The History of Mystery

#1: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Unfortunately, we lost Professor Eco earlier this year. Even before we consider the greatness of his masterpiece, how could you not root for a writer like Umberto Eco? Some authors have success with almost no effort. Michael Crichton (another great storyteller that we lost too soon) wrote his first best-selling mystery to pay medical school bills - the concept that many struggling authors can't find a publisher was lost of him. (And damn it...

Before unveiling my selection for Best Mystery Novel ever written (at least that I have read), I have some honorable mentions.  These are authors for whom I have read at least two of their books, and enjoyed them (or why would I read a second one), but just didn't find their best work to quite crack the Top 20.  In some cases, I'll leave out an author who will be featured in my next extended list - I will be going through a list, in order, of the novels that have won the Edgar for B...

#2: Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie.  That's our second Agatha Christie, so I did not choose And then there were none, which is the favorite for a lot of readers.  If you disagree, share your comments!  Not that there aren't a host of other great contenders - Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Mysterious Affair at Styles, the Mirror Crack'd, etc etc etc.  One of my personal experiences of how fiendish Dame Christie is.  As a tyk...

#3: The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  A Study in Scarlet is also great for introducing the most beloved, most original, and most copied character in the history of mysteries (and probably all of literature).  It's a great book though perhaps not a great mystery, as the killer and the motive are not available for the reader to deduce (though watching it unfold is great every time I read it).  The SIgn of the Four is also a masterpiece ...

#4: Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith.  Arkady Renko, investigating the home of a dead man, receives a message on the computer printer with a seemingly obvious question: "Where is Red Square?"  One imagines that to a Russian this is like asking Who is buried in Grant's Tomb, but it turns out to be all too complicated...

The main element that makes Red Square great is Arkady Renko and the usual fiendish Martin Cruz Smith plotting.  That's what makes Martin Cruz ...

#5: Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg.  This great novel is #5 on my list and possibly #1 on my later list of "Top Mysteries that were betrayed by terrible adaptation."  Among the many sins of the 1997 adaptation was the change of the ending so that Gabriel Byrne's character, who in the book is Smilla's lover but betrays Smilla and turns out to have been in league with the villains all along, in the movie turns out to be an undercover agent for the Danish authorities who d...

#6: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.  This is probably the longest mystery in my Top 20 but it passes the Lonesome Dove test (and I love Lonesome Dove): did I want it to end?  I did not - it is surely the longest page-turner mystery that I personally have read.  Set in England in the 17th century, An Instance of the Fingerpost is both an exciting historical novel illuminating a time none too familiar to most Americans, and a very fiendish...

#7: Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow.  We have reached the point in the Top 20 where the greatness of the books in question can not longer be explained without spoilers.  Presumed Innocent is extremely well written and well plotted, and it is full of realistic detail about the criminal justice system.  But what makes it Top 10 material can not be separated from what is special about the ending.  So...heed my warning.  DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT READ PR...

#8: For Kicks - Dick Francis.  For a while, I had read every mystery novel Dick Francis wrote, though I did not keep up with the collaborations with his son, Felix.  I am aware that Mary Francis also had a hand in the novels and may have had more of a hand than admitted.  Whoever Dick Francis was, they wrote great mysteries, and a lot of them.  Three good things and one bad thing were signature features.  First, the fascinating world of English steeplechase rac...

#9: The Spy who came in from the Cold by John Le Carre.  As with a number of the other authors on my list, Le Carre's work might seem to traffic in cliches but they werent cliches before he invented them.  Specifically I am thinking of the double-cross and the triple-cross.  I have read novels where this is done to perfection (e.g., The Quiller Memorandum which won the Edgar shortly after The Spy who Came in from the Cold, with the superb and hilarious T...