Double Features, or Books in Tandem
Just as I enjoy thinking about two movies that would be fun to see in a double feature (The Great Impostor and Catch Me if You Can are the first ones that come to mind at this moment), I sometimes think about books by different authors that would be fun to read one after the other. There are the obvious pairings of one book that is an homage to another earlier book: Colin Dexter’s The Wench is Dead, which so closely parallels Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, and Peter Lovesey’s Bloodhounds, which uses John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins as a plot device, are examples. Then books with similar themes: E.C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case and Dorothy L. Sayers’s Strong Poison both feature a detective who falls in love with a murder suspect. Or a book by Donna Leon with a book by Magdalen Nabb (Venice and Florence settings), or…
What two books by two different authors would you suggest reading one after the other and why? (Click on Comments below to leave a reply.)
Martin Edwards said,
July 1, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Good question. How about Towards Zero by Agatha Christie and Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare? In both, the murder occurs almost at the end, rather than near the beginning of the book.
Joyce Burbank said,
July 9, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Robert Parker and William Tapply set their books in Boston. In both series, Spencer, a PI, and Brady Coyne, a lawyer, are involved in physical action. Both authors describe clothing worn by the characters, talk about food, and describe routes traveled around Boston and vicinity. Both characters have a police connection, both have a steady girl, and in Tapply’s later books, both have a dog. If you like one, the other will be enjoyable also.
Lesa Holstine said,
July 14, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I just read The Sour Cherry Surprise by David Handler, with a character, Mitch Berger, who is a film critic. I followed it up with Jeffrey Cohen’s It Happened One Knife about Elliot Freed, the owner of an all-comedy movie theater, who hosts a legendary comedy duo, shows their movie, and finds out his heroes were involved in a Hollywood death. Perfect follow-up!
Elizabeth Zelvin said,
July 15, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Here’s a double double feature on drowned towns: Reginald Hill’s On Beulah Height and Donald Westlake’s Drowned Hopes (an odd couple indeed); Jane Langton’s Emily Dickinson Is Dead and Peter Robinson’s In A Dry Season.
Jennifer Wendel said,
July 16, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Another drowned town book is Under the Lake, by Stuart Woods. It’s pretty old but I checked with Amazon and it is still in print. Also one of my favorite ghost stories.
Cathy Jackson said,
July 16, 2008 at 6:36 pm
An addition to the drowned town theme: THE CHRISTENING DAY MURDER, by Lee Harris. Guess that would be a triple feature on drowned towns.
Jayne said,
July 17, 2008 at 10:57 am
Ruth Downie’s ‘Medicus’ and
Lawrence Goldstone’s ‘The Anatomy of Deception’
Both are historicals heavily involved with the medical profession of their
respective times: the former in Roman Britain and the latter 1889 Philadelphia.
Both feature a hero with high medical morals struggling to protect the
lesser elements of his society in the face of indifference and outright
obstruction from the people (men) who pay his wages and control his
advancement. Both novels involve women being taken advantage of by
unscrupulous men, and include some secondary female characters whose
strength and determination sets them apart from the run of their
contemporaries
Meredith Phillips said,
July 19, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Ruth Downie’s MEDICUS and Kelli Stanley’s NOX DORMIENDA are both about Roman doctors in first-century Britannia.