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Margery Allingham, Dancers in Mourning.
The cast of a musical revue is plagued by practical jokes, freak accidents—and murder.

Eric Ambler, The Light of Day.
A down-at-the-heels adventurer in Istanbul gets involved in an international conspiracy and realizes he’s out of his depth.

E.C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case.
An amateur sleuth who’s given up detective work is asked to investigate a wealthy baron’s death.

James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice.
A drifter working at a diner falls for his boss’s wife and joins her on a path to death and despair.

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep.
When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder.

G. K. Chesterton, The Father Brown Omnibus.
A collection of cases solved by the intrepid detective priest, Father Brown.

Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain.
A satellite used by the army to collect space pathogens for biological warfare crashes in a small Arizona town, unleashing a deadly plague.

Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express.
Hercule Poirot investigates when a universally disliked man is stabbed to death in his compartment aboard the Orient Express.

Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone.
When a woman inherits a cursed diamond plundered from a Hindu shrine, murder and theft follow.

Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop.
A man seeks shelter from a storm in a toyshop and discovers a woman’s body, but when he returns with the police, the toyshop is gone.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Hound of the Baskervilles.
Sherlock Holmes investigates the death of Sir Charles Baskerville, which may be tied to the legend of a ghostly dog and a family curse.

Stanley Ellin, The Key to Nicholas Street.
A murder on Nicholas Street is reported from the points of view of five different witnesses.

Helen Eustis, The Horizontal Man.
At a small women’s college in New England, a womanizing professor is killed with a poker.

Ian Fleming, Casino Royale.
James Bond follows a trail of money through the casinos of the Riviera in pursuit of a secret organization called SMERSH.

Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal.
When a top assassin known only as the Jackal is hired to kill Charles de Gaulle, it seems there is no stopping him.

Dick Francis, Dead Cert.
Steeplechaser Alan York investigates when a friend dies during a race as a result of a wire across the track.

Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Deadly Toy.
Perry Mason takes the case of a woman who dumped her fiancé for abusing her son and then found herself charged with murder.

Andrew Garve, No Tears for Hilda.
This murder mystery of the 1950s was noteworthy for addressing the taboo issue of domestic violence.

Michael Gilbert, Smallbone Deceased.
Inspector Hazelrigg investigates the discovery of a body in an airtight case at a law firm.

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon.
When his partner is killed during a routine surveillance, Sam Spade becomes suspicious of the woman who hired them.

Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Tom Ripley is hired to bring a rich young dilettante home from Italy but finds himself envious of the other man’s lifestyle and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way.
When a dead man with a mouth full of sand is found, Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn investigates a possible connection to witchcraft.

Chester Himes, The Real Cool Killers.
Two Harlem cops in the 1950s find a man standing over a dead body with a smoking gun—but the gun is loaded with blanks.

Frances Iles, Malice Aforethought.
A hen-pecked country doctor dreams of asserting himself against his wife, and finally decides to act.

P. D. James, Death of an Expert Witness.
Adam Dalgliesh investigates the murder of a forensic biologist who was admired for his work but disliked as a person.

Stephen King, The Shining.
An out-of-work man takes a job as caretaker of an empty, remote hotel that has a dark history that threatens to consume him and his family.

John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
A British operative whose double agents are being killed by the East Germans pretends to be in disgrace with his superiors and heads deep into Communist territory.

Ed McBain, Cop Hater.
Detective Steve Carella’s search for the killer who’s knocking off the cops of the 87th precinct takes him into the city’s underworld.

John D. MacDonald, The Empty Copper Sea.
When a ship’s captain is accused of drunkenness and negligence after a passenger apparently goes overboard, he turns to Travis McGee to clear his name.

Ngaio Marsh, When in Rome.
While on a tour of Rome, Inspector Alleyn investigates the disappearance of the guide and the discovery of a body in a church.

Seichi Matsumoto, Points and Lines.
Detective Mihara suspects murder in an apparent love suicide but can’t crack his leading suspect’s alibi.

Margaret Millar, Beast in View.
A woman receives a phone call purportedly from an old school friend and is lured into a world of madness and murder.

A. A. Milne, The Red House Mystery.
During a houseparty at a stately English home, the host’s wayward brother returns from Australia and is then found dead in a locked room.

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in The Complete Stories.
This tale of a gruesome double murder in a locked room is one of the first mystery stories ever.

Ellery Queen, The Chinese Orange Mystery.
A tangerine peel provides a clue when a man is found dead in a locked room with his clothes on backwards and all the furniture turned around.

Ruth Rendell, A Judgement in Stone.
An illiterate housekeeper murders the family she works for in order to hide her humiliating secret.

Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Circular Staircase.
A woman rents a house for the summer, but vacation plans are interrupted by murder, mayhem, and mysterious occurrences.

Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors.
Stranded in the fens of East Anglia over New Year’s, Lord Peter Wimsey helps the local bell ringers and investigates a body found in someone else’s grave.

Georges Simenon, Maigret Afraid.
Inspector Maigret visits a provincial French town, where an old friend is baffled by a series of seemingly random murders committed with the same weapon.

Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park.
Moscow detective Arkady Renko investigates the discovery of three corpses frozen in the snow with their faces and fingers missing.

Mickey Spillane, I, the Jury.
Mike Hammer is determined to find the person who killed his friend before the cops do.

Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance.
Nero Wolfe connects the apparent heart attack of a prominent businessman and the disappearance of an unemployed machinist.

Josephine Tey, The Singing Sands.
When a fellow train passenger dies leaving a cryptic message, Inspector Grant follows a trail to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me.
The seemingly honest and boring sheriff of a small town is hiding a terrifying and deadly secret.

Arthur Upfield, The Bone is Pointed.
Part-Aborigine detective Napoleon Bonaparte investigates the disappearance of a mean-spirited man whom no one wants found.

S. S. Van Dine, The Benson Murder Case.
Art connoisseur Philo Vance—whose hobby is investigating crimes—helps solve the murder of a Wall Street broker based on the clue of two cigarette butts.

Hillary Waugh, Last Seen Wearing.
This first “police procedural” documents the search for a college student who disappears in broad daylight.