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Mystery Short Stories & Novels

PoeDoyle

New Member
As a fan of Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes, I am extremely interested in short stories or novels that employ their ways of deductive reasoning. I would also like recommendations for mysteries that are thrilling and analytical. Finally, I am interested in recommendations for novels that follow the pastiche of Holmes.
 
Hi there and welcome. :)

You might find interesting Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Forty Stories of Crime and Detection from Original Illustrated Magazines. The various authors listed are:
Grant Allen
Robert Barr
Arnold Bennett
Richard Harding Davis
Arthur Conan Doyle
L.T. Meade & Robert Eustace
L.T. Meade & Clifford Halifax, M.D.
Arthur Morrison
Newton MacTavish
Baroness E. Orczy
C.L. Pirkis
Clarence Rook
H.G. Wells
Fred M. White

Selected and introduced by Alan K. Russell.
It was compiled in 1978, so probably the only way to obtain it would be second hand, but it'd be worth it. :)
 
Thanks, I was wondering if you or any other members had more recommendations. So far, many of the titles I've been recommended are extremely hard to find. Solar Pons, Nero Wolfe, and the book mentioned in this thread. Any ideas where I can possible purchase them?
 
Well, the Nero Wolfe (by Rex Stout) books shouldn't be too hard to find if you aren't particularly fussy about the editions. They've been printed nearly continuously since they were written.
The Solar Pons series (by August Derleth) is harder to come by, though I've found the first three cruising thrift stores, etc.
I'll try to get back with a more complete listing of Holmes related books.
 
I took a quick look at my shelves and found Holmes related titles (mostly pastiches) by the following:
Larry Millett
Laurie R. King
L.B. Greenwood
Nicholas Meyer
Quinn Fawcett
Carole Nelson Douglas
John Gardner
Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Wayne Worcester
Michaale Hardwick
Cay Van Ash
Robert Lee Hall
Frank Thomas
August Derleth
Michael Hodel & Sean Wright
Michael Kurland
Stephen Kendrick
J.M. Gregson
John Lescroart
Caleb Carr
Alan Vanneman
Martin Davies
Also, I have three or four anthologies. A very good one too start with, if you can find it, would be The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, Mike Ashley, Ed. It's got a nice lengthy
bibliography at the back.

You might also want to look for books by Clayton Rawson.
 
Now for short stories, you could try Lawrence Block. He has a (fairly) new collection of his short stories Enough Rope. Here is a bit of the back cover.
Half a dozen of Block's stories have been short-listed for the Edgar Award, and three have won it outright. All the tales in Block's three previous collections are here, along with two dozen new stories. Some will keep you on the edge of the chair. Others will make you roll on the floor laughing. Enough Rope is an essential volume for Lawrence Block fans, and a dazzling introduction for others to the wonderful world of Block magic!
This particular edition does contain almost all of his short stories. It does tend to be darkish. So he is best taken in small doses. IMO
 
Have you tried reading Agatha Christie? She is still one of the best in writing mysteries with unpredictable endings. I believe she has written several short mystery stories, like the mousetrap for example. Check it out!:)
 
You should probably enjoy David Stuart Davies' The Hentzau Affair, The Game's Afoot and The Tangled Skein, in which he writes new stories for Sherlock Holmes, including a meeting with Count Dracula! You may also enjoy Davies' The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes, a compilation of detective fiction from the same period as Holmes' stories.

You could also try Chesterton's Father Brown stories about a crime-solving priest.
 
POE and DOYLE

Love your name POEDOYLE!

The method of solving crimes that Poe invented is RATIOCINATION and since he came long long before Doyle or any other mystery offerings we have to assume that Holmes uses a deduction method similar to ratiocination. Each of these writers were so talented and so brilliant that their respective detectives are still very much alive in the world.
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FROM THE FREE DICTIONARY PAGE
ra·ti·oc·i·nate (rsh-s-nt)
intr.v. ra·ti·oc·i·nat·ed, ra·ti·oc·i·nat·ing, ra·ti·oc·i·nates

To reason methodically and logically.
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[Latin raticinr, raticint-, from rati, calculation; see ratio.]
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rati·oci·nation n.
rati·oci·nator n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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ratiocination
the process of logical reasoning or rational thought. — ratiocinative, adj.
See also: Thinking
-Ologies & -Isms. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved
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FROM THE ONLINE MERRIAM WEBSTER
deduction
One entry found.
Main Entry: de·duc·tion
Pronunciation: \di-ˈdək-shən, dē-\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1 a: an act of taking away <deduction of legitimate business expenses> b: something that is or may be subtracted <deductions from his taxable income>
2 a: the deriving of a conclusion by reasoning; specifically : inference in which the conclusion about particulars follows necessarily from general or universal premises
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SINCE I WAS NOT SURE OF HOW OR WHY PASTICHE WAS USED I LOOKED IT UP FOR MYSELF AND DECIDED TO SHARE ______________________________________________________
PasticheFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Pastiche (disambiguation).
The word pastiche describes a literary or other artistic genre. The word has two competing meanings, either meaning a "hodge-podge" or an imitation. Both meanings are discussed below.
[edit] GeneralisedA generalised and simplified way of describing a pastiche is a parody that doesn't use humour to get its message across, instead they often have tones of seriousness.
[edit] Hodge-podgeIn this usage, a work is called pastiche if it is cobbled together in imitation of several original works. As the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, a pastiche in this sense is "a medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble." This meaning accords w/etymology: pastiche is the French version of greco-Roman dish pasticcio, which designated a kind of pie made of many different ingredients.
[edit] Imitation
In this usage, the term denotes a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful.
For example, many stories featuring Sherlock Holmes, originally created by Arthur Conan Doyle, have been written as pastiches since the author's time. David Lodge's novel The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965) is a pastiche of works by Joyce, Kafka, and Virginia Woolf. Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a pastiche of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Pastiche is also found in non-literary works, including art and music.
Pastiche is prominent in popular culture. Many genre writings, particularly in fantasy, are essentially pastiches. The Star Wars series of films by George Lucas is often considered to be a pastiche of traditional science fiction television serials (or radio shows). The fact that Lucas's films have been influential (spawning their own pastiches - vis the 1983 3D film Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn) can be regarded as a function of postmodernity.
The films of Quentin Tarantino are often described as pastiches, as they often pay tribute to (or imitate) pulp novels, blaxploitation and/or Chinese kung fu films, though some say his films are more of an homage. The same definition is said to apply to the video games of Hideo Kojima as well, since they adopt many conventions of action films. Pastiche can also be a cinematic device wherein the creator of the film pays homage to another filmmaker's style and use of cinematography, including camera angles, lighting, and mise en scène. A film's writer may also offer a pastiche based on the works of other writers (this is especially evident in historical films and documentaries but can be found in non-fiction drama, comedy and horror films as well).
Well-known academic Fredric Jameson has a somewhat more critical view of pastiche, describing it as "blank parody" (Jameson, 1991), especially with reference to the postmodern parodic practices of self-reflexivity and intertextuality. By this is meant that rather than being a jocular but still respectful imitation of another style, pastiche in the postmodern era has become a "dead language", without any political or historical content, and so has also become unable to satirize in any effective way. Whereas pastiche used to be a humorous literary style, it has, in postmodernism, become "devoid of laughter" (Jameson, 1991).
[edit] Continuation
Among some Conan the Barbarian fans, the term Pastiche is used to describe posthumous follow-ups to the Robert E. Howard stories, written by other writers without Howard's authorization. This includes the Conan stories of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, who laid the Conan stories out in a chronology counter to the stated approach of Howard himself, and also saw fit to actually revise Howard's original tales to satisfy their own preferences.

Just FYI.
 
Try British mystery writer Agatha Christie, who is the greatest mystery writer of all.....I've read all of her short story books and they are very good. She wrote about 8-10 books that were just short stories. The best ones were calles Three Blind Mice and Witness For the Prosecution.
 
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