WHAT'S THE GREAT AMERICAN MYSTERY NOVEL?

 This week I've had occasion to think on this subject, because I was asked to give a library speech about THE MALTESE FALCON; seems they had a reading program in which everyone read the same book and then they got speakers to talk about it. Like the Big Read, for which I gave a MALTESE FALCON talk last year.

I learned then the kids didn't particularly care for it. They thought Sam Spade was a big fat sexist--even the boys, and this is Louisiana! And it wasn't lost on them that he was also kind of a jerk. The Big Read itself didn't seem to have much respect for mysteries in general. "Some people," said their own flyer, "were surprised when THE MALTESE FALCON, a mystery, appeared on The Big Read list." Well, it's a classic, no question, but dated. And most people know the story anyhow--though from the movie, alas. If you actually set out to introduce new readers to mysteries, is this really the place to start? So I got to thinking, what have mysteries done for us lately? What would happen if you could choose a contemporary one--and only one--for a large group to read together?

Of course it's hard to say what I mean by contemporary. Sometimes we don't really recognize how good a book is until years later. I've got a little list up my sleeve, but some of the books are ten, even twenty years old. If I went back and read, say, Sharyn McCrumb's  terrific IF EVER I RETURN, PRETTY PEGGY-O, would I find it dated? I think maybe not, but when I think of that first stunner by Elizabeth George, A GREAT DELIVERANCE (1988), I know it couldn't help but be a little disappointing to contemporary readers, simply because the subject matter, childhood sexual abuse, has become shopworn in the intervening years. I have more candidates, even more recent candidates. But I have a terrible memory for this kind of stuff. If someone asks my favorite authors, as someone always does at a signing, my mind goes blank. Like it's going now.

So help me out here. Shall we limit it to the last 25 years? The more recent the better.What's the one book you'd choose? Your very favorite of that period.