It’s not exactly a secret that crime novels have been experiencing a boom over the last few years ; there’s perhaps never been a better time to get into crime fiction, or to fill out the gaps in your knowledge of the genre.
Of course, nobody knows the power of crime fiction better than its writers, so we got in touch with a host of them to ask for their favourite or most formative crime books – a must-read list for the crime aficionado, or a perfect jump-off point for readers new to the genre – just ahead of the holiday season.
The first proper crime story I can remember encountering was Arthur Conan Doyle 's ‘The Speckled Band’, from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which my mum (with commendable optimism) read to me and my sister as bedtime story when I was around 8. Obviously I did not sleep for about a week, so terrified of midnight whistles and mysterious sudden deaths that I could not risk closing my eyes even for an instant.
Something about the terror of that “low whistle” still haunts me 30-odd years later – and gave me a lifelong love of the locked room mystery.
I first read Gorky Park in the mid 1980s. Arkady Renko, an inspector in the Moscow militia, is called to investigate the murder of three people found frozen in the snow of Gorky Park. All have been shot, the tips of their fingers removed, and their faces skinned. When I first came across it, this was like no thriller I’d read before. Not only was it a tightly plotted, page-turning police procedural, it also offered so much more: a glimpse into the world beyond the Iron Curtain and the life of a Moscow detective – the politics, the humdrum of bureaucracy and the need to kow-tow to the KGB. Most importantly, it was a book about a good man working to uphold a corrupt and evil system he didn’t believe in. When, almost 30 years later, I’d come to write the Sam Wyndham novels, that was something I’d strive to echo.
Ruth Ware (Author)
THEIR DREAM HOUSE WILL BECOME HER WORST NIGHTMARE
'Ruth Ware just gets better and better’ Lisa Jewell, bestselling author of The Family Upstairs
‘The queen of creepy crime’ Metro
When Rowan comes across the advert, it seems too good to be true: a live-in nanny position, with an extremely generous salary.
What she doesn't know is that she's stepping into a nightmare – one that will end with her in a cell awaiting trial for murder.
She knows she's made mistakes.
But she's not guilty – at least not of murder.
Which means someone else is...
THE TURN OF THE KEY IS:
‘Eerie and Tense’ Prima
‘Dark and dramatic’ AJ Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
‘Deliciously dark and spooky’ Sunday Mirror
‘Powerfully atmospheric, unguessably twisty’ Louise Candlish, bestselling author of Our House
Abir Mukherjee (Author)
HUNTED, Abir Mukherjee's explosive contemporary thriller, is available NOW
**A THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB TOP 40 BOOK OF LAST FIVE YEARS**
'An exceptional historical crime novel' C.J. Sansom
India, 1919. Desperate for a fresh start, Captain Sam Wyndham arrives to take up an important post in Calcutta's police force.
He is soon called to the scene of a horrifying murder. The victim was a senior official, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to leave India - or else.
With the stability of the Empire under threat, Wyndham and Sergeant 'Surrender-not' Banerjee must solve the case quickly. But there are some who will do anything to stop them...
**WINNER OF THE CWA ENDEAVOUR HISTORICAL DAGGER **
Praise for the Wyndham and Banerjee series :
'A thought-provoking rollercoaster' Ian Rankin
'Does for the Raj what Philip Kerr did for the Reich' The Times/Sunday Times Crime Club
'Highly entertaining' Daily Telegraph
If you enjoyed A Rising Man, further books in the Wyndham and Banerjee series are available now:
A Necessary Evil
Smoke and Ashes
Death in the East
The Shadows of Men
Lisa Jewell (Author)
PREPARE TO BE HOOKED
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FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF INVISIBLE GIRL
In a large house in London's fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.
In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.
They've been dead for several days.
Who has been looking after the baby?
And where did they go?
Two entangled families.
A house with the darkest of secrets.
A compulsive thriller from Lisa Jewell.
Kate Riordan (Author)
Elodie was beautiful. Elodie was smart. Elodie was manipulative. Elodie is dead.
When Sylvie receives a letter calling her back to her crumbling family home in Provence, she knows she has to go. In the middle of a sweltering summer marked by unusual fires across the countryside, she returns to La Reverie with her youngest daughter Emma in tow.
In every corner of the house, Sylvie can't escape the spectre of Elodie, her first child. Elodie with the golden hair. Elodie, who knew exactly how to get what she wanted. Elodie, whose death the villagers still whisper about.
As the fires creep even closer towards the villa, it's clear to Sylvie that something isn't right at La Reverie. Because there's something that Sylvie hasn't admitted about what happened to Elodie ten summers ago . . .
The book that I think flicked the switch that led me on the path from romantic comedies to psychological thrillers was not so much a psychological thriller as a tantalising mystery. After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell was ground-breaking at the time of its publication in the way it painted family trauma and dark secrets into an intricate layering of seemingly unconnected vignettes. Such a delicate book, yet I read it like a steamroller, breathlessly turning the pages, desperate to know and to understand everything . A book that can draw pictures fine as gauze but rip your heart out at the same time is truly something to be inspired by.
One of my favourite crime novels of all time, and one I choose to read again and again, is the murder mystery Death on the Nile , by Agatha Christie. Not only does it feature my favourite fictional detective, Hercule Poirot, but it also boasts an ingenious plot, a rich cast of characters and a fast pace that keeps you furiously turning the pages.
In this book, we’re transported to Egypt, onboard a Nile River steamer where a young heiress is found murdered. This historic setting and confined environment are used to great effect to build both atmosphere and a simmering tension – everything I enjoy in a crime novel. I loved working alongside Poirot as he uses his “little grey cells” to figure out the culprit, but on first reading, I was most definitely fooled by all of the red herrings!
When Poirot finally reveals the true murderer, it’s such a brilliant moment, as everything starts to slot into place and you see the genius of Christie’s plotting. It’s a book I’ve recommended to everyone I know – the perfect crime read to snuggle up with at any time of the year.
All my most beloved books seem to be populated by characters who are haunted and damaged by their pasts, so it makes sense that my favourite crime novels are of the cold case variety. Kate Atkinson ’s Case Histories Tana French , and her first Dublin Murder Squad book, In the Woods , blew me away with its opening passage about lost childhood summers. All her books are perfectly plotted and effortlessly clever, but it’s the intricately-layered characters and vivid evocation of Ireland that make them unforgettable.
It’s hard to pick a favourite crime novel, but The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy is definitely one of the greats. It wasn't my first – I'd read a few classic murder mysteries before coming to it – but this was something very different. A fictionalised account of the investigation into a real-life murder in 1940s Hollywood, this is noir in the true sense: no redemption, no heroes and definitely no happy ending. The writing is visceral and energetic, and the plot comes together perfectly.
I love The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain with an enduring passion. As a schoolgirl I was made to read a lot of romantic literature, Wuthering Heights Tennyson ’s poetry, but then I read this. I love the sparse language and the bleak honesty. I can still taste the food and feel the prickle of straw on the floor of the pickup Frank arrives in. For me, the yearning between Frank and Cora was more existential than sexual. Because of the film adaptations, James M. Cain is sometimes overlooked as a literary figure, The Postman Always Rings Twice is about the lost and the desperate, about crime as nihilism and the impossibility of justice.
Alex Pavesi (Author)
All murder mysteries follow a simple set of rules. Grant McAllister, a mystery writer and mathematics professor, once sat down and worked them all out.
But that was thirty years ago. Now he's living in seclusion on a quiet Mediterranean island - until Julia Hart, an ambitious young editor, knocks on his door. Grant's work is being republished, and together they must revisit those old stories.
But Julia soon realises that something's not right. Grant's stories seem to reference a real murder - one that's remained unsolved for thirty years.
Julia wants answers. But some mysteries can be murder to solve...
Denise Mina (Author)
'This is crime writing of the highest order' The Times
**THE TIMES CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2020**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 COSTA NOVEL AWARD**
When Margo goes in search of her birth mother for the first time, she meets her aunt, Nikki, instead. Margo learns that her mother, Susan, was a sex worker murdered soon after Margo's adoption. To this day, Susan's killer has never been found.
Nikki asks Margo for help. She has received threatening and haunting letters from the murderer, for decades. She is determined to find him, but she can't do it alone...
**A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020, SELECTED BY LEE CHILD**
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PRAISE FOR DENISE MINA:
'More proof that Denise Mina is Britain's best living crime writer' Sunday Express on The Less Dead
'Mina is the most compassionate of crime novelists... a dark and heartfelt novel' Mail on Sunday on The Less Dead
'Denise Mina is the cream of the crop, an author who pushes the crime novel in new and exciting directions and never fails to deliver' Ian Rankin
'You won't be able to put Conviction down' Reese Witherspoon
'Unsettling, evocative and staggeringly good' Daily Express on The Long Drop
'An atmospheric recreation of a vanished Glasgow...and a compelling exploration of the warped criminal mind' The Times on The Long Drop: Top Ten Crime Novels of the Decade
'Denise Mina gets to the heart of what crime really is. You feel like you are right there, in all the dark nooks and crannies that her characters inhabit' Sunday Times and International Bestselling Author, Karin Slaughter
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READERS LOVE THE LESS DEAD:
'One of the best books you'll read' *****
'Unputdownable' *****
'Gripping' *****
'An intelligent, gripping and compassionate crime novel' *****
John Harvey (Author)
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The first book in the DI Charlie Resnick series, from the master of British crime writing
Shirley Peters is dead. Murdered. Her body is found twelve hours later in her own home. Just one of the many sordid domestic crimes hitting the city. Tony Macliesh, her rejected boyfriend, is the obvious prime suspect and he’s just been picked off the Aberdeen train and put straight into custody.
But then another woman is sexually abused and throttled to death. And suddenly there appears to be one too many connections between these seemingly unrelated crimes.
Detective Inspector Resnick is sure that the two murders are the work of one sadistic killer – two lonely hearts broken by one maniac. And it’s up to Resnick to put the record straight – and put the bastard where he belongs.
Jessica Moor (Author)
He's been looking in the windows again. Messing with cameras. Leaving notes.
Supposed to be a refuge. But death got inside.
When Katie Straw's body is pulled from the waters of the local suicide spot, the police decide it's an open-and-shut case. A standard-issue female suicide.
But the residents of Widringham women's refuge where Katie worked don't agree. They say it's murder.
Will you listen to them?
An addictive literary page-turner about a crime as shocking as it is commonplace, Keeper will leave you reeling long after the final page is turned.
When asked why he turned to writing crime fiction, Elmore Leonard said it was because there was no longer a market for westerns. I could say the same. Between 1976 and 1983, under a slew of pennames, I wrote some 50 pulp westerns. Then nothing. I tried inventing a private eye but he died on the page: crime fiction, I thought, was not for me. Then I discovered Leonard, crime that was so much fun to read I thought it might be fun to write. Fiction that lived through its characters, through their conversation. Invidious to choose a favourite, but LaBrava , with its photographer protagonist and faded femme fatale, just might be the best.
The great thing about a crime novel is the way it can drill straight to the heart of a place, a time, a worldview. For my money, none does this better than Val McDermid ’s A Place of Execution . Like the wintry Peak District landscape it depicts, the novel is chilling in its bleak clarity. McDermid spins a terrific yarn, but she does so much more: old world collides with new, rule of law with private justice, the voiceless assert themselves against the powerful. Everything that’s fascinating in crime, everything that’s fundamental in fiction.
Jessica Moor is the author of Keeper .
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