Fans pick 71 books like Behind the Mystery

It’s 2005, and it’s my first day at The Daily Telegraph. I still couldn’t believe they had hired me as a cadet journalist. The smile I was wearing–from ear to ear–suddenly vanished when the Chief of Staff walked over and said, ‘Phelpsy, a bus has just crashed in Egypt. We have been told that there may have been some Australian tourists on board. Punch out 500 words and give it to me in an hour.’ 

I turned to my computer screen, looked down at my keyboard, and suddenly realized that I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never had any writing training, and my experience was limited to the gibber I had been submitting to the paper (for free) for the past year in the hope of landing a job. After ten minutes of writing a word or two, deleting them, and then doing it again, I… show more.

No one can deny that Patricia Highsmith knew how to create suspense. Alfred Hitchcock saw that Strangers on a Train was the ideal spine-tingler for a great movie. Other directors have found the Ripley series perfect nail-biting stories to work with. Highsmith takes us through the process of building suspense from the germ of an idea through the plotting, the drafts, and the revisions, using examples from her own work, short stories, and novels. I’m not surprised this book has stayed in print for over fifty years. I still dip into it and get inspired.

Although I’m a Brit, I joined the Mystery Writers of America early in my career and benefited enormously from the friendships I made. This newly published volume is a virtual encyclopedia of the advice their experts are willing to share. With more than seventy contributors, it covers the field and more, including mysteries for children, graphic novels, and true crime. None of it is treated as gospel. I laughed out loud when I found the chapter "Always Outline" by Jeffery Deaver, followed by "Never Outline" by Lee Child. Even the follow-up process of reaching out to readers is explained in "Building Your Community" by Louise Penny. This is a must-visit workshop for anyone serious about the craft.

Founded in 1930, the Detection Club celebrated its ninetieth birthday with gems of advice from ninety of its members from the Golden Age onwards. Where else could you hear from Agatha Christie on the secrets of plotting, Dorothy L. Sayers on partners in crime and Margery Allingham on dialogue? Or the great spy writers, Ambler, Deighton and le Carre? The list of contributors reads like a history of the genre, right into the twenty-first century with the likes of Lindsey Davis, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, and Peter James. The mostly British line-up nicely complements the MWA book. As a long-standing member (from the days when Christie was our president) I have been privileged to hear from many of the greats about their struggles and successes. How pleasing that so many are included here. 

In the fight against the War on Terror, many Americans have long forgotten the war that never stopped raging against an enemy that is better funded than many of our governmental organizations, is not bound by any laws or treaties, has a virtually unlimited supply of money, weapons, and soldiers, and is located just south of our borders. 

Patriot Games is an oldie but goody, a fictional novel that sheds light on the realistic way in which our War on Drugs encompasses Special Operations troops working hand in hand with intelligence agencies and law enforcement. I have friends who have fought directly in these drug wars, and who have told me the enemy had all of their names and personal information before they even landed south of the border for their deployments. The War on Drugs is savage and is still raging very close to home, yet we rarely hear… show more.

The murder and the laughs in this mystery begin on page one—which is no mean feat. Retired CIA agent Merry Wrath is now leading an Iowa girl scout troop. A murdered Al Qaeda operative tangled in the ropes course puts her back on the case again… and with her old and very attractive handler. Add in a handsome detective, and the sparks and laughs are flying in this good-natured and well-plotted romp.

Taking the story from the endgame of the Cold War to the dawn of the War on Terror is this extraordinary book on the rise of Islamist terrorism and the CIA’s efforts to defeat it prior to 9/11. Coll’s research, based on interviews with a vast range of senior officials, is dazzling, yet it never overwhelms a narrative that combines human interest and geopolitical sweep seamlessly. No less impressive is his accomplishment in documenting not just the U.S. and Afghan perspectives but the Saudi and Pakistani as well, all in the same painstaking detail. If this whets the appetite for more of the same, Coll’s Directorate S resumes his account of the intelligence wars in Afghanistan, providing necessary background to understanding the failure of the U.S. occupation there.

When asked about my favorite author and influences, Vince Flynn is right at the top. 

Flynn and his character Mitch Rapp aren’t afraid to take on anyone in order to wreak justice, even if the trail leads them to the oval office itself. This is what I love about the book, series, and character, that urgent, calculated versus reckless pursuit of justice.

Act of Treason, like the rest of the Mitch Rapp series, is fast-paced, irreverent at times, and hard-hitting as CIA Agent Rapp faces down anyone, foreign or domestic, to complete his mission. I enjoy Flynn’s writing style and the emotional twists he makes Rapp and the readers endure. 

Exploding wine bottles, guns constructed out of pipes, bullets made of teeth, aspirin explosives: If these sound like props from a B spy movie, it's because, again, truth > fiction. In the early-1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency spent a great deal of effort developing myriad weapons for sabotage. The results were this seventy-two-page illustrated manual, published in 1977 and distributed to American operatives likely to find themselves in situations requiring such improvisation. The manual is also invaluable for writers.

The best book on the founding period of the CIA, the 1940s to the 1960s. Thomas is the only non-Agency employee to have been granted access to still-classified CIA historical studies, making this work an invaluable compendium of previously secret information. It’s also a wonderfully rich evocation of the rarified social world of the early CIA – East Coast, WASP, Ivy League – and a moving biographical portrait of a generation of intelligence officers whose early careers began in youthful idealism but all too often descended into disillusionment, disgrace, and even suicide. The gold standard of CIA history books.