The Greatest Crime and Mystery Stories of All Time

For much of the history of crime and mystery publishing, the short story ruled. In the pulps era, readers got their weekly fix of murder and mayhem from the dozens of periodicals that filled magazine racks. Those publications specializing in crime and detective fiction have all but disappeared. But writers are still seeing their work published in the few magazines that still run such stories, as well as in hardcover or paperback collections of their works and in third-party anthologies.

This list focuses on the greatest stand-alone stories of crime and mystery, separate from the Greatest Crime and Mystery list, which is dominated by the longer forms.

For this list we define a short story as having fewer than 17,500 words—longer prose being categorized as a novella or a novel. Roughly, you can think of a short story as a prose narrative you can read in an hour or less.

You can expect the Greatest Crime and Mystery Stories to grow and change as our greatest literature research continues. Check back for updates.

Latest update: July 8, 2023

The 66 greatest crime and mystery stories

In chronological order

See also:

Creating the Greatest Literature of All Time list

Greatest Literature of All Time

Greatest Science Fiction

Greatest Fantasy Fiction

On Twitter: