100 books like A Pocket Full of Rye

This whole series always makes me smile–Mma Ramotswe remains one of the most hilarious main characters in any cozy mystery I’ve ever read. The crimes she comes up against are usually low-key, usually secondary to the backdrop of Botswana, and often solved by accident as much as design.

Precious Ramotswe’s commentary on Botswanan life is simply brilliant, but almost even more amusing is her sidekick, Grace Makutsi, who bumbles through her role as secretary-promoted-to-assistant-detective, and the interaction between the characters never fails to give me laugh-out-loud moments.

This whole series has to be the most feel-good series ever, and now I’m rediscovering it as an audio production of the radio series; it’s as heart-warming as a bright bunch of flowers on a dull day, a bowl of hot soup when you’re sick; a hot bubble bath when it’s snowing outside…I love it, love it, love it!

Now I’m torn. Agnes Sharp and her housemates are delightful, but a friend of mine tells me that I am Joyce in this book. This series is one of the best I’ve read in the past few years, and this book is one of the best ones in the series.

I’ll gladly join septuagenarians Elizabeth (could she have worked for Scotland Yard?), Ibrahim (a psychologist), Ron (a brawling socialist organizer), and Joyce (gentle and perhaps not as naïve as she seems) at their posh retirement village as they discuss unsolved crimes each Thursday. And I’m definitely there to solve the murder of that local developer. No way the villain will get away from this brilliant gang of sleuths. 

This may be one of my favorite mysteries; I could barely put the book down. Granted, this title is not full of examples of faith precisely, but Agatha Christy was a devout Anglican (like C.S. Lewis). If one is going to write mysteries, one must appreciate Agatha Christy. She was an incredibly prolific author of some truly high-quality fiction. 

This was the first title I read of hers, and it set me on a path to begin collecting her books. This tale has so many elements that build tension and create a great mystery—from the isolation of the setting to suspicion and general confusion. It is a masterpiece of a whodunit.

Harbinder Kaur, the lead detective in Elly Griffiths's charming series, describes herself as “the best gay sikh detective in West Sussex,” and together with a few amateur sleuths, she forms a delightful cast in a sort of modern-day Miss Marple-romp.

It begins with an old lady using her binoculars to take careful note of what’s happening in her sleepy seaside village, and as all fans of British cozy crime know, where there are nosy neighbors, dead bodies will soon turn up. I loved Elly Griffiths's series about archeologist Ruth Galloway, and this new series does not disappoint. In fact, Elly Griffiths herself makes a small and entirely involuntary cameo in my book. 

Actually, I tell a lie. I had read crime before my honeymoon, but only Agatha Christie, whose whodunnits always feature murders that are tastefully described and over in a couple of lines.

With Christie, it’s all about the puzzle, and boy, is she good at that. Her characters are often a bit two-dimensional, but you forgive that for the sake of her plots, which always race along and convince, however unlikely in real life.

This is one of her most famous ones, and rightly so. No spoilers here, but if you read this as I did as a teenager (recommended by my father) you are in for a grand surprise. Hopefully.

A widow with a new lease on life thanks to her secretly wealthy aunt becomes involved in a murder.

Multigenerational, with the Italian grandma, her newbie journalist granddaughter, plus an ex-nun sister and an ex-sister-in-law.

This story involves food, jokes, and family love, albeit with much more brashness and outspokenness than any of the other books I listed, and also a lot more Italian, though the book is set in New Jersey.

This book is signature Christie: well-plotted and paced, full of exciting characters, all of whom had motive and potential to kill…and we meet her most beloved character, Poirot. What’s not to like?

I hadn’t read any Christie books in decades, and this was the one that rekindled my love affair with her craft.

Captain Hastings narrates these books (a la Watson’s retellings of Holmes’s brilliance) and points out Poirot’s eccentricity and fastidiousness from the initial introduction. Poirot seems so silly and stuffy…until those little gray cells kick in, and we get some keen insights.

Someone pointed out to me that Christie’s work is now considered historical. This book is also a classic mystery worth reading.

This book is not a typical sleuth novel. The story is from each suspect’s point of view, all unreliable.

I loved that my perspective of Rosemary Barton shifted with each retelling of the night that she supposedly committed suicide by drinking a glass full of cyanide-laced champagne. Was Rosemary actually a doting sister? Perhaps she was a happy, lovely younger wife. Maybe she was a rival or a schemer.

I read the novel because of its irresistible title and intriguing questions. Although I’m familiar with most Poirot and Marple books, I wasn’t as familiar with the Colonel Race mysteries. By this, Ms. Christie’s thirty-sixth book, she’d honed her craft to such a degree that I still think about it often. 

Christie’s Jane Marple inspired me to write mysteries. As Miss Marple made her starring debut in Murder at the Vicarage, it holds a dear place in my heart.

In quaint St. Mary’s Mead, a man named Colonel Protheroe meets with foul play, and it’s Miss Marple’s keen insights that prove invaluable. Jane Marple may be “of a certain age,” but she’s as sharp as a tack. I admire how Christie plunks the reader right into the story, introducing would-be suspects at a rapid pace, particularly Miss Marple, who takes tea with the Vicar’s younger wife and spills plenty of tea in the process.

This one’s a classic for lovers of traditional mysteries like me!

I admit it: I underestimated Flavia de Luce.

She is 11 years old, self-schooled, and lives outside a small English town in the 1950s. She is overlooked and underestimated by everyone. Deep inside, I’m still 11 years old, underestimated, and overlooked. I had an insatiable desire to learn about my environment, and I often saw things others didn’t. Flavia also reminds me of my childhood living in the country in the 1980s. I ran unchecked, safe, and constantly delighted in discovering new things about my corner of the world. I wince at the de Luce family politics. I cheer Flavia’s investigations and her fearlessness. I want nothing more than to stay in Flavia’s 11-year-old world forever. She is the kick-ass kid I wanted to be.