Enjoy this primer from very own mistress of mystery, Reference Librarian Gayle Stratton.
I will read just about anything, but my all time favorite reads are mysteries, historical mysteries to be specific, particularly those with a setting of medieval Britain. Anything and everything seems possible or plausible when it takes place in another place and time.
I started reading the Brother Cadfael books by Ellis Peters, which were turned into a television series, available on DVD here at the library. After reading the 20 or more of those (A Morbid Taste for Bones, One Corpse Too Many), I needed to find other authors and a friend recommended P. C. Doherty, writing as C. L. Grace. He has created a strong female character with an uncommon occupation in Kathryn Swinbrooke, a physician in Canterbury (The Merchant of Death, A Feast of Poisons).
Margaret Frazer has given us another strong woman in the Sister Frevisse series whose titles are all "someone's" tale (The Novice's Tale, The Servant's Tale, etc.) and recently has begun a new medieval theatrical series (A Play of Lords, A Play of Dux Moraud).
Another physician is Matthew Bartholomew, who along with University Provost Brother Michael, a Benedictine Monk, solves murders in Cambridge. Titles in this series by Susanna Gregory include A Bone of Contention and A Plague on Both Your Houses.
Medieval Oxford is the setting for the Falconer series (Falconer's Crusade) by Ian Morson. Falconer is a Regent Master at University of Oxford.
And then there are the fighting men...In her first book, The Apothecary Rose, Candace Robb introduces Owen Archer, former soldier, now in York working for the Lord Chancellor of England and the Archbishop of York.
Michael Jecks has a long running series featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill, a former Templar, and Simon Puttock, a bailiff in Exeter. The first of the series is The Last Templar.
Prolific author, P.C. Doherty, writing as himself, writes stand alone mysteries (Death of a King) as well as other medieval series such as those featuring Hugh Corbett, a clerk to Edward I (Demon Archer, Corpse Candle) and stories based on the Canterbury Tales such as The Hangman's Tale: the Carpenter's Tale of Mystery and Murder as He Goes on a Pilgrimage from London to Canterbury and A Tournament of Murders, the Franklin's Tale of Mystery...
So this winter, prop your feet up by the fire and enjoy a little murder and mayhem in merry ole' medieval England.