Friday, April 22, 2011

Earth Day Mysteries 2011: Environmental Crime Fiction

Earth Day: April 22, 2011. Time for an updated Earth Day/Environmental Mysteries List. It's by no means complete. There are many more authors, and certainly more books by many of the authors on the list. This year's I've added a short list of Reservoir Noir at the end. As always, I welcome additions. I took a few liberties on the list, too, but I think they all fall under the umbrella of environmental mysteries.

Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang
Liz Adair's Snakewater Affair
Grace Alexander's Hegemon
Suzanne Arruda's Stalking Ivory
Lindsay Arthur's The Litigators
Sandi Ault's Wild Inferno
Michael Barbour's The Kenai Catastrophe and Blue Water, Blue Island
Nevada Barr's Track of the Cat, Ill Wind and others
Lee Barwood's A Dream of Drowned Hollow?
William Bernhardt's Silent Justice
Donald J Bingle's GreensWord
Michael Black's A Killing Frost
C J Box's Winterkill, Open Season, Below Zero, Savage Run, Out of Range, Trophy Hunt, Free Fire, In Plain Sight
Robin Cook's Fever
Donna Cousins' Landscape
Rex Burns' Endangered Species
Michael Crichton's State of Fear
James Crumley's Dancing Bear
Janet Dawson's Don't Turn Your Back on the Ocean
Barbara Delinsky's Looking for Peyton Place
William Deverell's April Fool
David Michael Donovan's Evil Down in the Alley
Rubin Douglas' The Wise Pelican: From the Cradle to the Grave
Aaron J Elkins' The Dark Place
Howard Engle's Dead and Buried
Eric Evans' Endangered
G M Ford's Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?
Clare Francis's The Killing Winds (Requiem)
Matthew Glass' Ultimatum
Ken Goddard's Double Blind, Prey, Wildfire
Steven Gould and Laura J. Mixon's Greenwar
Robert O Greer's The Devil's Hatband
John Grisham's The Pelican Brief, The Appeal
Jean Hager's Ravenmocker
William Hagard's The Vendettists
James W. Hall's Bones of Coral
Patricia Hall's The Poison Pool
Joseph Hall's Nightwork
Joseph Heywood's Blue Wolf in Green Fire, Ice Hunter, Chasing a Blond Moon
Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip, Stormy Weather, Sick Puppy, Strip Tease
John Hockenberry's A River out of Eden
Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow
John Holt's Hunted
Mary Ellen Hughes' A Taste of Death
Dana Andrew Jennings' Lonesome Standard Time
Linda Kistler's Cause for Concern
Janice Law's Infected be the Air
Donna Leon's Death in a Strange Country, About Face
David Liss' The Ethical Assassin
Sam Llewellyn's Deadeye
John D MacDonald's Barrier Island (and other titles)
Larry Maness' Once a Perfect Place
Elizabeth Manz's Wasted Space
John Martel's Partners
Steve Martini's Critical Mass
Deon Meyer's Blood Safari
Skye Kathleen Moody's Blue Poppy
Marcia Muller's Cape Perdido
Dan O'Brien's Brendan Prairie
Michael Palmer's Fatal
Sarah Paretsky's Blood Shot
T. Jefferson's Parker's Pacific Beat
Cathy Pickens' Southern Fried
Carl Posey's Bushmaster Fall
David Poyer's As the Wolf Loves Winter, Winter in the Heart
Ruth Rendell's Road Rage
Rebecca Rothenberg's The Shy Tulip Murders
Patricia Rushford's Red Sky in the Mourning
Kirk Russell's Shell Games
Frank Schätzing's The Swarm
Barry Siegel's Actual Innocence
Sheila Simonson's An Old Chaos 
Jessica Speart's Bird Brained
Dana Stabenow's A Cold Day for Murder, A Deeper Sleep, A Fine and Bitter Snow, Midnight Come Again, A Taint in the Blood, and many others.
Neal Stephenson's Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller
David Sundstrand's Shadow of the Raven
William Tapply's Cutter's Run
Peter Temple's The Broken Shore
David Rains Wallace's The Turquoise Dragon
Lee Wallingford's Clear-Cut Murder
Joseph Wambaugh's Finnegan's Week
Sterling Watson's Deadly Sweet
Randy Wayne's White Captiva
Robert Wilson's Blood is Dirt
K.J.A. Wishnia's The Glass Factory

New this year is the following list of Reservoir Noir. Thanks to LibraryBookLists.org. I think these books that deal with intentional flooding of towns and villages because of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, irrigation, power and other reasons is a sad but welcome addition to the environmental crime fiction list.

Alan Dipper's Drowning Day
Eileen Dunlop's Valley of the Deer (YA)
Lee Harris's Christening Day Murder
Reginald Hill's On Beulah Height
Donald James' Walking the Shadows
James D. Landis' The Talking (Artist of the Beautiful)
Jane Langton's Emily Dickenson is Dead
Julia Wallis Martin's A Likeness in Stone
Sharyn McCrumb's Zombies of the Gene Pool
Michael Miano's The Dead of Summer
Ron Rash's One Foot in Eden
Rick Riordan's The Devil Went Down to Austin
Peter Robinson's In a Dry Season
Lisa See's Dragon Bones
Paul Somers' Broken Jigsaw
Julia Spencer-Fleming's Out of the Deep I Cry
Donald Westlake's Drowned Hopes
John Morgan Wilson's Rhapsody in Blood
Stuart Woods' Under the Lake

Let me know if I've forgotten any titles.

9 comments:

Craig said...

I'm surprised to see only one John D. MacDonald entry on this list. Nearly all of his Travis McGee mysteries had at least an undercurrent of environmentalism, and in several it was the dominant theme.

Jason said...

A terrific list! I'd also just add James Crumley's Dancing Bear.

Jason said...

A terrific list! I'd only add James Crumley's Dancing Bear.

Carola Dunn said...

Sheila Simonson's An Old Chaos

Carola Dunn said...

Sheila Simonson: An Old Chaos

Randal Brandt said...

David Rains Wallace: The Turquoise Dragon (1985). This just might be the only mystery novel ever published by the Sierra Club.

Janet Rudolph said...

Randal, of course, and we read that in my bookgroup when it came out.

vallerose said...

The Monkey Wrench Gang-hysterical. Worth reading just for the prologue.

CQ said...

Mary Roberts Rinehart - The Case of Jennie Brice deals with a Pittsburgh area flood.
Ellery Queen - Siamese Twin Mystery begins (slightly) with fleeing a forest fire.
Ross MacDonald - The Underground Man deals extensively with a forest fire.
Eric Ambler - Background to Danger and Cause for Alarm both feature pre-WWII espionage and a cross country European border escape to safety.

Canadian novels where nature and setting is more involved than as just an average backdrop:
Howard Engel - Murder Sees the Light has a provincial park setting.
Howard Engel - Murder on Location revolves around a frozen Niagara Falls.
Maurice Gagnon - The Inner Ring is about a Montreal cyclist killed along the St. Lawrence river (most of his novels are written in French, this is in english).
Scott Young - Murder in a Cold Climate has a far northern artic backdrop.