About Me

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Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada
I am a lawyer in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada who enjoys reading, especially mysteries. Since 2000 I have been writing personal book reviews. This blog includes my reviews, information on and interviews with authors and descriptions of mystery bookstores I have visited. I strive to review all Saskatchewan mysteries. Other Canadian mysteries are listed under the Rest of Canada. As a lawyer I am always interested in legal mysteries. I have a separate page for legal mysteries. Occasionally my reviews of legal mysteries comment on the legal reality of the mystery. You can follow the progression of my favourite authors with up to 15 reviews. Each year I select my favourites in "Bill's Best of ----". As well as current reviews I am posting reviews from 2000 to 2011. Below my most recent couple of posts are the posts of Saskatchewan mysteries I have reviewed alphabetically by author. If you only want a sentence or two description of the book and my recommendation when deciding whether to read the book look at the bold portion of the review. If you would like to email me the link to my email is on the profile page.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Bill's Mystery Fiction Stats (No. 2)

Back in January I did some analysis of the last 25 mysteries I had read. Now it is time to look at the 25 mysteries I have read since that time.

As with the previous listing the 25 being analyzed did not include a pair of thrillers. They were Ava Lee books by Ian Hamilton.

Of the 25 in this analysis there were 10 written by Canadian authors which is the same number as the first 25. Of the 10 there was a Crime Writers of Canada Excellence Award winner. A Snake in the Raspberry Patch by Joanne Jackson won the Award for Best Crime Novel set in Canada.

The 15 non-Canadian authors were divided between 7 Americans, 3 English, 3 Chinese, 1 Danish and 1 Japanese. In the previous analysis there were 13 American authors. I have no explanation beyond a general desire to read a variety of mysteries.

The additional stats were: 

1.) Authors - 9 female and 16 male;

2.) Sleuths - 11 female and 17 male (the total is more than 25 because of the number of sleuthing teams. There was a male duo, a female / male pair, and a unique team of 2 females and 2 males. I did not include a sidekick as a sleuth.);

3.) Settings - 8 in Canada, 6 in America (2 of the books set in the U.S. were by Canadians), 4 in England, 3 in China, 1 in Denmark, 1 in Japan, 1 in Argentina and 1 in India; and,

4.) Victims - 18 females and 34 males (The men were dropping much faster than the women.)

In my next post I will continue an analysis of a personal crime fiction stat - how many sleuths watch television.

It is a little early in this process to look for patterns but I am curious to see what emerges as the number of books analyzed increases.

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2 comments:

  1. This is a really interesting breakdown of your reading, Bill. It's good ('though not at all surprising) to see that you've got a solid variety of authors from some different countries. I wonder what other patterns you may find.

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  2. Margot: Thanks for the comment. I wonder if analyzing reading will change my reading.

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