Top 100 Crime Novels All the Time

   1. Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
   2. Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
   3. John le Carré: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
   4. Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (1935)
   5. Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
   6. Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
   7. Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely (1940)
   8. Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
   9. Len Deighton: The IPCRESS File (1962)
  10. Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
  11. Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
  12. Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
  13. Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
  14. Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
  15. Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
  16. Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)1
  17. Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
  18. Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1934)
  19. Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (1939)
  20. John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
  21. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories (1892-1927)
  22. Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
  23. Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery & Imagination (1852)
  24. Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
  25. Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (1946)
  26. Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
  27. Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew (1982)
  28. Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
  29. Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)1
  30. James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
  31. Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
  32. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
  33. John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
  34. E. C. Bentley: Trent's Last Case (1913)
  35. Ian Fleming: From Russia, with Love (1957)
  36. Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)1
  37. Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)1 (tie)
  38. Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
  39. Ruth Rendell: Judgement in Stone (1977)
  40. John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man (1935)
  41. Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
  42. Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
  43. Ellis Peters: The Leper of St. Giles (1981)
  44. Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
  45. Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
  46. Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
  47. Raymond Chandler: The Lady in the Lake (1943)
  48. Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (1987)
  49. Ruth Rendell: A Demon in My View (1976)
  50. John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet (1951)
  51. Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
  52. Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (1949)
  53. P. D. James: A Taste for Death (1986)1
  54. Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
  55. Mary Stewart: My Brother Michael (1960)1
  56. Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (1987)
  57. Susan Moody: Penny Black (1984)1 (tie)
  58. Len Deighton: Game, Set & Match (1984-1986)
  59. Dick Francis: The Danger (1983)1
  60. P. D. James: Devices and Desires (1989)
  61. Reginald Hill: Underworld (1988)1
  62. Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)
  63. Paula Gosling: A Running Duck (1978)1
  64. Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased (1950)
  65. Lionel Davidson: The Rose of Tibet (1962)
  66. P. D. James: Innocent Blood (1980)1
  67. Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison (1930)
  68. Michael Innes: Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
  69. Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1989)
  70. Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon: A Bullet in the Ballet (1937)
  71. Reginald Hill: Dead Heads (1983)
  72. Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
  73. Anthony Price: The Labyrinth Makers (1974)
  74. Adam Hall: The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
  75. Margaret Millar: Beast in View (1955)
  76. Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades (1984)
  77. Desmond Bagley: Running Blind (1970)
  78. Dick Francis: Twice Shy (1981)1
  79. Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
  80. Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift (1987)
  81. Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
  82. Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981) (tie)
  83. Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End (1945)
  84. Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (1945)
  85. Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
  86. John Fowles: The Collector (1963)
  87. J. J. Marric: Gideon's Day (1955)
  88. Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (1976)
  89. Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
  90. Julian Symons: The Colour of Murder (1957)
  91. John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
  92. Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
  93. Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death (1970)
  94. Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
  95. Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca (1980)
  96. Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
  97. H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
  98. Simon Brett: What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
  99. Gavin Lyall: Shooting Script (1966)1
 100. Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1906)