# The 15 Best Edgar Award-Winning Mystery Novels

> Cold War spycraft, hardboiled private eyes, small-town secrets and slow-burn psychological dread — decades of Edgar-winning crime fiction go head to head. Cast your vote!

*By YPB Team · Published July 6, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-15-best-edgar-award-winning-mystery-novels*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Spy Who Came In from the Cold** — score 1000/1000
   John le Carré's bleak Cold War espionage classic that won the 1965 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
2. **Gorky Park** — score 813/1000
   Martin Cruz Smith's Moscow murder mystery introducing investigator Arkady Renko, winner of the 1982 Edgar Best Novel.
3. **Beast in View** — score 596/1000
   Margaret Millar's taut psychological thriller of identity and menace, winner of the 1956 Edgar Best Novel.
4. **A Dance at the Slaughterhouse** — score 596/1000
   Lawrence Block's gritty Matthew Scudder mystery set in New York, winner of the 1992 Edgar Best Novel.
5. **Mr. Mercedes** — score 596/1000
   Stephen King's serial-killer thriller and 2015 Edgar Best Novel winner that launched his Bill Hodges trilogy.
6. **Citizen Vince** — score 596/1000
   Jess Walter's darkly comic tale of a witness-protection baker, winner of the 2006 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
7. **California Girl** — score 596/1000
   T. Jefferson Parker's decades-spanning Orange County murder saga, winner of the 2005 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
8. **Whip Hand** — score 423/1000
   Dick Francis's horse-racing thriller featuring ex-jockey Sid Halley, winner of the 1981 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
9. **Live by Night** — score 310/1000
   Dennis Lehane's Prohibition-era crime epic about a Boston gangster, winner of the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
10. **The Stranger Diaries** — score 310/1000
   Elly Griffiths's gothic literary mystery blending ghost stories and murder, winner of the 2020 Edgar Best Novel.
11. **Dance Hall of the Dead** — score 310/1000
   Tony Hillerman's Navajo-country mystery featuring Joe Leaphorn, winner of the 1974 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
12. **A Dark-Adapted Eye** — score 310/1000
   Ruth Rendell's psychological family mystery written as Barbara Vine, winner of the 1987 Edgar Best Novel.
13. **Flags on the Bayou** — score 310/1000
   James Lee Burke's Civil War-era Louisiana mystery, winner of the 2024 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
14. **Bloodhounds** — score 310/1000
   Peter Lovesey's locked-room puzzle featuring Peter Diamond, winner of the 1997 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
15. **The Eighth Circle** — score 172/1000
   Stanley Ellin's hardboiled private-eye novel of corruption, winner of the 1959 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Tags: books, thriller, crime, mystery