The best mysteries that carry us to different worlds

I love it when a book takes me to an entirely new world. This series fascinates me with it’s deft portrayal of a wholly different culture in one of the most antithetical-to-life climates on earth. 

Arthur Upfield takes us deep into the Australian outback with Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony), a half white and half aboriginal detective. The two sides of Bony’s heritage are constantly at war and to prevent his black side from winning, he must solve all his cases. Prejudice against the aboriginals is rampant in this world and as readers, we too suffer his stings of rejection.

In this one, Bony must find a missing man who nobody wants found and solve a mystery nobody wants solved. Jeffrey Anderson is a sadist and a brutal drunk. He once stock-whipped an aboriginal man to death.

Now he seems to have fallen off the earth and the aboriginals are the only ones who seem to know what happened. But, when questioned, shutters fall over their eyes. They want Bony to fail, but when he persists (as he must), decide he will die.

After making a ball of gum in which they embed his cigarette ends, the Aboriginal chiefs sit by a campfire sending deadly thought messages through the air. It’s a battle Bony fights with every ounce of his courage, but his aboriginal side is vulnerable to the witchcraft and his iron resistance is almost beaten until a Kalchut medicine man appears and saves his life.

This whole series is done impeccably.

Male authors who try to write from the POV of women almost always fail. I want to shake them and ask why they don’t ask their mothers or wives or daughters for help.

Alexander McCall Smith is the only privileged white male I’ve read who actually succeeds. In The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, he takes us to the African country of Botswana to meet Precious Ramotswe, who inherited her late father’s cattle and sold the herd to set up her private detective agency.

Precious is the only female detective in the country, a woman with a traditionally-large African figure. With no formal training, she relies heavily on her intelligence, good common sense, and perfectly balanced moral compass.

In this book, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and the situation that tugs hardest on her heartstrings, find an eleven-year-old boy. He’s the son of a teacher, who she suspects has been taken by witch doctors and killed for his bones—called “muti”—which supposedly cure all ills.

To find this boy, Precious must take her tiny white van into the dead country with no cattle, no goats, only bush and stunted thorn trees. She ultimately finds the boy alive with two Bushmen from the Kalahari who speak only in clicks and whistles.

The author manages to give us Precious Ramotswe’s mind, heart, and strength without ever taking a step wrong. For the armchair traveler, it’s a book worth reading. And re-reading.   

Ian Pears is an erudite art historian who has written prolifically on artistic, historical, and financial topics.

In his series about the fictional Italian Art Squad in Rome, he gives us General Tadeo Bottando who is fighting a losing battle to protect the heritage and art of Italy. He is a military man who expects his subordinates to respect his position and wisdom, but Flavia de Stefano, his second-in-command, is distressingly off-hand in her treatment of the man.

In Death and Restoration, the General has just received a tip about a planned raid of a nearby monastery. It doesn’t make sense, there’s nothing valuable in the monastery’s collection, except for the endearing art thief, called the “Rotweiler of Restoration,” who is restoring the only important piece, a painting by Caravaggio and a tiny dusty icon of a Madonna. She’s called “My Lady” is believed to have protected the church during WWII.

They are about to dismiss the matter when Flavia learns that a woman named Mary Verney is in town. They have history because middle-aged, sweet-looking Mary Verney is an art thief. It turns out Mary once had a relationship with a Greek named Kostas. His son, Mikis, wants Mary to steal a painting for him and when she refuses, he kidnaps her grandchild. The icon disappears and then is found again, triggering a major religious revival.

There’s a murder, a recovered grandchild, and much more before Bottando intones, “I’ve always thought that people get the miracles they deserve.” Ian Pears has a light tongue-in-cheek style as he makes gentle fun of the Italian state and tickles us in return.

Take a trip to Rome and learn about the Art Squad. You won’t regret it. 

Tana French takes her readers back in time to Ireland of the 1980s.

The story is told from the POV of male detective Rob Ryan who, as a child, became lost in the woods with two friends. When police arrived they found him clutching a tree trunk in horror. He was wearing blood-filled sneakers and remembered nothing of what happened. The other two children were never found.

Twenty years later, Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are investigating the murder of a twelve-year-old girl whose body was discovered near the same forest. The area is an archeological dig permitted because a highway is planned to run through the area in a month.

The dead child is lying on an ancient ceremonial Bronze Age stone. The investigation into her murder is complex and psychologically thrilling, as snippets of Rob’s memories emerge. The murder is solved, but Rob and Cassie’s partnership is shattered in the process.

The author is a brilliant writer who has created a literary tale, full of pitch-perfect language, that overlays a gritty murder mystery. It’s a story I’ve read multiple times, always impressed with the author’s brilliant use of language. 

Ellis Peters—the penname of Edith Pargeter—wrote eighteen Brother Cadfael mysteries as well as a set of Inspector Felese Mysteries and a separate Trilogy.

All her stories take place during the twelve years when two English monarchs (King Steven and his cousin the Empress Maud) are fighting each other for the throne. Brother Cadfael is a monk who lives in the Abbey of Shrewsbury. A marriage has been arranged between an aging nobleman and a young woman (Iveta, a wealthy heiress), coerced by her greedy guardians. Both parties arrive at the Abbey where the wedding is to take place.

Unbeknownst to her guardians, Iveta has fallen in love with Joscelin, a squire to the bridegroom (Picard). The night before the wedding, Picard goes to visit his long-held mistress and on his return to the Abbey, he is killed. Joscelin is immediately suspected and hunted by the sheriff and his men. He takes refuge in the nearby leper hospital.

These books were made by the BBC into a major television series that was carefully done. The author has the skill to take us into the apothecary gardens of an ancient monastery presided over by Brother Cadfael and lets us feel the slow chanting pace of their private world. Once you read one of these, you will be hooked.