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From the classic ‘Whodunit’ style to thrilling neonoirs, mystery novels have compelled readers to solve cases alongside detectives like Hercule Poirot. Here are the best, smartest and most revolutionary titles the genre created.
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1902)
A round-up of the best mystery novels of all time is “incomplete without mentioning Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work,” said Book Riot. Sherlock Holmes is one of the most “recognizable fictional detectives in pop culture.” His iconic novel follows the investigation of an “apparition of a monstrous dog” that purportedly “murdered Sir Charles Baskerville.” ($7, Penguin Random House, Amazon)
‘Murder on the Orient Express’ by Agatha Christie (1934)
Sticking all your characters in a “contained bubble” and “throwing away the key” is a great way to “create tension and intrigue,” said thriller writer Hank Phillippi Ryan at The New York Times. Agatha Christie, the “queen of the locked room,” did it with “great panache and sleight of hand” by “misdirecting the reader into believing there was just one murderer.” ($19, HarperCollins, Amazon)
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote (1965)
Truman Capote’s bestseller “pioneered a new classification of novels”: true crime, said A&E. Capote’s “groundbreaking, real-life story” about a terrifying quadruple murder “effortlessly married” the “technique of colorful storytelling” with the “clarity and accuracy of journalism.” ($28, Penguin Random House, Amazon)
‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ by Walter Mosley (1990)
The first novel in the Easy Rawlins hardboiled detective series introduced the world to Mosley’s neonoir classic’s World War II veteran protagonist. Strapped for cash, Rawlins accepts a murder case whose resolution necessitates bringing the “superficially submerged tensions” between “Black and white Americans” to the surface, said Time. ($19, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)