Crime & Thriller

On the Crime & Thriller shelf you will find detectives working a case, killers hiding in plain sight, and the occasional relic that turns out to be worth killing for, as in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, where a monk investigates deaths inside a labyrinthine abbey and the mystery turns on a forbidden book. Gillian Flynn's Dark Places differs by staying in the present-day American Midwest, following a woman who survived her family's massacre and now has to decide whether her imprisoned brother really did it.

Where to Start with Crime & Thriller

Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express is the classic locked-room puzzle: a train stuck in a snowdrift, a passenger stabbed in his compartment, and a detective who solves it by talking to everyone on board. If you want the genre's foundations before you try anything newer, start here, because Christie builds the whole case out of timetables and alibis rather than forensics. Arthur Conan Doyle's The sign of the four sends Sherlock Holmes and Watson through a foggy London of stolen treasure and a one-legged man, and it reads faster than Christie because the clues arrive as action, not as interviews. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose puts the investigation inside a medieval monastery where a monk dies after touching a poisoned book, and it asks you to keep up with theology as well as with the murders. For a colder, more political kind of puzzle, John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold drops you into a Berlin of shabby rooms and double agents, and its ending lands harder than any drawing-room reveal.

Series and Long Commitments

Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second of three novels about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomberg, so start with the first if you want the full arc, but this one works as a standalone investigation into a sex-trafficking ring. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest closes that trilogy with a courtroom and a conspiracy inside the Swedish security police, and it rewards readers who already know Salander's history. Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta is a graphic novel set in a fascist Britain, and it asks you to read images as closely as prose, which makes it a different kind of commitment from a 600-page novel. Tom Clancy's Red storm rising is a single-volume war thriller about a NATO-Soviet conflict, and it is the one to pick if you want strategy and hardware rather than a detective's psychology.

Literary and Atmospheric Crime

Donna Tartt's The Secret History begins with a murder among classics students at a Vermont college, and it is less about whodunit than about why a group of clever people let it happen. Toni Morrison's Beloved is a ghost story about a woman who escaped slavery, and it belongs here because the crime at its centre is not solved but survived. Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind follows a boy through post-war Barcelona as he tries to find the author of a novel he loves, and it reads like a mystery wrapped in a love letter to books. Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl splits its narration between a husband and a wife who has disappeared, and it is the one to hand to a reader who wants to distrust every page.

What is the best crime and thriller book to start with?

Start with Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express if you want the classic puzzle, because it teaches you how a closed circle of suspects works. If you prefer a faster, more physical investigation, try Arthur Conan Doyle's The sign of the four, which moves through London rather than sitting in one room.

What is the difference between a crime novel and a thriller?

A crime novel usually begins with a body and follows an investigation, as in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, where a monk examines deaths in a monastery. A thriller puts you inside the danger, as John le Carré does in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, where the main character is a target rather than a detective.

Which of these authors writes the most literary crime?

Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Toni Morrison's Beloved both use crime as a way into character and history rather than as a puzzle to solve. Tartt stays inside a group of students, while Morrison moves between a haunted house and the memory of slavery.

How long is the Stieg Larsson series?

It is a trilogy: The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second book, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third. You can read the second as a standalone investigation, but the third assumes you know who Lisbeth Salander is.

Are there graphic novels in crime and thriller?

Yes, Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta is a graphic novel about a masked anarchist in a fascist Britain. It asks you to follow the artwork as closely as the dialogue, which is a different reading experience from a prose thriller like Tom Clancy's Red storm rising.