Books to Die For

The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels

John Connolly, Declan Burke

• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781476710365
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451696585
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Literature

The world’s most beloved mystery writers celebrate their favorite mystery novels in this gorgeously wrought collection, featuring essays by Michael Connelly, Kathy Reichs, Ian Rankin, and more.

In the most ambitious anthology of its kind, the world’s leading mystery writers come together to champion the greatest mystery novels ever written. In a series of personal essays that reveal as much about the authors and their own work as they do about the books that they love, over a hundred authors from twenty countries have created a guide that will be indispensable for generations of readers and writers. From Agatha Christie to Lee Child, from Edgar Allan Poe to P. D. James, from Sherlock Holmes to Hannibal Lecter and Philip Marlowe to Lord Peter Wimsey, Books to Die For brings together the best of the mystery world for a feast of reading pleasure, a treasure trove for those new to the genre and for those who believe that there is nothing new left to discover. This is the one essential book for every reader who has ever finished a mystery novel and thought…I want more!

Table of contents

• Cover
• Introduction
• 1841: Edgar Allan Poe, The Dupin Tales
• 1853: Charles Dickens, Bleak House
• 1859: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
• 1867: Metta Fuller Victor, The Dead Letter
• 1868: Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
• 1892: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• 1902: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
• 1928: Liam O’ Flaherty,The Assassin
• 1929: Erskine Caldwell, The Bastard
• 1930: Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
• 1931: Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key
• 1932: Dorothy L. Sayers, Have His Carcase
• 1932: Leslie Charteris, The Holy Terror (aka The Saint v. Scotland Yard)
• 1933: Paul Cain, Fast One
• 1934: James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
• 1934: Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express (aka Murder on the Calais Coach)
• 1938: Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
• 1938: Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
• 1938: Rex Stout, Too Many Cooks
• 1939: Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male
• 1940: Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely
• 1941: Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square
• 1942: James M. Cain, Love’s Lovely Counterfeit
• 1943: Léo Malet, 120, Rue de la Gare
• 1946: Edmund Crispin, The Moving Toyshop
• 1947: Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place
• 1947: Georges Simenon, Act of Passion (Lettre à mon juge)
• 1947: Mickey Spillane, I, the Jury
• 1948: Carolyn Keene, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall
• 1948: Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair
• 1949: Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
• 1949: Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar
• 1950: Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train
• 1952: Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke
• 1953: Elliott Chaze, Black Wings Has My Angel (aka One for the Money)
• 1953: William P. McGivern, The Big Heat
• 1958: John D. MacDonald, The Executioners (aka Cape Fear)
• 1958: Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Pledge
• 1960: Clarence Cooper Jr., The Scene
• 1960: Margaret Millar, A Stranger in My Grave
• 1960: Harry Whittington, A Night for Screaming
• 1960: Charles Willeford, The Woman Chaser
• 1962: Eric Ambler, The Light of Day (aka Topkapi)
• 1962: P. D. James, Cover Her Face
• 1962: Kenneth Orvis, The Damned and the Destroyed
• 1962: Richard Stark, The Hunter (aka Point Blank and Payback)
• 1963: Nicolas Freeling, Gun Before Butter (aka Question of Loyalty)
• 1963: John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
• 1963: Ed McBain, Ten Plus One
• 1964: Ross Macdonald, The Chill
• 1964: Jim Thompson, Pop. 1280
• 1965: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Roseanna
• 1966: Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
• 1967: Agatha Christie, Endless Night
• 1968: Peter Dickinson, Skin Deep (aka The Glass-Sided Ants’ Nest)
• 1969: Ross Macdonald, The Goodbye Look
• 1970: Joseph Hansen, Fadeout
• 1970: George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• 1971: James McClure, The Steam Pig
• 1973: Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead
• 1974: Donald Goines, Daddy Cool
• 1975: James Crumley, The Wrong Case
• 1975: Colin Dexter, Last Bus to Woodstock
• 1976: Jean-Patrick Manchette , 3 to Kill (Le petit bleu de la côte ouest)
• 1976: Mary Stewart, Touch Not the Cat
• 1976: Newton Thornburg, Cutter and Bone
• 1976: Trevanian, The Main
• 1977: Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory
• 1977: John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions
• 1977: Ruth Rendell, A Judgement in Stone
• 1978: James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss
• 1979: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Southern Seas (Los mares del sur)
• 1980: Andreu Martín, Prótesis (Prosthesis)
• 1981: Robert B. Parker , Early Autumn
• 1981: Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park
• 1982: Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi
• 1982: Stephen King, Different Seasons
• 1982: Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
• 1983: Elmore Leonard, LaBrava
• 1984: Kem Nunn, Tapping the Source
• 1987: Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
• 1988: Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs
• 1988: Sara Paretsky, Toxic Shock (aka Blood Shot)
• 1990: A. S. Byatt, Possession
• 1990: Patricia Cornwell, Postmortem
• 1990: Derek Raymond, I Was Dora Suarez
• 1991: Lawrence Block, A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
• 1992: Michael Connelly, The Black Echo
• 1992: Peter Høeg, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (aka Smilla’s Sense of Snow)
• 1992: Philip Kerr, A Philosophical Investigation
• 1992: Margaret Maron, Bootlegger’s Daughter
• 1992: Richard Price, Clockers
• 1992: James Sallis , The Long-Legged Fly
• 1992: Donna Tartt, The Secret History
• 1993: Jill McGown, Murder . . . Now and Then
• 1993: Scott Smith, A Simple Plan
• 1994: Peter Ackroyd, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (aka The Trial of Elizabeth Cree)
• 1994: Caleb Carr, The Alienist
• 1994: Henning Mankell, The Man Who Smiled
• 1995: James Ellroy, American Tabloid
• 1996: George Pelecanos, The Big Blowdown
• 1997: Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood
• 1997: Natsuo Kirino , Out (Auto)
• 1997: Walter Mosley, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
• 1997: Ian Rankin, Black and Blue
• 1997: Donald E. Westlake, The Ax
• 1998: Cara Black , Murder in the Marais
• 1998: Reginald Hill, On Beulah Height
• 1998: Daniel Woodrell, Tomato Red
• 1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
• 1999: Robert Wilson, A Small Death in Lisbon
• 2000: David Peace, Nineteen Seventy-Four
• 2000: Scott Phillips, The Ice Harvest
• 2001: Harlan Coben, Tell No One
• 2001: Dennis Lehane, Mystic River
• 2005: Peter Temple, The Broken Shore
• 2007: Gil Adamson, The Outlander
• 2007: James Lee Burke, The Tin Roof Blowdown
• 2007: Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know
• 2007: Perihan Mağden, Escape
• 2008: Mark Gimenez, The Perk
• Acknowledgments
• Credits
• About John Connolly and Declan Burke
• Endnotes
• Index of Contributing and Subject Authors
• Copyright