Esqiuire decided to create their own list of the best 50 mystery books of all time. Making such a list is no easy task. We will look at the 50 best mystery books according to Esquire and see how their list holds up!
I love a good mystery book which is why I will be taking this list seriously. Mystery books are difficult to rank because there are a lot of subgenres and people have their own preferences. A list can be compiled with 20 Agatha Christie novels and many people would be okay with it. Keep reading to see the full list!
The 50 Best Mystery Books
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura
- The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
- The Little Death by Michael Nava
- Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
- Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
- The Dry by Jane Harper
- The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- Havana Red by Leonardo Padura
- The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard
- Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
- Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
- The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
- The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
- Killing Floor by Lee Child
- Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
- The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
- Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
- In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
- Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
- Out by Natsuo Kirino
- Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
- A is For Alibi by Sue Grafton
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
- The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco
- The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
- The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
- Dead Time by Eleanor Taylor Bland
- The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
- In the Woods by Tana French
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- An Easy Thing by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
- The Chill by Ross Macdonald
- Miami Blues by Charles Willeford
- A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
- The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
- Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosely
- Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
- Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue & Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
- Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
A Great List
The first thing I want to say about is that it this is a great list. It has many amazing mystery books and somehow was able to include books from many subgenres with ease. Having Dracula as the 50th best mystery book is a great choice because it is iconic but there are a lot if mystery books that are better.
The Silent Patient
The Silent Patient might have one of the best plot twists of a thriller novel that I recently read. It is about a woman who doesn’t talk after murdering her husband. Psychotherapist Theo Faber transfers to the Grove to help Alicia Berenson talk again and find out what actually happened on the day of the murder. This novel is in many best thriller of all time lists and only after reading it will you understand why!
The Decagon House Murders
Recently, I have been diving into Japanese murder mystery book and it has been a fun ride. The murders are unique and now with many Japanese books being translated into English, more people can enjoy this brilliant novels. The Decagon House Murders is a murder novel that is inspired by And Then There Were None and openly admits it in the first few pages.
Shutter Island
One of my favorite all time novels on this list is Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. If you like reading novels where you can’t trust the protagonist, then this is for you. The movie is also great and I recommend watching it after reading the novel so the plot twist is spoiled. But even if you have seen the movie, you will still enjoy the brilliant writing by Lehane.
The Big Sleep
The Hardboiled fiction genre thrived from the 1930s to the 1950s and Raymond Chandler was one of its most influential writers. The Big Sleep captures the magic that swept the nation and made hardboiled fiction the go-to for many readers. Now, the genre is mostly forgotten but its impact can still be felt in many detective novels and movies that is has influenced over the decades.
Conclusion
No list is perfect but this one is pretty close. I also love the inclusion of books that many readers have not read. Also, there are a bunch of foreign novels included which is something many lists don’t do well. That is all for the 50 best mystery books according to Esquire. Let us know what you thought of this list!
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No fiction list should be with out
To kill a mockingbird
Catcher in the rye
Old man and the sea
On the road
Henning Mankell should be on this list. He’s the G.O.A.T.
In real life Jackson Lamb may not be as far from the truth as Bond or Bourne were but he was a brilliant creation by the excellent author Mick Herron. Nevertheless, it’s worth remembering Pemberton’s People in MI6 were for real and included characters who would have overshadowed the likes of Jackson.
Pemberton’s People included Roy Astley Richards (inter alia Winston Churchill’s bodyguard), Peter ‘Scrubber’ Stewart-Richardson (an eccentric British Brigadier who tried to join the Afghan Mujahideen), Peter Goss (an SAS Colonel and JIC member involved in the Clockwork Orange Plot concerning Prime Minister Harold Wilson) and even the infamous rogue Major Freddy Mace (who featured in Hansard for all the wrong reasons and impudently highlighted his cat burgling and silent killing skills in his CV).
If real scoundrels operating in the dark are your cup of Novichok then read Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files espionage series about MI6. First though, browse some of the more recent brief news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website. Soon you’ll be immersed in a world you won’t want to exit.
Beyond Enkription is a fact based spy thriller and a must read for espionage illuminati and cognoscenti as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots. Nevertheless, it has been heralded by one US critic as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Little wonder Beyond Enkription is mandatory reading on some countries’ intelligence induction programs.
If you enjoy the mysterious and reading fact based espionage thrillers, of which there are only a handful of decent ones, do try reading Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
What is interesting is that this book is so different to any other espionage thrillers fact or fiction that I have ever read. It is extraordinarily memorable and unsurprisingly apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why?
Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”; maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa; and/or maybe because he has survived literally dozens of death defying experiences including 20 plus attempted murders.
The action in Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 about a real maverick British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Initially in 1974 he unwittingly worked for MI5 and MI6 based in London infiltrating an organised crime gang. Later he worked knowingly for the CIA in the Americas. In subsequent books yet to be published (when employed by Citicorp, Barclays, Reuters and others) he continued to work for several intelligence agencies. Fairclough has been justifiably likened to a posh version of Harry Palmer aka Michael Caine in the films based on Len Deighton’s spy novels.
Beyond Enkription is a must read for espionage cognoscenti. Whatever you do, you must read some of the latest news articles (since August 2021) in TheBurlingtonFiles website before taking the plunge and getting stuck into Beyond Enkription. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit. Intriguingly, the articles were released seven or more years after the book was published. TheBurlingtonFiles website itself is well worth a visit and don’t miss the articles about FaireSansDire. The website is a bit like a virtual espionage museum and refreshingly advert free.
Returning to the intense and electrifying thriller Beyond Enkription, it has had mainly five star reviews so don’t be put off by Chapter 1 if you are squeamish. You can always skip through the squeamish bits and just get the gist of what is going on in the first chapter. Mind you, infiltrating international state sponsored people and body part smuggling mobs isn’t a job for the squeamish! Thereafter don’t skip any of the text or you’ll lose the plots. The book is ever increasingly cerebral albeit pacy and action packed. Indeed, the twists and turns in the interwoven plots kept me guessing beyond the epilogue even on my second reading.
The characters were wholesome, well-developed and beguiling to the extent that you’ll probably end up loving those you hated ab initio, particularly Sara Burlington. The attention to detail added extra layers of authenticity to the narrative and above all else you can’t escape the realism. Unlike reading most spy thrillers, you will soon realise it actually happened but don’t trust a soul.