30. Devil in a Blue Dress
Devil in a Blue Dress is a 1990 hardboiled mystery novel by Walter Mosley, his first published book. The text centers on the main character, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, and his transformation from a day laborer into a detective.
Check the book on amazon »29. A Study in Scarlet
The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes, a consulting detective, to his friend and chronicler Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet"
Check the book on amazon »28. IQ
Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence.
Check the book on amazon »27. The Woman in White
WILKIE COLLINS'S ''Woman in White,'' first published serially in a magazine in 1860, is a classic in detective fiction. ... Collins, told from several limited vantage points, was based on a true case that he found in a book of French crimes. This is a quintessentially Victorian world.
Check the book on amazon »26. Third Girl
Third Girl is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1966 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year.
Check the book on amazon »25. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Hercule Poirot, the five-foot-four, egg-headed, brilliant Belgian detective who made his first appearance in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, is the hero of more than thirty novels and fifty short stories by Agatha Christie.
Check the book on amazon »24. The Rebecca Notebook: and Other Memories
Rebecca, Gothic suspense novel by Daphne du Maurier, published in 1938. Widely considered a classic, it is a psychological thriller about a young woman who becomes obsessed with her husband's first wife.
23. A Test of Wills
Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight.
Check the book on amazon »22. Bluebird, Bluebird
the Bluebird, Bluebird is a true original in the way it twists these conventions into a narrative of exhilarating immediacy. Darren Matthews is a Texas Ranger, working in a division of state law enforcement tasked with investigating everything from political corruption to murder.
Check the book on amazon »21. Whose Body?
Thipps, an architect, finds a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath of his London flat. Lord Peter Wimsey—a nobleman who has recently developed an interest in criminal investigation as a hobby—resolves to investigate the matter privately.
Check the book on amazon »20. The Magpie Murders
A fatal accident, a gruesome murder, a drowning, a questionable suicide, and missing chapters from a manuscript are all connected in Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. This murder story within a murder story includes the text of Magpie Murders, the final novel written by fictional author Alan Conway.
Check the book on amazon »19. The Long Call
The Long Call is the captivating first novel in a brand new series from Sunday Times bestseller and creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves. In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place.
Check the book on amazon »18. Big Little Lies
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. A darkly comedic tale of murder and mischief in the tranquil beachfront town of Monterey, Calif.
Check the book on amazon »17. The Daughter of Time
The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel by Josephine Tey, concerning a modern police officer's investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published in her lifetime, shortly before her death.
Check the book on amazon »16. Killing Floor
Out of sheer restlessness and rootlessness, 36-year-old ex-military policeman Jack Reacher persuades a Greyhound bus driver to make an unscheduled stop in Margrave, the small Georgia town where Reacher's brother, a U.S. Treasury official, just happens to have been murdered a few hours earlier.
Check the book on amazon »15. The Heron's Cry: A Detective Matthew Venn Novel
New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves returns with The Heron's Cry, the extraordinary follow-up to The Long Call, now a major TV series, alongside her two hit TV shows Shetland and Vera.AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!“In Matthew Venn, Ann has created a complex, daring, subtle character.”
Check the book on amazon »14. Murder on the Orient Express
John Cassetti got away with the murder, and escaped to Europe, where he forged a new life as Samuel Ratchett. But those closest to the Armstrong family never forgot, and, at the urgency of Michelle Pfeiffer's Caroline Hubbard, a meticulous and calculated plan was made to murder Ratchett that involved 11 other people.
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widower U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, go on a ferry boat to Shutter Island, the home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando (who was incarcerated for drowning her three children).
Check the book on amazon »12. The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie
It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.
Check the book on amazon »11. The Girl on the Train
The Girl on the Train is the story of Rachel Watson's life post-divorce. Every day, she takes the train in to work in New York, and every day the train passes by her old house. ... And then one day, as the train passes, she sees something shocking, filling her with rage.
Check the book on amazon »10. The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon explores the importance of a personal code of ethics in a world of incompetent authorities and an imperfect criminal justice system. Throughout the novel, Samuel Spade calls into question the police's ability to apprehend the right criminals.
Check the book on amazon »9. The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs is based on the 1988 novel by Thomas Harris. It was the second film to feature the character Hannibal Lecter; the first, Manhunter (1986), was also adapted from a Harris novel.
Check the book on amazon »8. Cover Her Face
Cover Her Face is the debut 1962 crime novel of P. D. James. It details the investigations by her poetry-writing detective Adam Dalgliesh into the death of a young, ambitious maid, surrounded by a family which has reasons to want her gone – or dead.
Check the book on amazon »7. The Moonstone
The Moonstone has several archetypal features of modern detective fiction and created many of the ground rules for the genre. Several incidents in the story are taken from the real life Constance Kent Road Case and the plot is Collins at his intricate best.
Check the book on amazon »6. In the Woods Tana French
Rob's two best friends went missing in the woods around Knocknaree. They were never found, but the young Adam Ryan was, complete with broken fingernails, bloodstained socks, and a t-shirt with "four parallel tears"
Check the book on amazon »5. The Hound of the Baskervilles
Sherlock Holmes' most famous case, the Hound of the Baskervilles, was set on foggy Dartmoor, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got much of the inspiration for the book from real-life people and places - as well as folklore
Check the book on amazon »4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a psychological thriller novel by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson, which was published posthumously in 2005 to become an international bestseller. It is the first book of the Millennium series.
Check the book on amazon »3. Case Histories
Case Histories is a detective novel by British author Kate Atkinson and is set in Cambridge, England. It introduces Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector and now private investigator.
Check the book on amazon »2. Gone Girl
Sounds like the plot of Gone Girl? Yes, but it's also the real-life story of Laci and Scott Peterson. When Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn was asked in 2012 if she'd based her novel on any particular real-life case, she mentioned the high-profile disappearance that had been splashed across the media a decade earlier.
Check the book on amazon »1. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles.
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