THE SORROWS OF SATAN. A Famous Players-Lasky Corporation production, distributed by Paramount, 1926. Adolphe Menjou, Ricardo Cortez, Lya De Putti, Carol Dempster, Ivan Lebedeff, Marcia Harris.

Screenplay by Forrest Halsey, based on the novel by Marie Corelli (1895). Directors of photography, Harry Fischbeck & Arthur De Titta; art director, Charles Kirk. Director: D. W. Griffith. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   In this modern morality play, urbane Prince Lucio de Rimanez (Menjou) promises Geoffrey Tempest (Cortez), a struggling writer, great riches if he will surrender his soul. Tempest abandons his pregnant fiancee Mavis Claire (Dempster) and falls under the spell of the debauched Princess Olga Godovsky (Lya De Putti), whom he subsequently marries.

   The Prince is, course, the Devil, and Tempest is the Faust who sells his soul not for youth or knowledge, but for worldly success. Menjou is impressive, both charming and sinister, and Dempster is touching as the abandoned Marguerite.

   Lya de Putti, a Beardsley-like siren in a performance that seems molded on one of DeMille’s seductive vamps, captures the coldness of the often deceived searcher of forbidden pleasures and the almost desperate yearning for a pleasure that will prove more than fleeting.

   The weak link in the casting is Cortez, who seems too much the self-absorbed matinee idol to convincingly portray the adoration for the guileless Dempster and the lustful pursuit and conquest of the worldly De Putti.

   The film is greatly enhanced by the artful cinematography that is particularly effective in portraying the opulence of the world to which the Prince introduces Tempest. It may not have the power of Griffith’s use of the traditional materials of Victorian melodrama that he demonstrates in Way Down East, but it renews the time-worn themes of the Faustian tale with sensitivity and pictorial beauty.

   These are from the gray dawn of the origins of the genre up to 1913. Short story collections are included and a few novels that are only related (but closely) to the genre. They appear here in approximate chronological order, but not strictly so. Some books by an author are listed together even though they were published later.

   My rule on these was simple. They had to fit within the dates and I had to have read them. The end date of 1913 marks the publication of Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley, recognized as the beginning of the Golden Age. A few toward the end were not published in book form until after Bentley, but had been serialized before and so fit in the pre-Golden Age category.

   Historians of the genre will note that Dickens was not writing detective stories and I agree, but many of these early books are direct progenitors of the detective novel as we know it and in their handling of crime and criminals important to the genre.

●   Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe (the memoirs of a privateer, mostly the imagination of Defoe)

●   The Newgate Calendar by Anonymous (romanticized accounts of the likes of Dick Turpin, George Barrington, and Jonathan Wild)

●   Jonathan Wild by Henry Fielding (while the novel is satirical it could almost be a playbook for the career of Vidoq)

●   Caleb Williams by William Godwin (the first crime novel — and still a rousing tale of chase and pursuit as well as an early social reform novel)

●   The Romance of the Forest by Mrs. Radcliffe (many of the Gothic trappings used by the genre later on and all the supernatural is rationally — if not always logically — explained)

●   The Tales of Hoffman by E. T. A. Hoffman (he may actually predate Poe with the first detective story)

●   Rookwood by Hugh Ainsworth (most notable for the long section of the novel known as Dick Turpin’s Ride, a forerunner of Raffles, the Saint, and the gentlemen crooks)

●   The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott (a fictional account of an actual murder with some Gothic trappings, one of Scott’s Tales of the Landlord series)

●   Wieland by Charles Brockden-Brown

●   Confessions of an Unjustified Sinner by James Hogg (both this and Wieland are examples of the foundations of the psychological crime novel)

●   The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (the story of one of Washington’s agents during the American Revolution)

●   The Memoirs of Vidoq by Eugene Francois Vidoq (non-fiction, more-or-less about the thief turned detective who gave us Dupin, Vautrin, Jean Valjean, Lecoq, and Sherlock Holmes as well as the modern police force as we know it — and the origin of ‘cherchez la femme’)

●   Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe (no comment needed)

●   The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

●   Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner by Richardson (again non-fiction, more-or-less)

●   Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (Fagin an early model for the criminal mastermind)

●   A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (international intrigue)

●   Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Inspector Bucket)

●   The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

●   The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (the first and still one of the best detective novels)

●   The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (Collins’ best book and with the wonderful villainy of Count Fosco)

●   Armadale by Wilkie Collins

●   No Hero by Wilkie Collins

●   John Devil by Paul Feval pere (the first Scotland Yard detective in Gregory Temple and an early prototype for Moriarity)

●   The Black Coats by Paul Feval pere (an early novel of organized crime)

●   The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas pere (all the mystery men in literature owe a debt to Edmund Dantes)

●   The Horror at Fontenay by Alexandre Dumas pere

●   The Mysteries of Paris by Eugene Sue (a huge crime novel by the Dickens of Paris)

●   The Wandering Jew by Eugene Sue (the use of a Tontine as a plot device and an early use of the reading of the will for dramatic purpose)

●   Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (politics, crime, injustice, Jean Valjean — yet another Vidoq figure — and the implacable Javert)

●   The History of the Thirteen by Honore de Balzac (Vidoq yet again, here as Vautrin)

●   Monsieur Lecoq by Emile Gabiorou (Gabiorou was Feval’s secretary and took the name of his hero from one of Feval’s villains — Lecoq is the most important figure between Dupin and Holmes)

●   Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (still one of the seminal books in the genre)

●   Wylder’s Hand by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

●   The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Greene (one of the classics and likely her best)

●   The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (splendid nonsense recently republished in a trade paperback edition with extensive notes and introduction)

●   Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (helped to make the cab of the title the symbol of Victorian London — even though Hume is a colonial and a terrible writer)

●   The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (most editions also include “Pavilion on the Links” and “The Sire De Maltroit’s Door,” both seminal to the genre)

●   The New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (virtually at the birth of the genre Stevenson is already poking fun at it)

●   The Wrong Box by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osborne (humorous use of the Tontine plot beloved by the Victorians)

●   The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (again, no comment needed)

●   The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

●   The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

●   The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (an early and great locked room)

●   The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison (the first reaction against the colorful detective as represented by Holmes, and good in their own right)

●   The Hole in the Wall by Arthur Morrison (a fine crime novel worthy of Dickens or Stevenson)

●   As a Thief in the Night by E.W. Hornung (the first Raffles collection)

●   The Experiences of Loveday Brooke: Lady Detective by C. L. Pirkis (early female sleuth — if not the first — written by a woman)

●   The Shooting Party by Anton Chekov (Chekov’s only novel and it’s a murder mystery)

●   Hilda Wade by Grant Allen (completed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an exceptional mystery of the chase and pursuit kind)

●   Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain (if not a detective story, good use of detectival skills)

●   The Old Man in the Corner by Baroness Orczy (still the best of the armchair sleuths and the final story still has a kick)

●   The Man in Gray by Baroness Orczy (an early example of the historical mystery)

●   Secrets of the Foreign Office by William Le Queux (spy stories featuring Duckworth Drew — fun in the right mood)

●   The Count’s Chauffeur by William LeQueux (an early and influential use of the automobile in crime fiction)

●   The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (first and best of the paradoxical priest)

●   The Secrets of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (ironically these were written almost twenty years before Chesterton became a Catholic in 1922)

●   The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton (the detective novel as parable and allegory)

●   My Adventure on the Flying Scotsman by Eden Phillipotts ( a novella really — Phillipotts is important both on his own — The Red Redmaynes — and because he encouraged young Agatha Christie to keep writing)

●   The Passenger From Scotland Yard by Henry Wood (murder, smuggling, and trains)

●   The Great Tontine by Hawley Smart (one of the best of uses of the Tontine plot)     [1]

●   The Rome Express by Major Arthur Griffith (this helped to popularize the idea of intrigue on a train)     [1]

●   Mr. Meeson’s Will by H. Rider Haggard (a mix of adventure story and trial novel with a somewhat racy finale)

●   The Red Thumb Mark by R. Austin Freeman (no sooner had fingerprints been accepted as evidence in court than Freeman proved they could be forged — not unlike the detective work that would break the real Sir Harry Oakes case in 1943 in the Bahamas)

●   The Singing Bone by R. Austin Freeman (the invention of the inverted detective story, the most important innovation since Holmes)

●   John Silence by Algernon Blackwood (the finest of the psychic detectives, everyone a classic — you may never look at cats or French villages the same again)

●   November Joe by Hesketh Prichard (fine tec tales of a Canadian half-breed trapper)

●   The Eyes of Max Carrados by Ernest Bramah (Carrados is a bit of a superman, but these are still great reading)

●   The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope (prototype for a thousand books of international intrigue to come)

●   The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings by L.T. Meade & Robert Eustace (an international criminal conspiracy not unlike those so popular today)

●   The Exploits of Valmont by Robert Barr (highly entertaining stories and an early forerunner of Poirot)

●   The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry (clever stories about charming con man Jeff Peters)

●   The Beetle by Richard Marsh (a mix of horror and detective story, in many ways second only to Dracula for genuine chills)     [1]

●   Dr. Nikola by Guy Boothby (the Italian Peril and great fun, Nikola one of the great villains in the literature)

●   The London Adventures of Mr. Collin by Frank Heller (Philip ‘Flip’ Collin is the Danish Raffles)

●   Carnaki, Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson (supernatural sleuth and some real chills)

●   The Thinking Machine by Jacques Futrelle (Futrelle of course perished on the Titanic, but luckily there are two good collections of this series)

●   Cleek, the Man With Forty Faces by Thomas Hanshew ( a great favorite of John Dickson Carr with an penchant for impossible crimes almost as impossible as the hero, but fun in the right mood and who can resist a Scotland Yard man named Maverick Narcom?)

●   The Man in Lower 10 by Mary Roberts Rinehart (this was serialized before The Circular Staircase was published — my own choice as her best)

●   Kim by Rudyard Kipling (granddaddy of the Great Game)

●   In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis (too little read today, a splendid little book, and be sure to get the edition with the color plates by Frederic Dorr Steele)     [1]

●   At the Villa Rose by A. E. W. Mason (without Hanaud there is no Poirot)

●   The Exploits of Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc (the French Raffles and in much of the world a rival to Holmes himself)

●   813 by Maurice Leblanc (Lupin’s greatest case in which is client is the Kaiser)

●   The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (one of the great locked room tales of all time)

●   The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

●   Stories of the Railroad by Victor L. Whitechurch (these tales of Thorpe Hazel are some of the best short detective stories of their era)

●   Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries by Melville Davidson Post (the finest collection of American detective stories since Poe)

●   The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason by Melville Davidson Post (Perry’s last name is no coincidence)

●   Ashton Kirk Investigator by John McIntyre (McIntyre went on to become a serious novelist about gangsters; A-K also features in Ashton Kirk Secret Agent and others)

●   Prince Zaleski by M. P. Shiel (the last gasp of the Decadent era — unique is plot and execution)

●   The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (the first serious novel about terrorism)

●   The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace (the birth of the modern thriller)

●   The Romance of Terence O’Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer by Louis Joseph Vance

●   The Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance (Vance’s Michael Lanyard would become the standard for most the gentleman crooks to come, and his adventures are still worth reading)

●   The Achievements of Luther Trant by Edwin Balmer & William McHarg (perhaps the first psychological sleuth)

●   The Power House by John Buchan (Graham Greene calls it the first modern spy novel)

●   The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (say what you will — I love it — one of the most influential books in the genre — Racist? Yes, the Anglo-Saxons are all idiots as S. J. Perlman pointed out)

●   The Silent Bullet by Arthur B. Reeve (the introduction of Craig Kennedy the Scientific Detective, dated, but these stories show some energy)

●   The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (the last of the great Edwardian spy novels, within the next year both The Thirty Nine Steps and Riddle of the Sands would leave if forever behind)

●   The Lodger by Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes (the classic novel of Jack the Ripper)

●   Fantomas by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre (the newspaper serialization barely squeezes in — the surreal criminal Fantomas is unique in the genre)

[1]   The Great Tontine by Hawley Smart, The Rome Express by Major Arthur Griffith, In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis, and The Beetle by Richard Marsh, are all collected in one volume as Victorian Villainies edited by Graham and Hugh Greene

   These are all real detective stories: tales in which a mystery is solved by a detective. Real detective fiction tends to go invisible in modern society, in which many people prefer crime fiction without mystery.

   The list is in chronological order but unfortunately omits many major short story writers: G. K. Chesterton, Jacques Futrelle, H. C. Bailey, Edward D. Hoch, and other greats.

Émile Gaboriau, Le Crime d’Orcival (1866)
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
Israel Zangwill, The Big Bow Mystery (1891)
Anna Katherine Green, The Circular Study (1900)
Edgar Wallace, The Four Just Men (1905)
Cleveland Moffett, Through the Wall (1909)
John T. McIntyre, Ashton-Kirk, Investigator (1910)
R. Austin Freeman, The Eye of Osiris (1911)
E. C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case (1913)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear (1914)
Clinton H. Stagg, Silver Sandals (1914)
Johnston McCulley, Who Killed William Drew? (1917)
Octavus Roy Cohen, Six Seconds of Darkness (1918)
Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood, The Bat (1920)
Donald McGibeny, 32 Caliber (1920)
Carolyn Wells, Raspberry Jam (1920)
Freeman Wills Crofts, The Cask (1920)
A. A. Milne, The Red House Mystery (1922)
G. D. H. Cole, The Brooklyn Murders (1923)
Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast (1927)
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1927)
Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk, Into Thin Air (1929)
Samuel Spewack, Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929)
Thomas Kindon, Murder in the Moor (1929)
Mignon G. Eberhart, While the Patient Slept (1930)
Victor L. Whitechurch, Murder at the College / Murder at Exbridge (1932)
Ellery Queen, The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932)
Anthony Abbot, About the Murder of the Circus Queen (1932)
S. S. Van Dine, The Dragon Murder Case (1933)
Helen Reilly, McKee of Centre Street (1933)
Dermot Morrah, The Mummy Case (1933)
Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934)
Milton M. Propper, The Divorce Court Murder (1934)
John Dickson Carr, The Three Coffins / The Hollow Man (1935)
Georgette Heyer, Merely Murder / Death in the Stocks (1935)
David Frome, Mr. Pinkerton Has the Clue (1936)
Nigel Morland, The Case of the Rusted Room (1937)
Cyril Hare, Tenant for Death (1937)
Baynard Kendrick, The Whistling Hangman (1937)
Ngaio Marsh, Death in a White Tie (1938)
R. A. J. Walling, The Corpse With the Blue Cravat / The Coroner Doubts
(1938)
Dorothy Cameron Disney, Strawstacks / The Strawstack Murders (1938-1939)
Rex Stout, Some Buried Caesar (1938-1939)
Rufus King, Murder Masks Miami (1939)
Theodora Du Bois, Death Dines Out (1939)
Erle Stanley Gardner, The D.A. Draws a Circle (1939)
Agatha Christie, One Two, Buckle My Shoe / An Overdose of Death (1940)
J. J. Connington, The Four Defences (1940)
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
Frank Gruber, The Laughing Fox (1940)
Anthony Boucher, The Case of the Solid Key (1941)
Stuart Palmer, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan (1941)
Kelley Roos, The Frightened Stiff (1942)
Cornell Woolrich, Phantom Lady (1942)
Frances K. Judd, The Mansion of Secrets (1942)
Helen McCloy, The Goblin Market (1943)
Anne Nash, Said With Flowers (1943)
Mabel Seeley, Eleven Came Back (1943)
Norbert Davis, The Mouse in the Mountain (1943)
Robert Reeves, Cellini Smith: Detective (1943)
Hake Talbot, The Rim of the Pit (1944)
John Rhode, The Shadow on the Cliff / The Four-Ply Yarn (1944)
Allan Vaughan Elston & Maurice Beam, Murder by Mandate (1945)
Walter Gibson, Crime Over Casco (1946)
George Harmon Coxe, The Hollow Needle (1948)
Wade Miller, Fatal Step (1948)
Alan Green, What a Body! (1949)
Hal Clement, Needle (1949)
Bruno Fischer, The Angels Fell (1950)
Jack Iams, What Rhymes With Murder? (1950)
Richard Starnes, The Other Body in Grant’s Tomb (1951)
Richard Ellington, Exit for a Dame (1951)
Lawrence G. Blochman, Recipe For Homicide (1952)
Day Keene, Wake Up to Murder (1952)
Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel (1953)
Henry Winterfeld, Caius ist ein Dummkopf / Detectives in Togas (1953)
Craig Rice, My Kingdom For a Hearse (1956)
Frances and Richard Lockridge, Voyage into Violence (1956)
Harold Q. Masur, Tall, Dark and Deadly (1956)
James Warren, The Disappearing Corpse (1957)
Seicho Matsumoto, Ten to sen (Point and Lines) (1957)
Michael Avallone, The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse (1957)
Ed Lacy, Shakedown for Murder (1958)
Lenore Glen Offord, Walking Shadow (1959)
Allen Richards, To Market, To Market (1961)
Christopher Bush, The Case of the Good Employer (1966)
Randall Garrett, Too Many Magicians (1967)
Michael Collins, A Dark Power (1968)
Merle Constiner, The Four from Gila Bend (1968)
Bill Pronzini, Undercurrent (1973)
Nicholas Meyer, The West End Horror (1976)
Thomas Chastain, Vital Statistics (1977)
William L. DeAndrea, Killed in the Ratings (1978)
Clifford B. Hicks, Alvin Fernald, TV Anchorman (1980)
Donald J. Sobol, Angie’s First Case (1981)
Kyotaro Nishimura, Misuteri ressha ga kieta (The Mystery Train
Disappears) (1982)
K. K. Beck, Murder in a Mummy Case (1986)
Jon L. Breen, Touch of the Past (1988)
Stephen Paul Cohen, Island of Steel (1988)
Earl W. Emerson, Black Hearts and Slow Dancing (1988)

Editorial Comment: This will do it for today, but I do have one more list to post. David Vineyard sent it to me this morning. It’s a followup to his previous list, consisting of what he calls “100 Important Books From Before the Golden Age.” The cutoff date for these is 1913, which is where his earlier list began. While not all of the books on this new list may be crime fiction, they’re all important to the field. Look for it soon!

   Qualifications are the writers had to publish their first true detective novel between 1920 and 1941 (the true Golden Age) and be British or close enough (Carr). So writers like, say, R. Austin Freeman, Michael Gilbert and S. S. Van Dine get excluded.

   I wanted to get outside the box a bit and so I’m sure I made what will strike some as some odd choices. This is a personal list. If I were making a totally representative list John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, Nicholas Blake’s The Beast Must Die, Michael Innes’ Lament for a Maker, Anthony Berkeley’s The Poisoned Chocolates Case, Sayers’ Gaudy Night, etc., would all be there). And lists evolve over time. It’s highly likely, for example, that as I read more of Anthony Wynne and David Hume, for example, they would get more listings.

   Also I excluded great novels like And Then There Were None, The Burning Court and Trial and Error, for example, because I felt like they didn’t fully fit the definition of true detective novels. In any list list I would make of great mysteries, they would be there.

   If people conclude from this list that my five favorite Golden Age generation British detective novelists are Christie, Street, Mitchell, Carr and Bruce, that would be fair enough, though I must add that they were very prolific writers, so more listings shouldn’t be so surprising.

   The 150 novels break down by decade as follows:

       1920s 9 (6%)
       1930s 87 (58%)
       1940s 30 (20%)
       1950s and beyond 24 (16%)

   A pretty graphic indicator of my preference for the 1930s!

   Also, of the 61 writers, I believe 40 are men and 21 women — I hope my count is right! — which challenges the conventional view today that most British detective novels of the Golden Age were produced by women. Of these, 31, or just over half, eventually became members of the Detection Club. I exclude a few of these luminaries, such as Ronald Knox and Victor Whitechurch (am I anti-clerical?!).

   JOHN DICKSON CARR (8)
The Crooked Hinge (1938)
The Judas Window (1938) (as Carter Dickson)
The Reader Is Warned (1939) (as Carter Dickson)
The Man Who Could Not Shudder (1940)
The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)
The Gilded Man (1942) (as Carter Dickson)
She Died a Lady (1944) (as Carter Dickson)
He Who Whispers (1946)
   â— It’s probably sacrilege not to have The Three Coffins on the list (especially when you have The Gilded Man!), but when I read Coffins I enjoyed it for the horror more than the locked room, which seemed overcomplicated too me (need to reread though).

   AGATHA CHRISTIE (8)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 1926
Murder at the Vicarage 1930
The ABC Murders 1936
Death on the Nile 1937
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe 1940
Five Little Pigs 1942
A Murder Is Announced 1950
The Pale Horse 1961
   â— Haven’t reread The ABC Murders recently; was somewhat disappointed with Murder on the Orient Express when rereading and thus excluded from the list. And Then There Were None regretfully excluded, because I wasn’t sure it really qualifies as a detective story (there’s not really a detective and the solution comes per accidens).

   GLADYS MITCHELL (8)
Speedy Death (1929)
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop (1929)
The Saltmarsh Murders (1932)
Death at the Opera (1934)
The Devil at Saxon Wall (1935)
St. Peter’s Finger (1938)
The Rising of the Moon (1944)
Late, Late in the Evening (1976)
   â— A true original, but not to everyone’s taste.

   JOHN RHODE (MAJOR CECIL JOHN CHARLES STREET) (8)
The Davidson Case (1929)
Shot at Dawn (1934)
The Corpse in the Car (1935)
Death on the Board (1937)
The Bloody Tower (1938)
Death at the Helm (1941)
Murder, M.D. (1943) (as Miles Burton)
Vegetable Duck (1944)
   â— The Golden Age master of murder means, underrated in my view.

   LEO BRUCE (8)
Case for Three Detectives (1936)
Case with Ropes and Rings (1940)
Case for Sergeant Beef (1947)
Our Jubilee is Death (1959)
Furious Old Women (1960)
A Bone and a Hank of Hair (1961)
Nothing Like Blood (1962)
Death at Hallows End (1965)
   â— In print but underappreciated, he carried on the Golden Age witty puzzle tradition in a tarnishing era for puzzle lovers.

   J. J. CONNINGTON (5)
The Case With Nine Solutions (1929)
The Sweepstake Murders (1935)
The Castleford Conundrum (1932)
The Ha-Ha Case (1934)
In Whose Dim Shadow (1935)
   â— An accomplished, knowledgeable puzzler.

   E.C.R. LORAC (EDITH CAROLINE RIVETT) (5)
Death of An Author (1935)
Policemen in the Precinct (1949)
Murder of a Martinet (1951)
Murder in the Mill-Race (1952)
The Double Turn (1956) (as Carol Carnac)
   â— Has taken a back seat to the Crime Queens, but was very prolific and often quite good (my favorites, as can be seen, are more from the 1950s, when she became a little less convention bound).

   E. R. PUNSHON (5)
Genius in Murder (1932)
Crossword Mystery (1934)
Mystery of Mr. Jessop (1937)
Ten Star Clues (1941)
Diabolic Candelabra (1942)
   â— Admired by Sayers, this longtime professional writer (he published novels for over half a century) is underservingly out of print.

   MARGERY ALLINGHAM (4)
Death of a Ghost (1934)
The Case of the Late Pig (1937)
Dancers in Mourning (1937)
More Work for the Undertaker (1949)
   â— Her imagination tends to overflow the banks of pure detection, but these are very good, genuine puzzles.

G. D. H. and MARGARET COLE (4)
Burglars in Bucks (1930)
The Brothers Sackville (1936)
Disgrace to the College (1937)
Counterpoint Murder (1940)
   â— Clever tales by husband and wife academics not altogether justly classified as “Humdrums.”

   FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS (4)
The Sea Mystery (1928)
Sir John Magill’s Last Journey (1930)
The Hog’s Back Mystery (1933)
Mystery on Southampton Water (1934)
   â— The “Alibi King,” he’s more paid lip service (particularly for genre milestone The Cask) than actually read today, but at his best he is is worth reading for puzzle fans.

   NGAIO MARSH (4)
Artists in Crime (1938)
Seath in a White Tie (1938)
Surfeit of Lampreys (1940)
Opening Night (1951)
   â— Art, society and theater all appealingly addressed by a very witty writer, with genuine detection included.

   DOROTHY L. SAYERS (4)
Strong Poison (1930)
The Five Red Herrings (1931)
Have His Carcase (1932)
Murder Must Advertise (1933)
   â— As can be guessed I prefer middle period Sayers — less facetious than earlier books, but also less self-important than later ones.

   HENRY WADE (4)
The Dying Alderman (1930)
No Friendly Drop (1931)
Lonely Magdalen (1940)
A Dying Fall (1955)
   â— Very underrated writer — some other good works (Mist on the Saltings, Heir Presumptive) were left out because they are more crime novels.

   JOSEPHINE BELL (3)
Murder in Hospital (1937)
From Natural Causes (1939)
Death in Retirement (1956)
   â— Far less known than the Crime Queens, but a worthy if inconsistent author.

   NICHOLAS BLAKE (3)
A Question of Proof (1935)
Thou Shell of Death (1936)
Minute for Murder (1949)
   â— His most important book in genre history is The Beast Must Die, but I prefer these as puzzles.

   CHRISTIANNA BRAND (3)
Death in High Heels (1941)
Green for Danger (1945)
Tour de Force (1955)
   â— One of the few who can match Christie in the capacity to surprise while playing fair.

   JOANNA CANNAN (3)
They Rang Up the Police (1939)
Murder Included (1950)
And Be a Villain (1958)
   â— Underrated mainstream novelist who dabbled in detection.

   BELTON COBB (3)
The Poisoner’s Mistake (1936)
Quickly Dead (1937)
Like a Guilty Thing (1938)
   â— Almost forgotten, but an enjoyable, humanist detective novelist (B. C. worked in the publishing industry and was the son of novelist Thomas Cobb, who also wrote mysteries)

   JEFFERSON FARJEON (3)
Thirteen Guests (1938)
The Judge Sums Up (1942)
The Double Crime (1953)
   â— A member of the famous and talented Farjeon family (both his father Benjamin and sister Eleanor were notable writers), he wrote mostly thrillers but produced some more genuine detection.

   ELIZABETH FERRARS (3)
Give a Corpse a Bad Name (1940)
Neck in a Noose (1942)
Enough to Kill a Horse (1955)
   â— Came in at the tail-end of the Golden Age, like Brand, though she was more prolific (and not as good). She started with an appealing Lord Peter Wimsey knock-off (Toby Dyke), but eventually helped found the more middle class and modern “country cottage” mystery (downsized from the country house).

   CYRIL HARE (3)
When the Wind Blows (1949)
An English Murder (1951)
That Yew Trees Shade (1954)
   â— Another one who came in near the end of the Golden Age proper, his best is considered to be Tragedy at Law (see P. D. James), but I like best the tales he produced in postwar years.

   R. C. WOODTHORPE (3)
The Public School Murder (1932)
A Dagger in Fleet Street (1934)
The Shadow on the Downs (1935)
   â— A surprisingly underrated writer, witty and clever in the the way people like English mystery writers to be (why has no one reprinted him?).

   ROGER EAST (2)
The Bell Is Answered (1934)
Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935)
   â— Another mostly forgotten farceur of detection.

GEORGE GOODCHILD & BECHHOFER ROBERTS (2)
Tidings of Joy (1934)
We Shot an Arrow (1939)
   â— Working together, these two authors (one, Goodchild, a prolific thriller writer) produced some fine detective novels (their best-known works are a pair based on real life trials).

GEORGETTE HEYER (2)
A Blunt Instrument (1938)
Detection Unlimited (1953)
   â— Better known for her Regency romances (still read today), Heyer produced some admired exuberantly humorous (if a bit formulaic) detective novels (plotted by her husband).

   ELSPETH HUXLEY (2)
Murder on Safari (1938)
Death of an Aryan (1939)
   â— After a decent apprentice genre effort, this fine writer produced two fine detective novels, interestingly set in Africa, with an excellent series detective.

   MICHAEL INNES (2)
The Daffodil Affair (1942)
What Happened at Hazelwood (1946)
   â— So exuberantly imaginative, he is hard to contain within the banks of true detection, but these are close enough, I think, and I prefer them to his earlier, better-known works.

   MILWARD KENNEDY (2)
Death in a Deck Chair (1930)
Corpse in Cold Storage ((1934)
   â— A neglected mainstay of the Detection Club, hardly read today.

   C. H. B. KITCHIN (2)
Death of My Aunt (1929)
Death of His Uncle (1939)
   â— These are fairly well-known attempts at more literate detective fiction, by an accomplished serious novelist.

   PHILIP MACDONALD (2)
Rynox (1930)
The Maze (1932)
   â— A writer who often stepped into thriller territory (and produced some classics of that form), he produced with these two books closer efforts at true detection (indeed, the latter is a pure puzzle)

   CLIFFORD WITTING (2)
Midsummer Murder (1937)
Measure for Murder (1941)
   â— Clever efforts by an underappreciated author.

   FRANCIS BEEDING
He Should Not Have Slipped! (1939)
   â— About the closest I would say that this author (actually two men) came to full dress detection.

   ANTHONY BERKELEY
Not to be Taken (1938)
   â— A true detective novel and first-rate village poisoning tale by this important figure in the mystery genre, who often tweaked conventional detection.

   DOROTHY BOWERS
The Bells of Old Bailey (1947)
   â— Best of this literate lady’s detective novels, her last before her untimely death.

   CHRISTOPHER BUSH
Cut-Throat (1932)
   â— Prolific writer who is not my favorite, but I liked this one, with its clever alibi problem.

   A. FIELDING
The Upfold Farm Mystery (1931)
   â— Uneven, prolific detective novelist, but this one has much to please.

   ROBERT GORE-BROWNE
Murder of an M.P.! (1928)
   â— One of my favorite 1920s detective novels, by a mere dabbler in the field.

   CECIL FREEMAN GREGG
Expert Evidence (1938)
   â— Surprisingly cerebral effort by a “tough” British thriller writer.

   ANTHONY GILBERT
Murder Comes Home (1950)
   â— My favorite books by this author tend to be more suspense than true detection.

   JAMES HILTON
Murder at School (1931)
   â— Good foray into detection by well-regarded straight novelist.

   RICHARD HULL
The Ghost It Was (1936)
   â— About the closest I would say that this crime novelist came to detection.

   DAVID HUME
Bullets Bite Deep (1932)
   â— Though this series later devolved into beat ’em up thrillers, this first effort has genuine detection (and American gangsters). More reading of this author’s other series may yield additional results.

   IANTHE JERROLD
Dead Man’s Quarry (1930)
   â— One of the two detective novels by a forgotten member of the Detection Club, more a mainstream novelist (though forgotten in that capacity as well).

   A. G. MACDONELL
Body Found Stabbed (1932) (as John Cameron)
   â— Detective novel by writer better known for his satire.

   PAUL MCGUIRE
Burial Service (1939)
   â— Mostly forgotten Australian-born writer of detective fiction, mostly set in Britain. This tale, his finest, is not. It one of the most original of the period.

   JAMES QUINCE
Casual Slaughters (1935)
   â— A very good, virtually unknown village tale.

   LAURENCE MEYNELL
On the Night of the 18th…. (1936)
   â— More realistic detective novel for the place and period, in terms of its depiction of often unattractive human motivations, by a writer who veered more toward thrillers and crime novels.

   A. A. MILNE
The Red House Mystery (1922)
   â— A well-known classic, mocked by Chandler — but, hey, what a sourpuss he was, what?

   EDEN PHILLPOTTS
The Captain’s Curio (1933)
   â— Counted because his true detection started in the Golden Age. His best work, however, is found in crime novels (and straight novels)

   E. BAKER QUINN
One Man’s Muddle (1937)
   â— A strikingly hardboiled tale by a little-known author who was written of on this website fairly recently.

   HARRIET RUTLAND
Knock, Murderer, Knock! (1939)
   â— Mysterious individual who wrote three acidulous detective novels. This is the first, a classic spa tale.

   CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN SPRIGG
The Perfect Alibi (1934)
   â— A fine farceur of detection, whose genre talent was purged when he became a humorless Stalinist ideologue (he was killed in action in Spain).

   W. STANLEY SYKES
The Missing Moneylender (1931)
   â— Controversial because of comments about Jews (as the title should suggest), yet extremely clever.

   JOSEPHINE TEY
The Franchise Affair (1948)
   â— Genuine detection, though veering into crime novel territory (and veering very well, thank you).

   EDGAR WALLACE
The Clue of the Silver Key (1930)
   â— One of the closest attempts at true detection by the famed thriller writer.

   ETHEL LINA WHITE
She Faded Into Air (1941)
   â— See Edgar Wallace. A classic vanishing case, with some of the author’s patented shuddery moments.

   ANTHONY WYNNE
Murder of a Lady (1931)
   â— Fine locked room novel by an author who tended to be too formulaic but could be good (can probably add one or two more as I read him).

Editorial Comment:   Coming up soon (as soon as I can format it for posting) and covering some of the same ground as Curt’s, is a list of “100 Good Detective Novels,” by Mike Grost. The emphasis is also on detective fiction, so obviously some of the authors will be the same as those in Curt’s list, but Mike doesn’t restrict himself to British authors, and the time period is much wider, ranging from 1866 to 1988, and the actual overlap is very small.

   This is a list of books that appealed to me as I read them. I have simply gone on my fond memories of reading them, some many years ago, in a few cases when I was just a boy. I haven’t re-assessed and no doubt a stint of re-reading would lead to a change of mind for several of them.

   No doubt there are many books on the list that you can’t imagine why they are there. No doubt, also, there are some that you can’t imagine why they are not there but many are probably absent because I haven’t read them as I would make no claims to be widely read.

   I have restricted myself to one title per author, pseudonyms included.

   I haven’t counted as I compiled the list but I think there are 81 titles there. I’m sure there are other I should add if they came to mind. In the meantime this listing should be regarded as a work in progress rather than the finished thing.

Eric Ambler: Passage of Arms (1959)
   I read a lot of Ambler back in the ’60s but this was the one that gripped me more than the others.
H.C. Bailey: Call Mr Fortune (1920)
   I bought an omnibus of the first four Mr Fortune short story collections. I started reading intending to just read this first book but ended reading all four straight off.
Francis Beeding: Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931)
   I can’t remember the details but I remember enjoying it.
Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
   An author sets out to find the hit-and-run driver who killed his son.
Lawrence Block: A Stab In The Dark (1981)
   The best of the earlyish Scudders.
Edward Boyd and Bill Knox: The View From Daniel Pike (1974)
   Short stories about a Glasgow private eye. Boyd wrote the tv scripts Knox turned them into stories.
Ernest Bramah: Max Carrados (1914)
   Classic short stories about a blind detective.
Howard Browne: The Taste Of Ashes (1957)
The best of Paul Pine, private detective.
Curt Cannon [1]: I’m Cannon — For Hire (1958)
   I enjoyed this story of the down-and-out detective.
Sarah Caudwell: Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981)
   Witty badinage in the legal chambers and in Greece.
Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely (1940)
   My favourite of the Chandlers.
G. K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911)
   Another classic short story collection.
Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
   Immaculate adventure/spy story
Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile (1938)
   An intricately contrived crime that ties up the loose ends.
Tucker Coe: Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death (1966)
   I enjoyed the whole Mitch Tobin sequence and this first one set the tone nicely.
John Collee: Paper Mask (1987)
   The tale of a doomed hospital porter who steps out of his station.
J. J. Connington: Nemesis at Raynham Parva (1929)
   Domestic crime set in the country, with a cunning twist. [2]
Freeman Wills Crofts: The Groote Park Murder (1925)
   A pre-French Crofts but the intricate plot works.
Len Deighton: The Ipcress File (1962)
   The spy novel becomes working class.
Carter Dickson [3]: The Judas Window (1938)
   One of Carr’s intricate impossible crimes.
Warwick Downing: The Player (1974)
   I’ve forgotten the details but I know I enjoyed it.
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
   Probably Doyle’s best set of short stories. (I’m not chickening out by selecting The Complete SH.)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Pledge (1959)
   Short tale of a detective’s mental deterioration as he seeks a child killer.
Stanley Ellin: Mystery Stories (1956)
   Excellent and varied set of short stories.
G. J. Feakes: Moonrakers and Mischief (1961)
   A little weak in the plot but hilariously funny.
Dick Francis: Enquiry (1970)
   My favourite among many excellent racing thrillers.
R. Austin Freeman: The Red Thumb Mark (1907)
   The meticulous Thorndyke at his intricate best.
Stephen Greenleaf: Beyond Blame (1986)
   My favourite of the Tanner books. The ending stood up which it often didn’t in Greenleaf’s other books, good as they were to read.
Michael Gilbert: Death in Captivity (1952)
   Whodunit and PoW escape novel all in one book.
Donald Hamilton: Death of a Citizen (1960)
   First in an excellent series.
Dashiell Hammet: Red Harvest (1928)
   My favourite of his novels, otherwise I might have gone for a short story collection.
Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
   Pettigrew and the murder of a judge on the circuit that the author knew so well.
Thomas Harris: Red Dragon (1981)
   Excellent story with a captivating villain.
Jeremiah Healy: So Like Sleep (1987)
   My favourite of the early Cuddy’s.
Patricia Highsmith: Deep Water (1957)
   I enjoyed this murderous tale better than her more famous works.
Edward D. Hoch: Diagnosis Impossible (1996)
   Excellent collection of ‘impossible’ crimes concerning Dr Sam Hawthorne.
E. W. Hornung: The Amateur Cracksman (1899)
   First of the tales of Raffles. gentleman-thief.
Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
   The best thriller I have read.
Richard Hull: The Murder of My Aunt (1934)
   Excellently humorous ‘inverted’ tale.
Stanley Hyland: Who Goes Hang? (1958)
   The details have gone but I know I enjoyed this tales set in the House of Commons.
Francis Iles [4]: Malice Aforethought (1931)
   Excellent inverted novel.
Dan Kavanagh: Putting the Boot In (1985)
   The best book I have read set around football.
Harry Stephen Keeler: The Amazing Web (1929)
   Typically intricate Keeler tale that all ties together neatly at the end.
Maurice Leblanc: The Confessions of Arsène Lupin (1912)
   Amusing and intricate tales of the French rogue.
John le Carré: Call For the Dead (1961)
   Excellent detective story set in the world of espionage.
Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
   Has the best single moment I can recall reading.
Dick Lochte: Sleeping Dog (1985)
   Funny and yet enthralling p.i. tale.
Peter Lovesey: A Case of Spirits (1975)
   Excellent impossible crime about the excellent Sergeant Cribb.
Arthur Lyons: All God’s Children (1975)
   A very enjoyable p.i. tale with Jacob Asch.
John D. MacDonald: A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
   I read, and enjoyed, the McGee’s a long while ago but this is the one I seem to remember enjoying most.
Philip MacDonald: The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (1938)
   Colonel Gethryn on a case with very little to work on.
Ross Macdonald: The Underground Man (1971)
   My favourite of the Lew Archer books.
Raymond Marshall [5]: Hit and Run (1958)
   Outstanding first person tale of a man who is enticed and becomes wanted for murder.
L.A. Morse: The Old Dick
   I enjoyed this tale of an elderly detective.
John Mortimer: Rumpole of the Bailey (1978)
   The first collection of stories about the Old Bailey hack.
Sara Paretsky: Bitter Medicine (1987)
   My favourite of the Warshawski’s.
Robert B. Parker: Paper Doll (1993)
   Spenser finds the murderer of a businessman’s wife without Hawk’s help.
David Pierce: Down in the Valley (1989)
   The first about private eye Vic Daniel.
Jeremy Pikser: Junk on the Hill (1984)
   I’ve forgotten the details of this but I remember I enjoyed it.
Joyce Porter: Dover and the Unkindest Cut of All (1967)
   Dover investigates forcible castrations.
Talmage Powell: The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer (1960)
   The strongest of the five books about Tampa p.i. Ed Rivers
Bill Pronzini: Shackles (1988)
   Nameless is imprisoned and left to die, while working out who his captor is.
Ellery Queen: The Glass Village (1954)
   My favourite Queen though Ellery is not in it.
Patrick Quentin: Puzzle for Fiends (1946)
   Intriguing tale of Peter Duluth institutionalised with amnesia.
Ruth Rendell: A Demon in my View (1976)
   Excellent plot and beguiling story.
Sax Rohmer: The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu (1913)
   I loved this as a youngster; Fu-Manchu dominates every page he is on.
James Sallis: The Long-Legged Fly (1992)
   I enjoyed this first in the Lew Griffin series and the second, too, though they started to pall after that.
Sapper: The Female of the Species (1928)
   Bulldog Drummond was racist and objectionable but as a boy I raced through his exploits. This was my favourite as he had to decipher a message to rescue his wife.
Gunnar Staalesen: At Night All Wolves Are Grey (1986)
   Excellent, if bleak, p.i. tale set in Norway.
Rex Stout: In the Best Families (1950) [6]
   Wolfe’s routine is disrupted in this tale.
Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
   A slow build up to a revealing climax as a country solicitor defends two women accused of kidnapping.
Jim Thompson: Pop. 1280 (1964)
   One of Thompson’s riveting tales of a descent into madness.
June Thomson: The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes (1990)
   Excellent Holmes short story pastiches.
Masako Togawa: The Lady Killer (1985)
   A serial killer in Tokyo.
Peter Tremayne: The Return of Raffles (1981)
   Excellent tale following Raffles’s return from the Boer War.
S. S. Van Dine: The Bishop Murder Case (1929)
   Van Dine is out of favour nowadays but this is one I really enjoyed.
Roy Vickers: The Department of Dead Ends (1947)
   Classic tales of cold cases revived from a single clue.
Henry Wade: Mist on the Saltings (1933)
   A nicely turned out story in which things are as they seemed.
Edgar Wallace: The Fellowship of the Frog
   Another author I read extensively as a boy. This is one of my favourites that I suspect might not stand up to a second reading.
Colin Watson: Hopjoy Was Here (1962)
   A funny, yet involving detective story.
Charles Williams: Dead Calm (1963)
   A riveting tale of skulduggery on the high seas.

      FOOTNOTES:

1. aka Evan Hunter or Ed McBain
2. This is a title that should be read after sampling several of the earlier Connington’s
3. aka John Dickson Carr
4. aka Anthony Berkeley
5. aka James Hadley Chase
6. This is a title that should be read after sampling several of the earlier Nero Wolfe tales, especially And Be a Villain and The Second Confession.

Editorial Comment:   I have one more list of favorite or “best” mysteries to go. I’ll post one from Curt Evans tomorrow. If you’ve been following his reviews on this blog, you won’t be surprised to know that his list consists solely of Golden Age British Detective Novels. Even with that restriction, his list is the longest: 120 books in all. So far.

IMOGEN ROBERTSON – Instruments of Darkness. Headline, UK, hardcover, May 2009. Pamela Dorman Books, US, hardcover, February 2011.

Genre:   Historical mystery. Leading characters: Gabriel Crowther/Harriet Westerman; 1st in series. Setting:   England, 1780.

First Sentence:   Gabriel Crowther opened his eyes.

    Harriet Westerman, wife of a navy commander, has given up sailing with her husband to raise their family and provide a home for her sister at Caverly Park in West Sussex. When she finds the body of a man whose throat has been slit, she summons help from anatomist Gabriel Crowther.

   The victim has a ring bearing the crest of neighboring Thornleigh Hall. Was the man Alexander Thornleigh, the missing heir to the Earl of Sussex?

   Meanwhile in London, music shop owner Alexander Adams is murdered. Before dying, he tells his daughter to find a box hidden under the counter. Was Alexander the missing heir and how can his children be removed from the city in spite of a killer and the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots?

   Wonderful characters make this book a treat to read. Jane Austin fans will quickly associate Harriet Westerman with Mrs. Croft, the captain’s wife from Persuasion.

   She has traveled, seen war, is outspoken and not to be put off. Her younger sister, Rachel Trench, is “Jane Eyre,” in her attraction to the war-wounded Hugh Thornleigh, younger brother of the missing Alexander and the Mr. Rochester of our story.

   Gabriel Crowther is a scientist, and something of a recluse until being pulled into the investigation by Harriet and his own curious mind. There are a lot of characters, including some real historical figures. It was occasionally difficult to keep track of who was who.

   However, they each played their part and added to the overall Gothic feel of the story. Ms. Robertson convincingly transported me to Georgian England in sight, sound, dialogue appropriate to the period and historical fact. I had not known of the Gordon Riots until now.

   She also includes a perspective of the American Revolution from the viewpoint of a British soldier. There is a lovely, Gothic feel to this book, but it was not perfect. Happily, in spite of identifying the villains fairly soon, the motive remained a secret until the end.

   Although the story did feel overlong, I was completely involved and never found myself skipping through it. The book was engrossing and suspenseful, with interesting historical information. The different threads of the plot were brought together well in a slightly overly dramatic fashion.

   The most important thing is whether I would read another book by this author. The answer is a definite “yes,” and the second (Anatomy of Murder ) is already on order.

Rating:   Good Plus.

NOTE: Visit the author’s blog at http://imogenrobertson.wordpress.com/

ANTHONY BOURDAIN – Bone in the Throat. Bloomsbury, reprint softcover, September 2000; hardcover edition: Villard, June 1995.

   Before he gained fame and fortune as a food writer/celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain was an obscure, but damn fine, crime fiction writer.

   Tommy Pagano, a sous-chef at the Dreadnaught, accidentally gets mixed up in a murder committed by his misfit gangster uncle, Sally “Wig,” and his creepy sidekick “Skinny,” who kills in the nude to avoid getting evidence on his clothes.

   The feds are convinced Tommy’s dirty — and he doesn’t know that the restaurant where he works is an elaborate federal sting operation. Can this end well for anyone?

   Bone in the Throat is wickedly humorous, which only serves to intensify the noir tension. The few scenes set in a heroin house are truly terrifying. Dark, funny, fine and recommended.

ANTHONY BORDAIN – Crime Fiction:

      Bone in the Throat. Villard, 1995.
      Gone Bamboo. Villard, 1997.

      The Bobby Gold Stories. Bloomsbury, 2003.

   I quickly went through the list of books I’ve read since 1993 to see potential additions to my earlier list and came up with quite a few. I tried to pick books I really liked when I read them, though I might not choose them today, if that makes any sense. In any case, they are more or less chronological from when I read them (except if there is a second book by the same author).

Brian Freemantle, The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin
Minette Walters, The Sculptress
Reginald Hill, Exit Lines
Mary Willis Walker, Zero at the Bone (also Under the Beetle’s Cellar)
S. J. Rozan, China Trade (also The Shanghai Moon)
Thomas Perry, The Butcher’s Boy (also Metzger’s Dog)
Edward D. Hoch, Diagnosis…Impossible (ss)
Gerry Boyle, Deadline
Robert Barnard, Out of the Blackout (also The Masters of the House)
Lee Child, Killing Floor
Bill Fitzhugh, Pest Control (also Radio Activity)
Michael Connelly, Blood Work
Alan Beechey, An Embarrassment of Corpses
Barbara Seranella, No Offense Intended
Ed Gorman, Famous Blue Raincoat (ss, plus other ss collections)
Donald Harstad, Eleven Days
Joe Gores, Cases (also Spade and Archer and the DKA File collection, Stakeout on Page Street)
William Deverell, Trial of Passion
Owen Parry, Faded Coat of Blue
Clark Howard, Challenge to the Widow-Maker (ss)
Brendan Dubois, Resurrection Day (also The Dark Snow & Other Stories – ss)
Lawrence Block, The Collected Mystery Stories
Val McDermid, A Place of Execution
Joe R. Lansdale, The Bottoms
Fred Willard, Down on Ponce
Sarah Caudwell, Thus Was Adonis Murdered
Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter
Ken Bruen, The Guards (also The White Trilogy)
P. J. Tracy, Monkeewrench
James Sallis, Cypress Grove (also Drive)
James Swain, Grift Sense
Cornell Woolrich, Night & Fear: A Centennial Collection (ss)
Edward Wright, Clea’s Moon
Bill Crider, We’ll Always Have Murder
Joseph Commings, Banner Deadlines (ss)
Michael Gruber, Tropic of Night
Terence Faherty, The Confessions of Owen Keane (ss)
Duane Swierczynski, The Wheelman (also Severance Package)
Charlie Huston, Already Dead
Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish
Erle Stanley Gardner, The Casebook of Sidney Zoom (ss)
Norbert Davis, Sally’s in the Alley
Charles McCarry, The Tears of Autumn
Ross Macdonald, The Archer Files (ss)
Colin Cotterill, The Coroner’s Lunch
Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Josh Bazell, Beat the Reaper
Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
Rebecca Cantrell, A Trace of Smoke
Tarquin Hall, The Case of the Missing Servant
Jamie Freveletti, Running From the Devil

   Steve suggested we might try our hands at a 100 best list, so here with some reservations is mine. Reservation number 1:   I have limited myself to mystery and suspense novels, so no thrillers, adventure, or spy novels.

   Number 2:   I have no short story collections on the list — I couldn’t top the Queen’s Quorum anyway.

   Number 3:   I am skipping the early classics from The Moonstone to The Hound of the Baskervilles. For all practical purposes this list begins with the birth of the Golden Age which most would place with E. C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case. The books before that are deserving of a list of their own.

   Also, I have limited myself to one title per writer though obviously some writers should have multiple entries.

   The final reservation is that this is no “best” list. More a favorites list, and of course at different times there would be some variation. Some favorite writers don’t make the list because another, sometimes lesser, writer wrote one very good book. And though they wrote well after the cut off date I’m leaving R. Austin Freeman to the earlier period along with Conan Doyle and Chesterton.

   And warning, this list is extremely eclectic.

   It struck me too how many of these had been filmed so a * marks a film version.

   With those caveats, herewith:

About the Murder of The Circus Queen by A. Abbott *
The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin
Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham *
Terror on Broadway by David Alexander
Perish By the Sword by Poul Anderson
Hell Is a City by William Ard
The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong *
Murder in Las Vegas by W. T. Ballard
Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding
Charlie Chan Carries On by Earl Derr Biggers *
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake *
Bombay Mail by Lawrence G. Blochman *
No Good From a Corpse by Leigh Brackett
Green For Danger by Christianna Brand *
The Clock Strikes Thirteen by Herbert Brean
A Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce
The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown *
Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett *
The Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton
Fast One by Paul Cain *
Circus Couronne by R. Wright Campbell
The Man Who Could Not Shudder by John Dickson Carr
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler *
Elsinore by Jerome Charyn
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie *
First Prize by Edward Cline
Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins
Brass Rainbow by Michael Collins
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
The Wrong Case by James Crumley
Snarl of the Beast by Carroll John Daly
Sally in the Alley by Norbert Davis
The Poisoned Oracle by Peter Dickinson
To Catch A Thief by David Dodge *
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier *
End of the Game (aka The Judge and His Hangman) by Friedrich Duerrenmatt *
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco *
The Naked Spur by Charles Einstein *
The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy *
Mirage by Walter Ericson (Howard Fast) *
Double Or Quits by A. A. Fair
The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing *
Death Comes to Perigord by John Ferguson
Isle of Snakes by Robert L. Fish
High Art by Rubem Fonseca *
King of the Rainy Country by Nicholas Freeling
Operation Terror by the Gordons *
Take My Life by Winston Graham *
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene *
It Happened In Boston by Russell Greenhan
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett *
Violent Saturday by W. L. Heath *
Why Shoot a Butler by Georgette Heyer
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith *
Night Has 1000 Eyes by George Hopley (Cornell Woolrich) *
Flush as May by P. M. Hubbard
Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes *
One Man Show by Michael Innes
An Unsuitable Job For a Woman by P. D. James *
The 10:30 From Marseilles by Sebastian Japrisot *
The Last Express by Baynard Kendrick
Night and the City by Gerald Kersh *
Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle
Murder of a Wife by Henry Kuttner
Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer *
Curtain for a Jester by Richard and Francis Lockridge
Let’s Hear it For the Deaf Man by Ed McBain *
Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy
The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald
The List of Adrian Messenger by Philip MacDonald *
Black Money by Ross Macdonald
Gideon’s Day by J. J. Marric (John Creasey) *
Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh
Guilty Bystander by Wade Miller *
A Neat Little Corpse by Max Murray *
Sleeper’s East by Frederic Nebel *
Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O’Grady *
Puzzle for Fools by Q. Patrick
Fracas in the Foothills by Eliot Paul
To Live and Die in L.A. by Gerald Petivich *
Shackles by Bill Pronzini
Cat of Many Tails by Ellery Queen *
Footprints on the Ceiling by Clayton Rawson
Trial by Fury by Craig Rice
The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillett *
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers *
So Evil My Love by Joseph Shearing *
Stain on the Snow (aka The Snow is Black) by Georges Simenon *
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall & Per Waloo *
Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow
Blues for the Prince by Bart Spicer
One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
Judas Inc. by Kurt Steel
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot
The Bishop Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine *
Above the Dark Circus by Hugh Walpole
Death Takes the Bus by Lionel White
Death in a Bowl by Raoul Whitfield

Editorial Comment:   Previously on this blog have been top 100 lists from Barry Gardner and Jeff Meyerson. Coming tomorrow is another such list from Geoff Bradley, editor and publisher of CADS (Crime and Detective Stories) . Thanks to all!

WILLIAM BEECHCROFT – Secret Kills. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1988. No paperback edition.

   William Beechcroft’s fifth suspense novel is Secret Kills, featuring Dan Forrest, reporter for New York tabloid NewsLeak, a publication which is certainly no better than it has to be. Forrest, whom we’ve met before (in Chain of Vengeance), is here interested in the death of actress Marguerite Falconer.

   The official police verdict, seemingly dictated from on high, is death by autoerotic asphyxia. This is not consistent with what Forrest learns of Falconer’s character, and the trail leads to Washington, to Edwin Stanfield at the Department of State, whose daughter has just been badly damaged in a subway bombing.

   Dan, in unlikely harness with NewsLeak’s rotund society reporter, Corky Brion, starts poking about in a pile of corruption which surely includes one more death, likely his. A pleasant diversion.

BEECHCROFT, WILLIAM. Pseudonym of William F. Hallstead, 1924- . [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

    Position of Ultimate Trust. Dodd, 1981.
    Image of Evil. Dodd, 1985.

    Chain of Vengeance. Dodd, 1986. [Dan Forrest]
    The Rebuilt Man. Dodd, 1987.

    Secret Kills. Dodd, 1988. [Dan Forrest]
    Pursuit of Fear. Carroll & Graf, 1990.