Which selection do you choose?

[B.R.Stateham]

The recent discussion going on in John's 'The Ending' spot brings up an interesting question.

So you're standing in the bookstore and there are three detective novels you're seriously considering to puchase. You can only buy one. One books totes itself as being 'The next great Nero Wolfe or Ellery Queen!" A genuine puzzle in the traditionalist's style of writing.

The second is a new James Patterson serial-killer. One of his better ones.

The third is a book who has an anti-hero of less than admirable qualities, a villain who is truly dispicable, and an ending which is not really an ending but more like the beginning of the second book in the series.

Which kind of reader are you. You like classic whodunits? Serial-killer modern? Or anti-hero bastards?

[B.R.Stateham]

Hmmm. The puzzle itself is not the magnet, eh? Interesting.

[Dana King]

If that's all I know about each book, I'd probably pass altogether. I have no time for yet another serial killer book. "Classic" whodunits can be okay, but there has to be more to the book than the wohdunit aspect. The anti-hero bastard can be okay if it's done well, but not if it's just a nihilistic exercise in mayhem.

The story has to interest me on more than a puzzle basis, and the characters have to create some empathy so I care about what happenes to at least some of them. A good writing style completes the package for me.