Marilyn Reads Mysteries: Insights from a book blogger

HALLIE EPHRON: Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at Brandeis at the Osher Learning Center at Brandeis, BOLLI. I was welcomed by Marilyn Brooks, the book blogger who can be found reviewing mystery novels every week at Marilyn's Mystery Reads.

It's a treat to meet a book reviewer who cares as much about the genre as we authors do. So I asked if she'd come on Jungle Red Writers as a guest, and here she is.

Welcome, Marilyn. When did you start writing your blog?

MARILYN BROOKS: I started my blog in February 2010, so it’s almost exactly ten years old.  My older son Rich is the president of a social media company in Portland, ME, and he had suggested that I write a mystery blog since I love mysteries so much.

I thought about it for several months, wondering who would care about my opinions aside from family and close friends, but then I decided to give it a try.  And it’s grown to over 1000 subscribers, so I guess people have found the blog and recommended it to others.

Then, several years later, my husband suggested that I write to authors when I reviewed their books.  Again it took me a while to overcome my reluctance—who am I to write to Sara Paretsky, Louise Penny, Harry Bingham, Thomas Perry—but I’ve been so surprised and delighted that authors, both well-known and newcomers to the genre, have responded to my emails with kind words and promises to put my blog up on their Facebook page, as you did.

I’ve always been a reader of all types of books—novels, travel books, and biographies—but my special fondness is for mysteries.  I love the idea that there’s a puzzle or crime that’s the center of the book, and my job (along with the book’s protagonist) is to solve it.  It makes reading more immediate and personal, somehow. 

HALLIE: Most of us got hooked on mysteries early with Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. Do you remember the first adult author who hooked you?

MARILYN: My  first “adult” author was Agatha Christie, whom I still believe is the best.  Not every one of her books is perfect, but the ones that are—THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE—are the best because they are true originals.

I also started reading John D. MacDonald, Josephine Tey, and Rex Stout early on, and I still re-read them.  I find that their mysteries hold up really well, while some of the others written in that same time period don’t, at least for me. 

HALLIE: Is there a recent book that blew your socks off?

MARILYN: It’s funny you should ask about a favorite book most readers have never heard of because I just finished a mystery that fits that description perfectly; I blogged about it on January 4th.  It’s called THE BELLAMY TRIAL by Frances Noyes Hart and is a fictionalized story based on a 1922 double murder in New Jersey.  It was called “the crime of the century” until it was eclipsed by the Lindbergh kidnapping. 

I came across it by chance in my town’s library, started it, and couldn’t put it down.  It was written in 1927, five years after the actual murders; its style is somewhat old-fashioned, but the story kept me riveted until the last page.

HALLIE: I love the fortuitous way you found that book! And isn't that the treat, when you crack open a book that's unknown to you and find a gem? How do you discover the books you review?

MARILYN: I’m very fortunate to receive books from various publishers and publicists so I almost always read those books, although I don’t review them if I don’t like them.  I also buy books—my favorite book store for both new and used books is Mainely Murders in Kennebunk, ME—and I borrow books from the Minuteman Library system on a regular basis.  I also read several online mystery sites to find out what books are being published—CrimeReads, Criminal Element, Marilyn Stasio’s NYTimes columns.

The problem is that there are so many good books and not enough time to read them all.

I don’t always finish a book that I start.  If it doesn’t interest me after about 50 pages or so, I’ll stop reading it.  Or if I find the story is unbelievable—that’s another reason I won’t finish a book.  My feeling is that if I’m reading a book that I’m not enjoying, for whatever reason, then I’m not reading a book I could be enjoying.

HALLIE: Give us a peek at your TBR pile.MARILYN: My TBR pile is something of a joke in my house.  I’m a fast reader, so I need at least a week’s worth of books on my shelves to read to feel comfortable.  That being said, if I have eight or ten mysteries in my study I begin to panic, so I’m always looking for that perfect amount that will keep me happy and not stress me out.

At the time I’m writing this, I have five mysteries from the library and four from publishers on my shelves and nine books on my library reserve list.  Plus I’m in a book club that I started way back in the 60s, and we meet once a month and read everything except mysteries.

HALLIE: Well we're very grateful to you, Marilyn, for beating the drum for crime fiction.

And listening to Marilyn talk about reviewing books takes me back to my own 12 years reviewing crime fiction for the Boston Globe. And the thrill of being among the first to read books that hadn't been yet published by authors who weren't yet established names. I remember reading an advance copy of first novel by Gillian Flynn, SHARP OBJECTS. It left me breathless. And being blown away by CITIZEN VINCE by Jess Walter. What a thrill!
If you were (or if you ARE!) a crime fiction book reviewer, how would you decide which books to read and write about? How many pages does it take you to decide whether to keep reading?