Ten Crime Novels You Must Read Before You Die

John Connolly and I first presented versions of this list at the Dalkey Book Festival back in June, then at Bouchercon in San Francisco, and we promised at some stage to post it on our websites. A top ten inevitably leaves too many titles out, so we threw in an extra ten for good luck. John has decided to add the tens together and make it a top twenty; I'm not so inclined, as the second ten is rather more provisional than the first, and in any case, we differ in some of our choices. Feel free to disagree: we do ...

1) THE GLASS KEY (1931) - Dashiell Hammett

Also: The Maltese Falcon (1930)

Red Harvest (1929)

The Master - the JS Bach, the Louis Armstrong of crime fiction.

2) THE LONG GOODBYE (1953) - Raymond Chandler

The Big Sleep (1939)

Farewell, My Lovely (1940)

The greatest prose stylist in the genre. Romantic, lyrical and witty.

3) THE CHILL (1964) - Ross Macdonald

Also:

The Galton Case (1959)

The Underground Man (1971)

Sleeping Beauty (1973)

The Doomsters (1958)

The single greatest novelist of the genre. No one has surpassed him. The Lew Archer novels make most crime fiction look like cartoons.

4) DEEP WATER - Patricia Highsmith (1957)

Also:

The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)

Strangers on a Train (1950)

Haunting, unsettling, extravagantly misanthropic.

5) THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1972) - George V. Higgins

Also:

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (1980) - Elmore Leonard

Looking for Rachel Wallace (1980)- Robert B. Parker

Dialogue worthy of David Mamet, Higgins's first half dozen novels are electrifying, and unlike anything else in the genre.

6) DIXIE CITY JAM (1994) - James Lee Burke

Also:

Heaven's Prisoners (1988)

Black Cherry Blues (1989)

Purple Cane Road (2000)

Simply the greatest living crime novelist.

7) RED DRAGON (1981) - Thomas Harris

Also:

The Silence of the Lambs (1988)

Hannibal (1999)

Although they form a trilogy, I don't believe Hannibal belongs on this list: I think it's a terrible book. John and I have cheerfully argued this one through many a last orders, and will again, no doubt.

8) A STRANGER IN MY GRAVE (1960) - Margaret Millar

Also:

Beast in View (1955)

How Like An Angel (1962)

The Listening Walls (1959)

Like a comic, psychologically acute Highsmith with a lighter touch. Structurally brilliant. Ross Macdonald's wife, and the single most underrated crime writer.

9) LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE DEAF MAN: A NOVEL OF THE 87th PRECINCT (1972) - Ed McBain

Also:

Cop Hater (1956)

Blood Relatives (1975)

Fuzz (1968)

Here begins the police procedural.

10) THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (1926) - Agatha Christie

Also:

The Nine Tailors (1934) by Dorothy L. Sayers

Tiger In The Smoke (1952) by Margery Allingham

Christie is darker and subtler than she gets credit for, particularly in her dialogue; long derided by the hardboiled school, she is ripe for re-evaluation (not that the reading public give a hoot one way or the other: they love her and always have).

And then there were ten more...

MIAMI BLUES (1984) - Charles Willeford

Willeford was such a tough, funny, surprising writer. Read all the Hoke Mosleys and THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY, an hilarious portrait of artistic envy and psychosis (but I repeat myself).

THE LAST GOOD KISS (1978) - James Crumley

Crime fiction's ultimate shaggy (alcoholic) dog story.

GONE, BABY, GONE (1998) - Dennis Lehane

The PI novel meets Bertolt Brecht.

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1990) - Walter Mosely

Easy Rawlins, the PI resurrected. One of the outstanding series characters of the nineties.

THE BLACK ECHO (1992) - Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch's explosive debut. See also ANGELS FLIGHT, my personal favourite.

THE BIG BLOWDOWN (1999) - George Pelecanos

The historical wing of Pelecanos's great Washington Quartet.

WHAT THE DEAD KNOW (2007) - Laura Lippman

One of the most devastating twists in all crime fiction. A mighty book.

THE BROKEN SHORE (2005) - Peter Temple

South African born, Australia's finest.

DEVIL TAKE THE BLUE-TAIL FLY (1948) - John Franklin Bardin

Genuinely frightening psychological suspense.

THE HANGING GARDEN (1998) - Ian Rankin

Rebus and Edinburgh, a match made in the Oxford Bar. This is the best of a great series.