HRF Keating 100 Best Crime & Mystery Books

1845 – Edgar Allan Poe – Tales of Mystery and Imagination
1868 – Wilkie Collins – The Moonstone
1870 – Charles Dickens – The Mystery of Edwin Drood
1892 – Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
1899 – EW Hornung – The Amateur Cracksman
1902 – Arthur Conan Doyle – The Hound of the Baskervilles
1907 – Jacques Futrelle – The Thinking Machine
1908 – Mary Roberts Rinehart – The Circular Staircase
1911 – GK Chesterton – The Innocence of Father Brown
1918 – Melville Davisson Post – Uncle Abner
1925 – Edgar Wallace – The Mind of JG Reeder
1926 – Agatha Christie – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1929 – Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest
1929 – CHB Kitchin – Death of My Aunt
1930 – Dorothy L. Sayers – The Documents in the Case
1930 – Dashiell Hammett – The Maltese Falcon
1931 – Arthur W Upfield – The Sands of Windee
1932 – Francis Iles – Before the Fact
1933 – Erle Stanley Gardner – The Case of the Sulky Girl
1934 – Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Express
1934 – James M Cain – The Postman Always Rings Twice
1934 – Dorothy L Sayers – The Nine Tailors
1935 – John Dickson Carr – The Hollow Man
1935 – Rex Stout – The League of Frightened Men
1936 – Ethel Lina White – The Wheel Spins
1938 – Nicholas Blake – The Beast Must Die
1940 – Cornell Woolrich – The Bride Wore Black
1940 – Ngaio Marsh – Surfeit of Lampreys or Death of a Peer
1942 – Ellery Queen – Calamity Town
1942 – Cyril Hare – Tragedy at Law
1942 – Raymond Chandler – The High Window
1944 – Christianna Brand – Green for Danger
1945 – Michael Innes – Appleby’s End
1946 – Elizabeth Ferrars – Murder Among Friends
1946 – Helen Eustis – The Horizontal Man
1946 – Edmund Crispin – The Moving Toyshop
1947 – Frederic Brown – The Fabulous Clipjoint
1948 – Josephine Tey – The Franchise Affair
1948 – John Franklin Bardin – Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly
1948 – Margery Allingham – More Work for the Undertaker
1949 – Georges Simenon – My Friend Maigret
1949 – WR Burnett – The Asphalt Jungle
1950 – Michael Gilbert – Smallbone Deceased
1950 – Georges Simenon – The Stain on the Snow, The Snow Was Black.
1951 – Josephine Tey – The Daughter of Time
1952 – Hillary Waugh – Last Seen Wearing
1952 – Margery Allingham – The Tiger in the Smoke
1953 – John Bingham – Five Roundabouts to Heaven
1953 – Raymond Chandler – The Long Goodbye
1953 – Guy Cullingford – Post Mortem
1954 – Shelley Smith – The Party at No. 5
1955 – Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr Ripley
1955 – Margaret Millar – The Beast in View
1956 – JJ Marric (John Creasey) – Gideon’s Week
1956 – Stanley Ellin – Mystery Stories
1960 – Georges Simenon – Maigret in Court
1960 – Michael Innes – The New Sonia Wayward
1963 – Nicholas Freeling – Gun Before Butter
1963 – Dorothy Hughes – The Expendable Man
1964 – Jim Thompson – Pop. 1280
1966 – EB Eberhart – R.S.V.P. Murder
1967 – Julian Symons – The Man Who Killed Himself
1967 – Emma Lathen – Murder Against the Grain
1967 – Sjowall & Wahloo – Roseanna
1967 – George Sims – The Last Best Friend
1968 – Peter Dickinson – The Glass-Sided Ants Nest
1968 – Helen McCloy – Mr. Splitfoot
1968 – Nicholas Blake – The Private Wound
1969 – Patricia Highsmith – The Tremor of Forgery
1969 – Chester Himes – Blind Man With a Pistol
1970 – Joan Fleming – Young Man, I Think You’re Dying
1970 – Margaret Millar – Beyond This Point are Monsters
1972 – Ed McBain – Sadie When She Died
1972 – George V Higgins – The Friends of Eddie Coyle
1972 – Julian Symons – The Players and the Game
1972 – Stanley Ellin – Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
1973 – Tony Hillerman – Dance Hall of the Dead
1974 – Peter Dickinson – The Poison Oracle
1974 – Gregory McDonald – Fletch
1975 – PD James – The Black Tower
1975 – Celia Fremlin – The Long Shadow
1975 – Colin Watson – The Naked Nuns
1976 – Ross Macdonald – The Blue Hammer
1976 – Agatha Christie – Sleeping Murder
1976 – Dorothy Salisbury Davis – A Death in the Life
1976 – Dorothy Uhnak – The Investigation
1977 – Ruth Rendell – A Judgement in Stone
1977 – William McIlvanney – Laidlaw
1977 – Donald Westlake – Nobody’s Perfect
1978 – Reginald Hill – A Pinch of Snuff
1979 – Joseph Hansen – Skinflick
1979 – PM Hubbard – Kill Claudio
1979 – John D MacDonald – The Green Ripper
1981 – John Wainwright – All On a Summers Day
1981 – Amanda Cross – Death in a Tenured Position
1981 – Joseph Wambaugh – The Glitter Dome
1982 – June Thomson – To Make a Killing
1982 – Peter Lovesey – The False Inspector Dew
1984 – James McClure – The Artful Egg
1986 – PD James – A Taste for Death