I think I’ve said before that if a new bookseller wants to do his or her job well, he or  she’d better study up on the mystery authors.  Every day I have customers saying they “need to find a new author, I’ve read all of my favorite author’s books”.  So…. who to recommend?  There are so many “subgenres” in mystery and suspense it can feel impossible to hit on a winner!

Quite a few readers, including me, enjoy a mystery that immerses you in a region or time period, whether it is Cadfael’s medieval monastery or even Stephanie Plum’s New Jersey.  A good mystery series involves the reader in the lives of a cast of interesting characters, one of which has to be the location. When it comes to mysteries set in the West though, I have a love-hate issue:  I love the location but can really be unnerved by the number of murders taking place somewhere that could be MY home.  Really people, if you have 6 grisly murders occurring every month, move away already!  Trenton, New Jersey, or London are one thing, but rural Montana, Window Rock, Arizona,  Absaroka County,  Wyoming, or  Niniltna, Alaska…. you don’t have the population for that kind of mayhem!  Or, don’t take your murder mysteries too seriously I suppose.

If you can stomach murder mysteries in your own backyard, the spectacular scenery and isolation of the Eastern Sierra provides the backdrop for a number of authors I like to recommend.  Although not easy to find, Kirk Mitchell is at the top of the list.  Mitchell worked for law enforcement on the reservations of the Owens Valley for a time and has authored a number of mysteries as well as science fiction, alternate history, and movie novelizations.  Four  books are particularly close to home, the Dee Laguerre series featuring a Basque heritage BLM ranger who takes on range wars and green guerillas in High Desert Malice and our own Owens Valley water war in Deep Valley Malice.  His first “local” book though was, Black Dragon from 1988.  It is set in Manzanar during the Japanese internment, and a more recent mystery, Under the Killer Sun, is set in Death Valley with a Shoshone heritage investigator.  (I haven’t read that one yet!).  Mitchell’s Emmett Parker (Comanche) and Anna Turnipseed (Modoc) series is also very good, frequently compared to Tony Hillerman in that the novels rely on Native American culture and settings.  Mitchell’s mysteries have plenty of action and bloody detail as well as the cultural aspects, to satisfy all but the “cozy mystery” lovers.

If you are interested in Mitchell’s mysteries, let us put your name on the Wants List or special order them, because they don’t last on the shelf!

Along with Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller brought to life the scrappy female private investigator genre.  Her Sharon McCone series is set mostly in San Francisco, but P.I. McCone finds her way to the East Side every so often, particularly in the 1991 mystery Where Echoes Live.  McCone spends a season next to a Mono Lake look-alike, Tufa Lake, investigating a corpse in the lake, a Nevada mining company bent on destroying the environment,  and a new murder every week or so….not the best thought while enjoying your Frosty Cone in Lee Vining.  McCone’s love interest with a local continues in the series, so the ties to Mono Lake country do as well.  It is a fun series with a strong, smart, and politically active woman character, well worth reading.

Sue Grafton ‘s female P.I., Kinsey Milhone, barely needs an  introduction since her “alphabet” mystery series is so well known.  If you haven’t read it though, you will enjoy Milhone’s foray into the Eastern Sierra in N is for Noose if for no other reason than to see how Mammoth Lakes, Bishop, Independence, Mono Lake and the other landmarks get tossed and jumbled together in this story!  While this mystery did not get the critical acclaim of other Milhone adventures, you will also enjoy Grafton’s humor and the plot twists that get her back to her home turf in Santa Teresa (Santa Barbara).  The “good ol’ boy network” may resonate or be an irritating stereotype, so…you’ve been warned. Kinsey Milhone is addictive (X comes out in August!) and a perfect, quick summer read.

An almost local author, David Sundstrand from Reno, Nevada, has clearly spent a lot of time in the Eastern Sierra, traveling up and down Highway 395.  He only has two books published so far, but the locations range from Randsburg to Topaz Lake.  Frank Flynn, protagonist and BLM investigator, melds the cultural heritage of the desert in his DNA with Irish, Paiute, and Mexican ancestry.  All contribute to his unique ability to solve grisly crimes in, quite literally, our backyard, usually involving poaching or some other resource damaging behavior as well.  These mysteries are page turners, on the bloodier side of the mystery novel spectrum, and other than a remarkable ability to travel really long distances in an eyeblink, (a trait shared by other authors writing about the West, even Tony Hillerman –  who wants to read about a six hour car ride to get back to headquarters anyway?) they are a good read.  Believe me, you will remember these stories when you pass some more colorful (or eccentric) homesteads and watering holes on Highway 395. Sundstrand clearly appreciates the unique characters of desert communities, and that is not something you read every day.

Since I am continually looking for interesting mystery authors to read and recommend,  please let me know if you have other authors to add to this list!  I know we also have several local self-published authors with mysteries to their credit,  so send me a review if you are familiar with any of them.  I’m sure someone has done psychological research into why we are so fascinated by murder and crime, but with these regional settings you can always claim you read them for the scenery.  And we don’t judge, read what you like.

Anyone with a history  in Nevada will recognize the name Laxalt.  Paul Laxalt was Nevada’s governor from 1967 to 1971 and then beat  Harry Reid for the US Senator seat which he held through 1987.   His political legacy is solid, and his career started as a boy when he rubbed shoulders with politicians in his family’s Basque hotel, later the Ormsby House, in Carson City.  His extensive family is entwined throughout Northern Nevada’s public life and history.

His younger brother Robert though, is the one with a hold on me.  Robert Laxalt ( 1923-2001) is an author at the top of the list that I Must Have Shelf Space For.  Laxalt began his career as a journalist, and his spare, to the point, and vivid writing in both fiction and nonfiction works reflects that training.  He is often compared to Ernest Hemingway who had a similar journalism background.  He writes about Basque American sheepherders, the sagebrush, and family.  If you know Nevada or the intermountain West, you know these people and places,  If  not, you want to know them.

Sweet Promised Land, Laxalt’s first book from 1957,  is based on a trip he and his Basque immigrant father Dominque took to the homeland after Dominque’s 50 years in the deserts and mountains of Northern Nevada.  Appreciation and affection grows for his father in the process, and we come to love and appreciate the whole family before the book ends.  Sweet Promised Land , in fact, is frequently credited with winning elections for Paul, but politics aside, this is a beautiful family story, an immigrant story, a coming home story.  I recommend it to everyone.

Charles Kuralt’s review of a later book says, “Somewhere along the line, many of our writers have forgotten how to tell stories, set in places the reader can see and feel and smell with the characters the reader cares about.  Robert Laxalt hasn’t forgotten how.  He has written a yarn that I, for one, believe and cannot get out of my head.”   Readable but rich, action packed, likeable characters- these ingredients add up to a satisfying book for young adults, and Sweet Promised Land was actually a Weekly Reader publication for many years.  When Laxalt helped found the University of Nevada Press, his books were then all published by the small university press and continue to be a mainstay of the UNR backlist.

Laxalt followed Sweet Promised Land with a dozen more Basque-American stories, some loosely based on his family history, some focused more on the Basque homeland.  A Cup of Tea in Pamplona about smugglers in the Basque Pyrenees is colorful and riveting.  A Man in the Wheatfield features Italian immigrants to Nevada, and is probably the most complex and ambiguous of his fiction works.  The American Library Association named it one of the most Notable Works of Fiction in 1964, on the list with Ernest Hemingway and Saul Bellow.  The Basque Hotel, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, brings in more of the family’s hotel heritage and Laxalt’s strong, competent mama.  Nevada, A Bicentennial History of course tops the nonfiction list.

Time of the Rabies, a novella and one of Laxalt’s final books, verges on a horror story, of  the compelling, can’t-put-it-down variety.  Based on an actual rabies epidemic in the 1920’s, the short story follows a sheep rancher and crew as the rabies epidemic sweeps over their operation and lives.  Yikes.  Nightmare material for everyone I know that read it, but so, so good!  He captures that complex relationship with nature and livelihood ranchers and farmers know too well.  Read it please, but not while alone or camping….

If you are a poor soul who hasn’t experienced any Basque American culture, start with Robert Laxalt’s books.  Then get yourself to the JT Bar in Gardnerville, or the Marvin Hotel in Winnemucca, the Star Hotel in Elko, or any number of other great traditional Basque restaurants across Nevada, Idaho, Montana.  You can still find good Basque food in Bakersfield with that area’s history of sheep herding.  Thanks in part to Laxalt, Basque festivals are common in the region too, Reno has a great one coming up in July. (click here for more information) It is an ancient and fascinating culture, with deep roots now in our sagebrush and aspen west.