The 222 Greatest Works of Crime and Mystery

Coming out a year after The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Jews' Beech Tree is considered one of the first crime or mystery works. But while Edgar Allan Poe's story is obviously seminal as detective fiction.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

In the argument about whether The Woman in White or The Moonstone is Wilkie Collins's first great mystery novel—and thus arguably the first great mystery novel ever—a compromise is generally found.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

The Moonstone is sometimes presented as the first great mystery novel. It wasn't the first of its kind though. Wilkie Collins's own The Woman in White eight years earlier featured a mystery and a crime-solving detective.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

When we're talking about Arthur Conan Doyle's contribution to detective literature, we really mean the entire oeuvre of fifty-six Sherlock Holmes stories, plus four Holmes novels. But if you're looking for a.... Critique • Quotes • Text • At the movies • Buy

First thing you have to do is forget all the movie and television productions you might have seen of this tale. Those misty, moody scenes on the moors.... The horror of the hound from hell, eyes blazing as it attacks.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Joseph Conrad's novel of a century earlier was apparently widely read again, especially in Western intelligence circles. I'm not sure, though, what those new readers.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

If you come to G.K. Chesterton's avowed masterpiece expecting a piece of early twentieth-century realism, you're going to be very surprised. If you've heard it's a mystery—hopefully along the lines of the.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy

The Innocence of Father Brown is the first of five collections of mystery stories featuring G.K. Chesterton's canny priest. It's probably the best collection and it introduces the holy detective—as well as his sometime.... Critique • Quotes • Text • At the movies • Buy

There is not a lot to say about the narrative structure or the characters or the writing in this famous novel. The Thirty-Nine Steps is a seminal tale of intrigue, a classic early story of an innocent man drawn into dark.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

British mystery authors like to place their imagined crimes in the hallowed halls of distinguished universities. Maybe they hope uncovering wickedness in the English and classics departments distinguishes their.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

You could say Isaac Asimov always was a mystery writer. His early science fiction works were often light on action as his brainy, talkative characters sought answers to practical questions. Why did that robot act contrary.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

A superior espionage novel can engage your sympathy with opposing characters. At the fantasy end of the thriller spectrum one can dreamily identify with a super-heroic agent and cheer the demise of a villainous.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy

Nordic noir had been around before the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels made it a worldwide fad. For at least a decade earlier, Scandinavian crime writers, like Henning Mankell, had been winning.... Critique • Quotes • Buy

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, we had a spate of bestsellers with "girl" in the titles: Girl, Interrupted (1993), Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999), The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), The Windup Girl (2009), Gone Girl (2012).... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Buy