A few weeks ago in a fantasy group someone asked for non-fantasy book recommendations and I immediately thought of To The Hilt by Dick Francis. It’s a mystery/thriller from 1996 (I’m not sure if his son, Felix, co-wrote it). It’s a relatively recent book, but I’m still going to include Dick Francis in my Golden Age mystery author list because he has that style. His heroes are confident in themselves and the rightness (even righteousness) of their actions. The stories are also immersive. You live and breathe the (generally) horsey world.
Phoebe Atwood Taylor (who also wrote as Alice Tilton) is an American Golden Age mystery author. I particularly enjoy her books from the 1940s. Written during the war, they convey a sense of the world then without losing any of her appreciation of the absurd. Check out File for Record.
Talking of insight into WWII, Margery Allingham (one of my all-time favorite Golden Age mystery authors for her beautiful writing) wrote The Oaken Heart to explain to American readers the nature of life in England in the early years of the war. Tiger in the Smoke was my introduction to Margery Allingham’s writing and it is an awesome book. This is post-war London; damaged, smoky, enduring, and glorious. The characters are superb.