The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes and Watson investigate a family curse and a spectral hound on Dartmoor. Atmospheric and fast.
All moods
Classic mysteries
Before the psychological thriller there were country houses, fog and a sharp detective. These range from Sherlock Holmes on the moors to a hard-boiled private eye, with clever puzzles and little gore. For faster, darker suspense, try the thriller list.
Books to start with
The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett
San Francisco detective Sam Spade is pulled into a hunt for a priceless statuette of a falcon. Hard-boiled and double-crossing.
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
Private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy general to deal with a blackmailer. Wisecracking and moody.
The Moonstone
Wilkie Collins
A diamond vanishes from an English country house. Often described as one of the first detective novels.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie
Poirot, retired to a village, takes on a country-house murder. Its twist is among the most famous in the genre.
The Daughter of Time
Josephine Tey
A bedridden Scotland Yard inspector investigates whether Richard III really murdered the princes in the Tower.
How to choose
Choose by style. For a traditional puzzle, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a 1920s village case for Poirot; go in without reading about it first. The Hound of the Baskervilles is the gothic pick, eerie and moor-bound, with Watson doing much of the legwork on Dartmoor. The Moonstone, from 1868, is told by several narrators with touches of humor, and it begins with a diamond looted in colonial India.
The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep are hard-boiled American detective stories: cynical, with shootings and morally murky characters. The Big Sleep is known for a tangled plot, so read it for the mood and the wisecracks. The Daughter of Time is the odd one out: there is no new crime, just an inspector weighing a centuries-old case from his hospital bed, ideal if you prefer arguments to action.
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