Back in 2008, my book "1001 Books for Every Mood" was published. It's out of print now (the publisher went belly up, but copies are amazingly still available on ABEBooks). I often go back to the lists and marvel at my own stamina, and to remind myself of the titles that set the bar for our genre.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
A dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to deal with his daughter’s blackmailer. This is the book that introduced the world to Marlowe, one of the first hardboiled private dicks. With his “powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them,” only the attitude resembles Bogey’s portrayal on the silver screen.
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
In postwar LA, burnt-out New York cop and former prizefighter Bucky Bleichert becomes obsessed with a real (and still today) unsolved 1947 Black Dahlia torture-murder case. In this book you get all the gory details of the actual crime. Bleichert cracks the case, but in the process he loses his job and much more. In spare, powerful prose, Ellroy machine guns his story at the reader. In a poignant afterword, he discloses that his own mother was the victim of an unsolved murder.
The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The first line says it all: “This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.” Soon our girl’s up to her corset in ghosts, stolen securities, and murder. This 1908 novel was the first from the prolific author and invented the mystery sub-genre “fem jep” in which a heroine is in jeopardy and has to be rescued (in modern versions, she rescues herself).
The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly
LAPD detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch has killed a man he thinks is a serial killer of prostitutes and porn stars. Then a similar murder occurs. Did Bosch kill an innocent man? Many feel Connelly is our best living American mystery writer, and this is considered one of his best novels.
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Scottish author Tey explores one of the great unsolved mysteries of all time: the murder of Richard III’s two young nephews and heirs to the throne. In this enduring novel written in 1951, a painting of Richard III catches the interest Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant while he’s laid up in hospital and bored to tears.: The inspector, something of an expert on faces, “lay a long time looking at that face, at those extraordinary eyes.” He muses, “I can’t remember any murderers, either in my own experience, or in case-histories, who resemble him.” As he tries to solve the murders, Tey provides readers with an enthralling blend of fact and fiction.
The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald
This first Travis McGee novel (there were 21 of them from 1964 to 1985) launched the much beloved salvager of lost causes who lives on the “Busted Flush, a 52-foot houseboat docked in Fort Lauderdale, drives a blue Rolls-turned- truck he calls “Miss Agnes,” and has a soft spot for a desperate woman. In this one, the dame is Cathy Kerr, “a brown-eyed blonde, with the helpless mournful eyes of a basset hound” who seek his help recovering gems belonging to her deceased father.
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
It’s 1948 in a Los Angeles where there’s “still a large stretch of farmland between Los Angeles and Santa Monica.” World War II black army vet Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins is out of work. He accepts $100 from a white thug to find Daphne Monet, a missing white woman who’s been seen partying in black nightspots. “That girl is the devil, man. She got evil in every pocket,” he says after friends of the missing woman start turning up dead and Rawlins becomes the prime suspect. This first novel won Mosley critical acclaim for the unique voice and post-war setting.
Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block
Matthew Scudder is not just another hardboiled private investigator, though he certainly fits the mold—an alcoholic ex-cop, divorced and estranged from his family, guilt-ridden by a holdup he couldn’t stop and a little girl’s murder he couldn’t prevent. He’s also one of life’s sardonic observers. A 23-year-old hooker comes to him for help getting out of “the life.” She’s murdered. Scudder is determined to find her killer. Block, one of today’s most prolific and widely read mystery authors, is a writer’s writer who does dark, claustrophobic New York to a T.
The Hard Way by Lee Child
Raymond Chandler meets Hemingway in Child’s spare prose. In this 10th series novel, tough-guy Jack Reacher is in New York at a café, minding his own business, when he sees a man get into a Mercedes Benz and drive off. Turns out he’s witnessed a ransom payoff. Twenty-four hours later, the kidnappers haven’t released millionaire Edward Lane’s wife and daughter, and Reacher gets recruited to find them. Child may be a Brit but he nails American macho.
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, and the legend of a hell hound of Dartmoor. Was Sir Charles Baskerville killed by the infamous Hound of the Baskervilles, a demonic dog believed responsible for killing his ancestor Sir Hugo Baskerville hundreds of years earlier? As Holmes and Watson journey to investigate, they encounter an “enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen.” If you’ve never read a legendary Holmes book, here’s a good place to start. Read it for pure fun, then read the version annotated by Leslie S. Kilnger for fascinating insights.
The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
Here’s a tough, ex-army investigator who lives in Montana and has a name you can’t pronounce: C. W. Sughrue, He’s hired to find Abraham Trahearne, a boozing author. When he tracks Trahearne down, he’s “drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma California, drinking the heart of a fine spring afternoon.” Wow—can this guy channel Chandler or what?
Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
In this series novel, a man hires PI Spenser to protect a woman author who has rattled a few cages with her tell-all book. She fires him for being too “macho” (he is); but when she’s abducted he comes to the rescue. Parker is a master minimalist. Boston’s his beat, and deadpan dialogue is his winning game. At his best, and he’s at his best in this one, he’s second only to Elmore Leonard.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Private investigator Sam Spade is out to avenge the death of his partner, Miles Archer. Sinister Joe Cairo offers Spade $500 to retrieve a black figurine. Beautiful Brigid O’Shaughnessy throws herself at Spade (“I want you to save me—from it all.”) Turns out she wants the statue, too. But tough, ruthless, single-minded Spade is immune to her feminine wiles. Hammett wrote only this one novel featuring Spade, but with it he created the mold for the hardboiled private investigator who follows his own moral compass.
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (National Book Critics Circle 1999)
Lionel Essrog, the narrator of this hybrid hardboiled crime slash literary fiction, has Tourette syndrome, and his verbal pyrotechnics turn the novel into an extended rap. The murder victim is a small-time mobster who is also Essrog’s mentor and his boss at a car service/detective agency. Essrog, armed with tics and screams, infiltrates Brooklyn’s “secret system” to hunt down the killer. Another neurologically impaired detective? He’s anything but. The genre may be familiar, but the territory Lethem explores with it is unique.
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers set the standard for Britain’s golden age of mystery with her fourteen novels and a passel of short stories starring wealthy, witty Lord Peter Wimsey. In this one, Peter assumes the name “Death Bredon” and goes undercover at Pym’s Publicity to investigate the mysterious death of a copywriter in their employ. Sayers writes a sharply satirical view of the advertising world which she knew well—she worked for in a London advertising agency for seven years.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The apparent suicide of wealthy widow Mrs. Ferrar looks like murder when her fiancé Roger Ackroyd is found dead, too. Hercule Poirot, the diminutive and oh-so-precise Belgian detective, investigates. When Poirot tells the narrator, Dr. Sheppard, that his life’s work is “the study of human nature,” Sheppard concludes that Poirot is a retired hairdresser. Sheppard becomes Poirot’s helpmate in the investigation. There was a great hew and cry about the ending of this novel. No doubt Dame Agatha chuckled all the way to the bank.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Prolific author Alexander McCall Smith struck gold when he conjured Precious Ramotswe, the only lady detective in Botswana. She takes proceeds of the sale of cattle she inherits after her father’s death and sets out to do as he directed: “I want you to have your own business.” She sets up office on the edge of town with a brightly painted sign promising “SATISFACTION GUARANTEED,” brews a pot of red bush tea, and settles in to wait for clients. Hold the noir, hold the violence; this is a wry, delightful mystery series with a wise female sleuth.
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
In this hardboiled/noir classic, young drifter Frank Chambers stops at the Twin Oaks Tavern. He takes one look at the owner’s wife Cora and he’s a goner: “Except for the shape, she really wasn’t any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.” Cora talks Frank into helping her kill her husband, but things go awry. Greed, lust, and plenty of kinky moments. The book was banned in Boston.
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
Kindle County prosecutor Rusty Sabich is assigned to investigate the rape and murder of a woman colleague. He fails to disclose that he and the victim had had an affair. Compelling physical evidence makes Sabich the prime suspect. This novel defined the legal thriller genre. But it has the kind of characters you expect from a literary novel and an infamous surprise ending that most of us don’t see coming.
A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman
An anthropologist vanishes. Navajo Tribal Policemen Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee investigate the ravaged ancient burial site where she was last seen. One of Hillerman’s best novels, the mystery is woven into a tapestry of earth-tone landscape and shot through with the convincing detail of Native American life.
Whip Hand by Dick Francis (Edgar Award 1981)
Dick Francis was jockey to Queen Elizabeth from 1953 and 1957. Lucky for us, he had to retire from racing after a serious fall and took up writing. His prodigious body of work combines horseracing with action-packed mystery. In this one, ex-jockey and private investigator Sid Halley looks into allegations of foul play at a stable. It has one of Francis’s signature, eye-popping opening lines: “I took the battery out of my arm and fed it into the recharger, and only realized I’d done it when ten seconds later the fingers wouldn’t work.”
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
On Hampstead on a moonlit night, drawing teacher Walter Cartwright encounters a “solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over London, as I faced her.” He helps her, and later discovers that she escaped from a nearby asylum. This complicated tale of murder, madness, and mistaken identity is narrated from multiple viewpoints and was inspired by a true crime. One of the most popular novels of the 19th Century, this is considered the first true mystery novels.
A little quiz: Which book is this opening line from?
“It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness...”
AND who is this character?
“I am tall, and I gangle. I look like a loose-jointed, clumsy hundred and eighty…As far as clumsiness and reflexes go, I have never had to use a flyswatter in my life.”
What books would you add to recommend to someone looking to sample THE BEST of what the crime fiction genre has to offer?
