Crime and Detective Novels

[Scheherazade]

After starting to discuss Agatha Christie with Nightshade, I realised that we haven't had a related thread in the recent past.

Who is your favorite crime/mystery writer and books? If enough authors are suggested, maybe we can have a poll :)

[Nightshade]

Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, Jack Higgins, Colin Forbes umm whats his name the Dirk Pitt books (havent read those in years) my introduction to modern adult literature at age of 9 was Colin Forbes the Sisterhood!
:D
Mary Roberts Rinehart avialablefree on the Gutenberg and recently Joanna Fluke (They are a bit like Evanonvich actually you might like them Sher).

[crisaor]

Conan Doyle, of course, his Sherlock Holmes serie is a masterpiece, and unparalelled by any of his sucessors IMO.

Agatha Christie's Poirot, and G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown (along with The Man Who Was Thursday) are good choices also.

[Monica]

Conan Doyle and EAPoe. Detective stories are amazing because they show the psychology and psyche of people. They are an infinite labyrinth in which it's difficult not only for the protagonists but also for the readers to find themselves. Also Borges wrote very good detective stories, maybe more metaphysical. I also sometimnes like reading D.L. Sayers' stories, although they are quite simple when compared to for example Conan Doyle.

[strategos]

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes remains my favorite literary creation to this day.

[Snukes]

Nancy Drew!!!!!

[Koa]

Agatha Christie is good. But I particularly adore Nero Wolfe by...by...*can't find my books* ...by Rex Stout if I'm not wrong. His assistant is just lovely :)

[Helga]

The Sherlock Holmes serie is great, one of my fav...I'm not big on crime series but I did buy a book a few months with short stories by many authors, collected by Alfred Hitchcock called 'Death can be beautiful', it's great, everybody in it get away with murder.

[mono]

I absolutely love the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, such as Murders In The Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter, but, for me, nothing quite dominates over Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. :)

[Koa]

does Crime and Punishment fit in the cathegory? I thought we were talking of Agatha Christie kind of stuff... lol if you think about it, in general you dont know who is the murder while in C&P you know it from the beginning... it does have characters of detective style but it is so unique that it has much more...

[mono]

I see your point, Koa . . . hmmm, difficult to say, as I think it really depends on opinion. Truly, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment does have elements and 'crime' and 'detective' work, but not so much mystery as Agatha Christie and Edgar Allan Poe, for example.
Similarly, however, all definitely fit the category of psychological thrill-like stories, but, whether, 'crime' and/or 'detective' works, I think may have a degree of subjectivity. :confused:

[Koa]

well the fact is, cathegories are just something unclear and often useless... but the point is, even if they might have some things in common, to me Agatha Christie and Dostoevsky are just too different to be in the same cathegory... so I was thinking as crime stuff as something intended as detective story in the Agatha Christie sense... Then of course you may see it differently and be able to include Crime&Punishment in the same group as Agatha Christie...after all borders of cathegories are not easily definable nor static...

[EAP]

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes remains my favorite crime-and-detection genre creation to this day.

[slipperyyoke]

All time favorite crime/detective author would have to be Mickey Spillane. If your looking for something along the lines of shot first ask question later crime novels, then Mickey is your man.

Books: The Killing Man, I The Jury, etc..
Any and all of his works.

[rodanho]

definitely my favourite is agatha christie and her most famous creation, hercule poirot.i think hercule poirot put much more attention on peole than on the details of the case itself. and the research into human nature,in my opinion, is the essence of detective stories. moreover, the suspects in the book of agatha christie will always be on the stage from the very beginning, while the criminals in sherlock holmes adventures often pop up suddenly, with a name that is never mentioned before. i like chesterton very much too. he has got an utterly different style from agatha chritie, but the subtle humour , the wisdom, and the religious atmosphere in the book have never failed to absorb me.

[Mark F.]

I don't like Agatha Christie cause it seems like there's always some detail that appears in the last few chapters that helps solve the mystery and that means the reader cannot try and solve the case.
I prefer the hard boiled style of Dashiell Hamett and James Ellroy (I've read t he first two books of his L.A. quartet which are really good and I'll be reading L.A. Confidential pretty soon).

[Pensive]

Agatha Christe is my all times favourite......

[papayahed]

I don't like Agatha Christie cause it seems like there's always some detail that appears in the last few chapters that helps solve the mystery and that means the reader cannot try and solve the case.
I prefer the hard boiled style of Dashiell Hamett and James Ellroy (I've read t he first two books of his L.A. quartet which are really good and I'll be reading L.A. Confidential pretty soon).

I'm not much of a mystery fan, but I recently picked up The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, which I found to be quite entertaining. I may try James Ellroy just because you mentioned him.

[mtpspur]

Dashiell Hammett (Continental Op), Frederick Nebel (Cardigan from Dime Detective Magazine) and Donald Hamilton and Adam Hall (Matt Helm/Quiller series if this may be allowed to qualify.

[Chinaski]

James Ellroy, David Peace and Raymond Chandler are my favourite crime writers. David Peace is lesser known, but abolutely brilliant. Oh - Jake Arnott is another great British crime writer- The Long Firm and He Kills Cops are smashing reads.

[Grumbleguts]

James Ellroy certainly. The L.A. quartet is stunning.

Also another James. James M Cain is well worth a read especially if you like film noir, he wrote Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce among others. His books go to places that the films don't reach.

[Themis]

After starting to discuss Agatha Christie with Nightshade, I realised that we haven't had a related thread in the recent past.

Who is your favorite crime/mystery writer and books? If enough authors are suggested, maybe we can have a poll :)


Georges Simenon and Sir Arthur C. Doyle are my favorite authors of that genre. Agatha Christie used to be too, and I still like her books a lot, but some things she wrote bother me because they are illogical or the like.

[Pensive]

I read Death Comes As The End by Agatha Christie today and I have just completed it and after it, I was like suspecting things, asking my mom that whether our door is locked....I had gone nuts and I think that this novel of her's is a little different from others but I enjoyed the novel very much while reading it but it looks like that I am going to have a bad night today. I feel horrible when I imagine deaths...

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Read the Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Christie and have done with her unless you really like her rather twee style - she never came close to being this good again - mainly due to the original (at the time) twist.

The usual candidates are worth a visit - Chandler, Hammett, Ellroy, Doyle - all gripping reads. I'm not a huge fan of mystery fiction, so I can't comment on many more contemporary authors - although I read a couple of Colin Dexter's Morse books - they are fun.

[PeterL]

"Snuff" by Kirby Farrell

[Boris239]

I enjoy Christies' novel. Probably the most original are "The death of roger Ackroyd", "Ten little indians" and "Murder on the Orient express"
I don't particularly like Simenon.
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is the best detective for me
Stout's Nero Wolf and Archi Gudvin are pretty good
Gardner's Perry Mason, who is a lawyer, is preety good
I like Dick Francis's novels too
When I was a bit younger I enjoyed Enid Blyton's novels

[Dickensian]

I'm not much of a mystery/detective novel person but I love, and I mean love, Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series. I can't explain how great they are or what makes them so great, there's just something there that never leaves me disappointed.