Arthur Conan Doyle: Brilliant Detective witholds clues until culprit is caught, exposition begins.
You were doing fine until you hit the last bit. Almost every book ends with the young hero in a low-ranking salaried position with room for advancement. The “rags to riches” trope is rarely the case with Alger; it’s “rags to respectability.”
You win the thread.
( I was going to put in something about Mormon Pron, but it was too wordy. )
Sue Grafton: Some letter is for some word, which is the most interesting part of the book.
Robert Jordan: If you thought Tolkein wasn’t wordy enough, and didn’t focus enough on clothes and jewelry, then you’re in for a treat.
Steig Larrson: Sweden is full of crazy psycopaths, Nazis, rapists, child molestors, and misogynists, except for me, er…I mean Mikael Blomkvist, that guy is awesome and gets laid a lot.
Hip, cool, with-it, better-than-you youths wander around, do drugs, hook up, and ironically comment on society.
Wait. Who was I thinking of? Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerny, Douglas Coupland … Oh, no, it could be a dozen others!
Ayn Rand- Misunderstood egoistic genius(es) tell society to stuff itself, blow up shit, get persecuted- a lot, finally get laid- a lot!
Father Andrew Greeley- Confused Irish Catholic gal and confused Irish Catholic guy get thrown together by Love-Crazed Irish Catholic God, oft with help of smartass Irish Catholic cleric. This could be set in 1000 B.C. Africa & the Black Animists in the story would still be Irish Catholic.
John Irving: A bunch of improbable characters go through a lot of violent events involving motorcycles, bears, rape, boarding school, Austria and wrestling, to no purpose.
Dean R. Koontz: Weird shit happens, a guy and his dog investigate, meet a girl who falls in love with the guy under the glow of a sodium-vapor streetlight, and in the end they figure out what alien/voodoo priest/supernatural entity/rogue psychic government agent/psychopathic child with paranormal abilities/genetically engineered monstrosity was behind it all and find the one flaw that can defeat the enemy’s near-omnipotent abilities.
David Foster Wallace: W/R/T[sup]1[/sup] [sup]2[/sup] [sup]3[/sup] [sup]4[/sup] [sup]5[/sup][sup]…[/sup]
Please! Not just a dog, a GOLDEN RETRIEVER so empathetic it damn near amounts to psychic abilities.
Stephen King: Normal. everyday objects and people that wouldn’t harm a fly OR you suddenly turn on you, and just might kill you, IF you are unlucky.
Tim Dorsey: Serge kills a lot of unpleasant people in interesting ways, all the while spouting Florida history and trivia.
W.E.B. Griffin: World War Two and Korea happen to people, but never the interesting parts. (ignoring the Badge books)
Leo Tolstoy: TLDR
Lee Child: “Reacher said nothing.”
Nabokov: Story within a story about a sexually perverted but intellectual and multilingual guy who does nothing productive for an entire book, but waxes gradiloquently about it.
James Butcher: Wizard detective gets crap beaten out of him trying to solve murder, turns out culprit was another wizard (or wizard-vampire), commence climactic magical shoot-out.
(actually just the Dresden novels, I’ve never read his other stuff)
James Lee Burke: New Orleans ex-cop and drunk, with large, psychopathic friend destroy more of the city than Katrina did; whole lotta hatin’ goin’ on.