Peter James Recommends His Favorite Crime Novels

This is the novel that made me want to write crime thrillers. I was 14 years old, growing up in Brighton in the 1950s, then a faded, grimy, and crime-ridden seaside resort on the south coast of England. My father, a passionate reader himself who knew I loved books, gave me this as a birthday present. I was instantly hooked by the very first sentence. Brighton Rock has one of the most gripping first lines I’ve ever read: “Within three hours of arriving in Brighton, Hale knew they meant to murder him.”

You have to read on! Who is Hale, why is he in Brighton, who is going to murder him? What followed was a crime thriller quite unlike anything I had read before. The novel’s central character, Pinky, is a truly terrifying creation: A 17-year-old boy gangster in charge of a bunch of weak, middle-aged criminals; Pinky is a devout Catholic. But as a killer, he is profoundly conflicted and lives in terror of eternal damnation. And the very last line is one of the darkest, psychologically, I have ever read.

I think there are few finer examples in literature of just how engaging a truly awful person can be than Chester MacFarland, a con man on the run from the USA, hiding out in Greece. After murdering a detective who has caught up with him, Chester, his wife Colette, and an enigmatic young American tour guide go on the run, and their relationships implode in a way that gives the reader the most wonderful voyeuristic delight! I love Highsmith’s writing—and with this, she is at her pinnacle.