I guess I shouldn’t say that EVERYBODY’S mother would like Agatha Christie books. Surely there must be literally DOZENS who wouldn’t.

What’s good about Agatha Christie mysteries is that they’re clever and satisfying without (usually) getting too gory or too scary. I myself prefer a good Jeffery Deaver (Twisted is great, or my favorite so far is The Cold Moon), but they’re gory and intense and scary, and I wouldn’t risk giving one as a gift to someone who might not enjoy reading about gruesome serial killings.

Where was I? Oh, yes! Mother’s Day! Yes. For my mom and yours, I would lean more toward Agatha Christies, which can get a little tense toward the end but don’t contain risky plot elements such as death by steam and/or taking of souvenirs from corpses. Here are a few of my own mother’s favorites:

Murder at the Vicarage (Swistle’s Mom says: “Funny, memorable characters.”)
The Labors of Hercules (short stories) (Swistle’s Mom says: “Not in same league as full-length books, but entertaining”—but Swistle says, “I like the short stories even better: more action, less interviewing of suspects.”)
Sleeping Murder (Swistle’s Mom says: “A WONDERFUL Miss Marple.”)
Cat Among the Pigeons (Swistle’s Mom says: “Mystery at a girls’ boarding school, interesting characters.”)
Murder on the Orient Express (Swistle’s Mom says: “It’s so famous that I’m a little less inclined to suggest it, but it is famous for a reason — it’s REALLY good.”)

All five of those all qualify for Amazon’s “4-for-3″ promotion, which means that if you put four of them in your cart, one of them is automatically free (it subtracts from your total during checkout). So you get four books for your mom and you only pay for three, and who’s going to tell her? Not me. (Or maybe you get three Agatha Christies for your mom and one of those gruesome serial killer books for yourself.) —Swistle

Ballpark price: $7 per book—or a little over $5 per book if you do the “4-for-3″ thing