Grafton's Kinsey Millhone) set outside both the Southland and the Bay Area?
It allows you to filter by location, historical time period and a few other things. There's also a section called "read alikes" where you can find books with similar styles to something you've enjoyed.
I second the Jonathan Kellerman "Alex Delaware" books. They all take place in the LA area, with tons of details about the places--towns, streets, landmarks, etc.
The books are mostly just fun, not "great literature." But the stories usually grab me, there is always some psychological slant (Alex Delaware is a psychologist that works with the police) to some murder, series of murders or series of some other creepy crime.
You can pretty much read each book in 2-3 nights. You also are not obligated to read them in order, and you can easily skip some. Each story is self-contained, and the ongoing characters (Alex, his detective friend Milo, his girlfriend Robin) don't really change. At one point his dog dies and they get another dog, and once he and Robin are broken up for one book, but get back together. But you really don't have any obligation to invest in the main characters, and just enjoy the crime mysteries. Kind of like "Law & Order."
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