In 2009 The Guardian compiled the 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, and although I would question the veracity of some of the titles selected in the crime section as strictly ‘crime’ novels, the list provides a good number of essential reads for any discerning crime fan. (As I am eager to read many of those mentioned I have highlighted in bold my reading progress so far for my personal reference).
Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-45)
Wilkie Collins: The Woman In White (1860)
Mary E Braddon: Lady Audley’s Secret (1862)
Fyodor Dosteoevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866)
Emile Zola: Therese Raquin (1867)
Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
José Maria de Eça de Queiroz: The Crime of Father Amaro (1875)
Mark Twain: Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)
Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)
Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1905)
Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907)
Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre: Fantômas (1911)
Joseph Conrad: Under Western Eyes (1911)
EC Bentley: Trent’s Last Case (1913)
John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
E Phillips Oppenhein: The Great Impersonation (1920)
Dorothy L Sayers: Whose Body? (1923)
Theodore Dreiser: An American Tragedy (1925)
Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
William Faulkner: Sanctuary (1931)
Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
Frances Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
Georges Simenon: The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
Dorothy L Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
James M Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
E Phillips Oppenheim: The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent (1934)
John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man (1935)
Graham Greene: A Gun For Sale (1936)
Michael Innes: Death at the President’s Lodging (1936)
John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men (1937)
Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
James Hadley Chase: No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939)
Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
Richard Wright: Native Son (1940)
Patrick Hamilton: Hangover Square (1941)
James M Cain: Double Indemnity (1943)
Graham Greene: The Ministry of Fear (1943)
Nelson Algren: The Man with the Golden Arm (1949)
WR Burnett: The Asphalt Jungle (1949)
Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
Daphne du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel (1951)
Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
Ian Fleming: Casino Royale (1953)
Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
Chester Himes: A Rage in Harlem (1957)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Pledge (1958)
Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
Ian Fleming: Goldfinger (1959)
Jim Thompson: The Getaway (1959)
Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird (1960)
Len Deighton: The Ipcress File (1962)
PD James: Cover Her Face (1962)
Thomas Pynchon: V (1963)
Ian Fleming: You Only Live Twice (1964)
Georges Simenon: The Blue Room (1965)
Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman (1968)
Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain (1969)
Mario Puzo: The Godfather (1969)
Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
George V Higgins: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972)
John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
Elmore Leonard: 52 Pick-Up (1974)
Thomas Harris: Black Sunday (1975)
Colin Dexter: Last Seen Wearing (1976)
Ruth Rendell: Judgment in Stone (1977)
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Identity (1980)
Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
Thomas Harris: Red Dragon (1981)
Patrick Süskind: Perfume (1985)
Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy (1985-86)
Carl Hiaasen: Tourist Season (1986)
PD James: A Taste for Death (1986)
Ruth Rendell: Live Flesh (1986)
Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
Stephen King: Misery (1987)
Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
Sara Paretsky: Toxic Shock (1988)
John Grisham: A Time to Kill (1989)
Patricia Cornwell: Postmortem (1990)
Michael Crichton: Jurassic Park (1990)
Reginald Hill: Bones and Silence (1990)
Elmore Leonard: Get Shorty (1990)
Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho (1991)
Barbara Vine: King Solomon’s Carpet (1991)
Robert Harris: Fatherland (1992)
Peter Høeg: Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (1992)
Stephen King: Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Donna Tartt: The Secret History (1992)
Henning Mankell: Sidetracked (1995)
George Pelecanos: The Big Blowdown (1996)
Ian McEwan: Enduring Love (1997)
Ian Rankin: Black & Blue (1997)
Orhan Pamuk: My Name Is Red (1998)
Ian Rankin: The Hanging Garden (1998)
Colin Dexter: The Remorseful Day (1999)
Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn (1999)
David Peace: Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999)
Peter Carey: True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
David Peace: Nineteen Seventy Seven (2000)
Arnaldur Indridason: Silence of the Grave (2001)
John le Carré: The Constant Gardener (2001)
Sarah Waters: Fingersmith (2002)
John Grisham: The King of Torts (2003)
Sara Paretsky: Blacklist (2003)
CJ Sansom: Dissolution (2003)
George Pelecanos: Hard Revolution (2004)
Cormac McCarthy: No Country for Old Men (2005)
RJ Ellory: A Quiet Belief in Angels (2007)
Richard Price: Lush Life (2008)
Ian Rankin: Exit Music (2007)
Where oh where is Hilda Lawrence? “A Time to Die” and “Death of a Doll”especially. Also “Warrant for X,” by Phillip MacDonald. Read these for a real menacing treat.
What about Agatha Christie? Does the acclaimed Queen of Crime not make it to the list?
Apparently not…