Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time -

Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time - Mystery Writers of America


The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time is a list published in book form in 1990 by the British-based Crime Writers' Association. Five years later, the Mystery Writers of America published a similar list entitled The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time.


    The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle    1
     The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett    2
     Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe    3
     The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey    4
     Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow    5
     The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré    6
     The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins    7
    The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler    8
     Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier    9
     And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie    10
     Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver    11
     The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie    12
     The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler    13
     The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain    14
     The Godfather by Mario Puzo    15
     The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris    16
     A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler    17
     Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers    18
     The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories by Agatha Christie    19
     The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth    20
     Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler    21
     The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan    22
     The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco    23
     Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky    24
     The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett    25
     Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer    26
     Red Dragon by Thomas Harris    27
     The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers    28
     Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald    29
     Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré    30
     The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett    31
     The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins    32
     Trent's Last Case by E. C. Bentley    33
     Double Indemnity by James M. Cain    34
     Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith    35
     Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers    36
     Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman    37
     Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake    38
     Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett    39
     The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart    40
     Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie    41
     The Firm by John Grisham    42
     The Ipcress File by Len Deighton    43
     Laura by Vera Caspary    44
     I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane    45
     The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall    46
     Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake    47
     The Third Man by Graham Greene    48
     The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson    49
     Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark    50
     A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton    51
     The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders    52
     A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman    53
     In Cold Blood by Truman Capote    54
     Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household    55
     Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers    56
     The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton    57
     Smiley's People by John le Carré    58
    The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler    59
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee    60
     Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene    61
     The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens    62
     Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey    63
     Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham    64
     The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint From the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. by Nicholas Meyer    65
     The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout    66
     Stick by Elmore Leonard    67
     The little drummer girl by John le Carré    68
     Brighton Rock by Graham Greene    69
     Dracula by Bram Stoker    70
     The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith    71
     The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin    72
     A Time to Kill by John Grisham    73
     Last Seen Wearing... by Hillary Waugh    74
     Little Caesar by W. R. Burnett    75
     The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins    76
     Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers    77
     From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming    78
     Beast in View by Margaret Millar    79
     Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert    80
     The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey    81
     Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters    82
     Shroud for a Nightingale by P. D. James    83
     The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy    84
     Chinaman's Chance by Ross Thomas    85
     The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad    86
     The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald    87
     The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett    88
     A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell    89
     Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey    90
     The Chill by Ross Macdonald    91
     Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley    92
     The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh    93
     God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake    94
     Home Sweet Homicide by Craig Rice    95
     The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr    96
     Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon    97
     The Steam Pig by James McClure    98
     Time and Again by Jack Finney    99
     A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters    100
     Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin    100