# Authors With Formulaic Titles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 11, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044 "2004-09-11T16:02:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/1 "2004-09-11T16:02:53Z")
Sue Grafton’s titles are always something like “A Is For Apple.” Harry Kemelman’s books always had titles like “Wednesday, the Rabbi Washed the Dishes.” John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee stories always had a color in the title (e.g. “The Throbbing Purple Eggplant”). What other authors always had some kind of formula for their titles? ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/2 "2004-09-11T16:21:07Z")
Janet Evanovich numbers her Stephanie Plum novels: _One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three To Get Deadly_, and so on. (We want more of those, not the ones with that other person.) I know there are more, but I can’t think of them right now. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/3 "2004-09-11T16:21:47Z")
The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovitch. All the titles contain a number (in consecutive order, e.g., _One for the Money_ was the first one. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/4 "2004-09-11T16:23:46Z")
Simulpost! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/5 "2004-09-11T16:28:58Z")
Ed McBain has an 87th Precient series of mysteries with alphabetical titles–Ax, Bread, Calypso, Doll, Fuzz, Ghost, Heat Ice, etc. and he started them long before Sue Grafton was even published. McBain’s Matthew Hope mystery novels all have names from children’s fairy tales, rhymes, etc–Cinderella, Puss in Boots, and my favorite “Gladly the Cross Eyed Bear.” ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/6 "2004-09-11T16:35:44Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Sue Grafton’s titles are always something like “A Is For Apple.” Just to be really nitpicky (sorry, I can’t help myself), it’s not _A is for Apple_, it’s _A is for Alibi_. And all the other words in the titles are crime-related (Burglar, Corpse, Deadbeat…) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/7 "2004-09-11T16:57:55Z")
The 87th Precinct novels have a lot of one-word titles, but they weren’t published in any kind of order and don’t encompass the alphabet. Lawrence Treat is the author who started the alphabetical titles with B as in Banshee in 1940. He also did a D, F, H (twice), O, P, Q, T, and V. Ellery Queen’s first nine novels were The Geographical Noun Mystery. Roman Hat, Greek Coffin, Chinese Orange, etc. Craig Rice did a variation on this with The Thursday Turkey, Sunday Pigeon, and April Robin Murders. Glen Cook has a series of sf mysteries with metals in the titles: Sweet Silver Blues; Bitter Gold Hearts, and Copper, Tin, Brass, and Iron. Lawrence Block does The Burglar who… Liked to Quote Kipling; Studied Spinoza; Painted Like Mondrian and several more. George Baxt did a wonderful series of mysteries starting the Dorothy Parker Murder Case, but moving over to Hollywood, with everybody from Alfred Hitchcock to Mae West in the titles. One real oddity: C. C. Benison, whose mysteries are solved by Queen Elizabeth and one of her maids. Death at Buckingham Palace; Death at Windsor Castle; Death at Sandringham House. He appears to have stopped them with Diana died, possibly because she was an occasional character. Sue Grafton’s father, G. W., was a mystery writer, BTW. His first two books had the same detective and their titles were the first two lines of a nursery rhyme: The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope and The Rope Began to Hang the Butcher. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/8 "2004-09-11T17:06:53Z")
I’ve not read any of them, but there’s Lilian Jackson Braun’s books whose titles always start with **The Cat Who** … ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/9 "2004-09-11T17:14:43Z")
Robert Ludlum’s novels seem to have three words in the title, like “The Bourne Identity”, “The Parsifal Mosaic”, “The Holcroft Covenant”, “The Icarus Agenda”, etc. This is not true for all of his titles, though - some of them have four words. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/10 "2004-09-11T17:21:11Z")
James Paterson’s Women’s’ Murder club all have sequential numbered titles. 1st to die, 2nd Chance and 3rd Degree ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/11 "2004-09-11T17:25:39Z")
Margaret Truman’s mysteries all are “Murder at/in Someplace in DC”…Murder At Ford’s Theater, Murder on Capitol Hill, Murder at Union Station, etc., except or one of her books, Murder in Havana, where the crime is moved outside of DC. Also, while it’s a TV show and not a series of novels, each episode title of Monk starts with “Mr. Monk…” You’ve got episodes like “Mr. Monk and the Gameshow”, “Mr. Monk and the Girl who Cried Wolf”, and “Mr. Monk Takes his Medicine”, for examples from this season. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/12 "2004-09-11T17:35:31Z")
All my posts start with: Kid Chameleon Charter Member 😛 ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/13 "2004-09-11T17:39:33Z")
:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/14 "2004-09-11T17:41:54Z")
Stephanie Barron’s mysteries with Jane Austen as the detective all have titles beginning with “Jane and the…” The titles of Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury mysteries are all taken from pubs that are featured in the story. Along similar lines, with a few exceptions, Anne Perry’s Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries are named after real or fictitious London locations. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/15 "2004-09-11T17:44:51Z")
> [@MonkeyMule](#): > > James Paterson’s Women’s’ Murder club all have sequential numbered titles. > 1st to die, 2nd Chance and 3rd Degree His Alex Cross detective novels all use parts of nursery rhymes. “Jack and Jill”, “Roses are Red”, “Violets are Blue”, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/16 "2004-09-12T02:03:03Z")
My Mother is a big fan of the [My Friend](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3D%252522my%252520friend%252522%252520%252522Jane%252520Duncan%252522%26store-name%3Dbooks/104-0579548-1216755) series of books. I’ve never read them. ---
**Author:** ![Catsmeow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Catsmeow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catsmeow)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/17 "2004-09-12T02:15:44Z")
J.D. Robb, who is the alter ego of Nora Roberts, writes books with titles that end with “In Death”. For example: Naked In Death Glory In Death Immortal In Death to name the first three as they are best if read in order. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/18 "2004-09-12T02:19:36Z")
Fred Hunter’s Alex Reynolds mysteries were all two words, the first being some governmental term and the second being a slang term for “homosexual” starting with the same sound. _Government Gay, Capital Queers, Federal Fag, National Nancys._ That was until he broke the pattern with 2001’s _The Chicken Asylum_. Nathan Aldyne’s Dan Valentine/Calrisse Lovelace series were all colors: _Vermillion; Cobalt; Slate; Canary_. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/19 "2004-09-12T02:39:06Z")
Diane Mott Davidson has a series of murder mysteries with a caterer as the main character. They all have food related titles. Chopping Spree. Tough Cookie, The Main Corpse, and so on. They’re ok stories, although I’ve read better mysteries. But the books always include some of the tasty recipes mentioned in the plot, so I can live with them. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044/20 "2004-09-12T03:57:38Z")
Well, this is movies, and, it’s Steven Seagal, so you’ll have to excuse the decided lack of literary quality (if you could consider a Steven Seagal movie screenplay to have any resemblance to literature), but his formulaic movies had formulaic titles that were mostly adverbial phrases which allowed the movie trailer guy to announce that… **"Steven Seagal is…"** Out of Reach (2004) Out for a Kill (2003) On Deadly Ground (1994) Under Siege (1992) Out for Justice (1991) Marked for Death (1990) Hard to Kill (1990) Above the Law (1988) * * * moriah is… out of here. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-formulaic-titles/264044.md?page=2)