100 Must-Read Crime Novels

There may not be precisely a hundred, and not all are novels (the list includes story collections by G.K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle), but Richard Shephard and Nick Rennison's 100 Must-Read Crime Novels makes a nice, compact guide. It will fit easily into your pocket to replace the 5 pounds, 99 pence you take out to pay for it.

The occasionally flat prose in the capsule descriptions (Novels are "unbelievably powerful" or "atmospheric, entertaining") is offset by interesting choices from authors I had not read (John Franklin Bardin, Nicholas Blake) or knew only through movie adaptations (Vera Caspary's Laura). I was pleased to see Fredric Brown's The Fabulous Clipjoint on the list and tantalized by the description of Eric Ambler's writing as "poles apart from the run-of-the-mill, imperialist yarns favoured by such writers as John Buchan and Sapper."

© Peter Rozovsky 2007