You’ll want to rent “The Fifth Element” (Bruce Willis)–not to be confused with “The Fifth Elephant” which is another Pratchett.
Get “American Gods” by Gaiman. Hugo winner, a variety of gods are loose in modern America, and they have a plan…
Jasper is Terry’s favorite writer, BTW.
Barry Hughart has 3 books, all set in an ancient China that never was. Master Li and Number Ten Ox have mysteries to solve in all of them (Bridge of Birds, Eight Skilled Gentlemen, The Story of the Stone). Excellent writing, very nice atmosphere, good mysteries.
You can also try The Yellow Thread Street mysteries by William Marshall. Such a bunch of oddball detectives that you can ever imagine set in Hong Kong.
Westlake’s Dortmunder series is excellent, but he also wrote several “stand alone” books with great humor. I recommend “High Adventure”, set in Belize, and “Dancing Aztecs”. Both deal with smuggling artifacts from Central America.
I was delighted with the latter when the whole Dortmunder bunch makes a cameo appearance for a few paragraphs-- which have nothing to do with the plot.
Um, no. I think you meant to type Don Parker maybe. Robert Parker is NOT a nom de plume of Westlake. For one thing, he is a much better writer than Westlake.
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin maybe? It’s set in 1830’s Istanbul. I particularly liked the Polish ambassador (Poland did not exist as a country at the time of the story, it had been annexed by Russia).
Another vote for the Thursday Next Stories by Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair is the first one.
You’d probably like Christopher Moore. My favorite of his so far is A Dirty Job.
Do you like historical mysteries? I like the Marcus Didius Falco mysteries by Lindsey Davis. They’re set in Ancient Rome during the reign of Vespasian, and they’re funny.
There are some vampire detective series that are pretty good, like P.N. Elrod’s Jack Fleming series, which is set in 1920’s Chicago.
How about the Anonymous Rex series by Eric Garcia? Noir-ish mystery with Dinosaurs living among modern humans, disguised in latex suits. bizarre, but great.
It’s about journalists (well, bloggers, to be more exact) unveiling a conspiracy to kill a presidential candidate… in an Earth after a Romero-like zombie apocalypse.
Alexander McCall Smith’s series “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” set in Botswana. Nice gentle humour and likeable characters.
Lawrence Sanders’ Archy McNally series. Think a modern day Bertie Wooster based in Florida. Everything is in the tone of the narrative. Very enjoyable reads.
Not a terribly unconventional setting, but Joan Hess’s Maggody mysteries are riotously funny, set in a backwoods town in the Ozarks. Best to read them in order, starting with Malice in Maggody, as there is character development over the course of the series–and one really reads these books more for the characters than for the mysteries.
I highly recommend The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy, by Avram Davidson, a collection of short stories set in the 19th Century in the Triune Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania (modeled on the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Only a few of these stories are actual whodunits, but most (not all) involve the urbane aristocratic polymath Engelbert Eszterhazy (holder of seven doctorates) conducting some sort of investigation or “inquiry” – sometimes by traditional detective methods, sometimes by library research, sometimes by magic or phrenology, or some combination of all of these. You have never read anything like them, I assure you! Davidson’s mind was truly unique.
