It might not come as a surprise either, but I´m much more a mystery reader than a horror reader. There is something thrilling and satisfying about solving a mystery alongside the detective or private investigator or whoever solves the case (an exception: I really dislike these mysteries written by Swedish female authors, in which a housewife, a journalist or a hairdresser all of a sudden starts to get involved in crime fighting. Those are badly written junk in my opinion).

But I really liked horror novels in my teenage years. I remember going to the Danish library to borrow every Stephen King I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, twenty years later I cannot stand this guy and his writing any more.

But thanks to Char, I´ve learned about Michael McDowell and his books are amazing (I think I will read "Katie" for this years bingo). He really epitomises what I like about my horror books. The slow and atmopheric build up of horror, characters you become detachted to and the occasional occurence of gory scenes, which aren´t in the readers face but actually make sense in the context of the story. There is nothing worse for me than books that constantly are shoving the gore in your face (the worst example for this is "Stinger by Robert McCannon - hated that book).

 

And of course, I have so many mystery novels to choose from on my shelves (and I´m sure a few will follow becuase of the book shopping I will be doing in Edinburgh):

 

 

 

Some of these I have already read, but I was just too lazy tonight to make a pile of the books I´m actually planning to pick.