I’ve found that the Christmas season is the best time for mysteries, and the mystery book world appears to be booming. It’s the best year for new mystery writers that I can recall.  I’ve found that this genre is being overtaken by young female writers from all over the country and the world. They often have a new understanding of the genre, which has gotten a little tired – body found, grumpy widower detective with a mean boss solves it at the last minute.

The new generation of writers puts crime and death.

I usually scan mysteries at this time of year, and I’ve bound about a dozen that look exciting and promising; all but one are by female writers. I find that they are re-imagining the structure and range of the mysteries. It’s not just a bloody murder and a complex and often troubled  DCI; the female point of view is very different than the male point of view in life and in mysteries.

I’ve ordered five mysteries to get me through the Christmas system; I feel I should be able to read a mystery in two days, sometimes less. Reading a mystery was often the way I got to go to sleep. I find the mysteries I read more nuanced, emotional, and very different.

I’ll mention three today, and two more are coming tomorrow, and I’ll mention them then. The first one I got was Murder By Degrees, by Ritu Mukerji, born in Kolkata, India, and now lives in San Francisco. I am a third into the book and am liking it very much.

The hero is not a cop but a pioneer female doctor. The book takes place in 1857. Lydia Weston is a teacher and co-founder of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, a pioneer in medical teaching at a time when male doctors and male-run medical schools fought aggressively to keep women out of medicine. Their argument was that women are too sensitive and fragile to operate on human beings. The book captures the feel of the women’s revolution, just beginning to store in America. The doctor is honest, challenging, and compassionate, the perfect doctor and professor.

Dr. Weston will have none of male patronization and bigotry.

One of her patients, a young service worker in a wealthy home named Anna, is found drowned in a river. It looks like suicide, but Dr. Weston thinks it is much more than that, and she decides to investigate.

She makes for a strong and admirable doctor who is both fearless and skilled. So far, it’s a terrific book; I’m completely hooked. She even connects with that rarest of police inspectors, a man who is honest and unafraid to deal with and listen to women. Mukerji’s background about life in post-revolutionary Philadelphia and the early days of medicine is fascinating.

Reading the book, I felt this is a good one for granddaughters and daughters; Lydia is a great role model for young women, and the book is not creepy or gory.

The other two books I’ve ordered are Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie and Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux. Arceneaux’s story takes place in a Louisiana bayou and introduces Inspector Glory Broussard, our funny and foul-mouthed investigator/ hero. I’ll write more about these two when I read them, but I’m excited about them all, And I’ll read them all over the holidays.

Blood Sisters is about a very different kind of mystery. A Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Rhode Island is sent to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women, one of them her sister. She has herself suffered violence that she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown. She promised herself she’d never go back, but the search for his sister has brought her back.

It’s fascinating that women have such a creative and original grip on the mystery genre; I love almost every book I read.

Two other books I’ve ordered: The Body By the Sea, by Jean-Luc Bannalec, a Brittany Mystery, and The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (Book One of a new series.) by Alison Goodman. A secret women’s society is dedicated to helping abused or mistreated women.

From one early review of The Benevolent Society Of I’ll Mannered Ladies: “Fresh and fearless, Alison Goodman’s exquisitely written, impeccably researched genre-blending novel shines a light into the darkest corners of Regency England. The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies is part heart-racing adventure, gothic mystery, tantalizing romance, and wholly wonderful.” 

The Body Of The Sea is the eighth book in the Commissaire Dupin mystery series.

I’m in.