Country houses, church bells, a bedside investigation of Richard III. The genre wrote its rules here, then broke them on purpose.
1The Murder of Roger AckroydChristie's 1926 novel, the book that showed how far a detective writer could push the reader.
2And Then There Were NoneChristie's 1939 island thriller, her best-selling title.
3Murder on the Orient ExpressChristie's 1934 closed-carriage mystery.
4The Nine TailorsDorothy L. Sayers' 1934 fen-country mystery built around church bells.
5Gaudy NightSayers' 1935 Oxford novel, as much a love story as a mystery.
6The Hollow ManJohn Dickson Carr's 1935 locked-room novel, containing the famous locked-room lecture.
7The Poisoned Chocolates CaseAnthony Berkeley's 1929 novel in which six amateurs solve the same crime six ways.
8Malice AforethoughtFrancis Iles' 1931 novel that tells you the murderer on page one.
9Trent's Last CaseE.C. Bentley's 1913 novel, often called the first modern detective novel.
10The Red House MysteryA.A. Milne's 1922 country-house mystery, written before Winnie-the-Pooh.
11The Beast Must DieNicholas Blake's 1938 revenge novel told partly as a murderer's diary.
12Murder Must AdvertiseSayers' 1933 novel set in the advertising agency where she once worked.
13Green for DangerChristianna Brand's 1944 wartime mystery set in a military hospital.
14The Franchise AffairJosephine Tey's 1948 novel about two women accused of abducting a girl.
15Whose Body?Sayers' 1923 debut, introducing Lord Peter Wimsey.
16The Body in the LibraryChristie's 1942 Miss Marple novel, a deliberate cliche turned inside out.
17Death of a GhostMargery Allingham's 1934 Albert Campion novel set in the London art world.
18The Case of the Velvet ClawsErle Stanley Gardner's 1933 debut for Perry Mason.
Comments 1
Her own era, and four of these eighteen books came off her typewriter, more than Sayers, Carr or Allingham managed: https://youpick.best/articles/agatha-christie-ranked-many-ways
YP
ypb-teamAug 21
