100 Best Crime Fiction Books of All Time

Rian Johnson@AdamLanceGarcia I think And Then There Were None is her best book, but The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd and Curtain are probably tied for my personal favorite. (Source)

Kelly Vaughn@ceeoreo_ Great book! (Source)

Bill GatesAs a longtime fan of The Daily Show, I loved reading this memoir about how its host honed his outsider approach to comedy over a lifetime of never quite fitting in. Born to a black South African mother and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa, he entered the world as a biracial child in a country where mixed race relationships were forbidden. Much of Noah’s story of growing up in South... (Source)

Mark SusterPlease don't read @Trevornoah's book "Born a Crime." It's such a remarkable story that you need to hear him narrate it on @audible_com. You'll laugh out loud, cry, get angry, be in disbelief. You'll have many "driveway moments" where you can't stop even though you're home (Source)

Heather ZynczakSo excited for our latest speaker announcement for #PSLIVE19! Trevor Noah! I am a huge @TheDailyShow fan! And his book -Born a Crime -and life story are amazing. Can't wait! Join us! https://t.co/N6ykJq7TOy https://t.co/r0dIx5RFVI (Source)

Bill GatesA bunch of my friends recommended this one to me. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider’s look at the rise and fall of Theranos. The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly... (Source)

Brad FeldEvery entrepreneur and VC should read this book. John Carreyrou has done something important here. Maybe this book will finally put a nail in the phrase “fake it till you make it”, but I doubt it. The amount of lying, disingenuousness, blatant and unjustified self-promotion, and downright deceit that exists in entrepreneurship right now is at a local maximum. This always happens when... (Source)

Andrew ChenFinished “bad blood” on the Theranos scandal. Wow. Just wow. It’s a must read for everyone in tech and startups. Just 1-click buy it :) Amazing how far charisma and social proof got them. Here’s the NYT review of the book https://t.co/PyMGxfoG2R (Source)

Barack ObamaJust like us, the president enjoys a good beach read while relaxing in the sun. In 2016, he released his list of summer vacation books: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins Seveneves, Neal Stephenson The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (Source)

James TwiningHarris breaks a story in that he popularised or exposed the workings of the FBI’s criminal profiling unit. He put them on the map. (Source)

Peter JamesIf you want to be a crime writer it is one of the books that you absolutely have to read. It has been one of the most successful, if not the most successful, crime novel of the 20th century. (Source)

Simon KernickI think this is a thriller, like all of her books, because plot is king in them and characterisation takes more of a back seat. This is probably the most famous of all her books, and certainly, for me, the cleverest. It was written in 1926 and it’s original because the twist at the end is stunning. How much can I give away with something like this? (Source)

Simon BrettI think the writing is just so beautiful. Raymond Chandler’s hopeless at plots, as we know. He said himself, if he couldn’t think of what to do, he brought in a man with a gun. But the language… I remember some years ago an American publisher got the rights to do a book called Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and got various contemporary crime writers to write a Philip Marlowe story. I was asked... (Source)

Michael DirdaIf you’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes books you really need to start with that one because it introduces this rather mysterious and romantic character. At the beginning, Doctor Watson tries to puzzle out the profession of his strange roommate at 221b Baker Street. He makes lists of what Holmes seems to know a lot about and what he doesn’t seem to know about at all – including the Copernican... (Source)

Nicky CullenThat is such a tough question. I'm going to say The Godfather because I couldn't stop until it was finished. (Source)

Michal PtacekMy most favourite book is Godfather by Mario Puzo. I think it is even slightly more interesting and better than a movie which is almost perfect. Total masterpiece :) (Source)

Neal O'GormanCertainly, a previous non-business book which I really enjoyed (along with many other people) was the Da Vinci Code. I was living in the States at the time, and it was a rare occasion to be on a plane and not see someone reading it. (Source)

Michael DirdaHolmes turns to Mortimer and says, A man’s or a woman’s? and Mortimer delivers the greatest reply in 20th century literature, Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound! I shivered with pleasure and realised that life didn’t get much better than that. (Source)

Peter JamesIt actually scared me the first time I read it as a kid. And I have always liked it. It is my favourite of all his books and it has a very clever ending. (Source)

Jessica Northeyshaw@TheBrandyClark It's awesome! Did you read the book? It's super twisted and dark. Enjoy! 😘 (Source)

Michael DirdaIt really has a superbly eerie atmosphere. Most Sherlockians, if they had to pick just one story to represent the canon, would choose this one. (Source)

Douglas StarrIn a world beset by uncertainty and chaos and fear, it’s comforting to imagine there is someone out there who, with keen intelligence and a scientific method, can put things back in order, and make the world safe again. I think that’s part of Holmes’s enduring appeal. (Source)

Andrew LeesIt is often claimed that Holmes is the epitome of the rational, cold-blooded scientist but, in fact, most of his crimes are solved by backing his hunches and a fair amount of guesswork. (Source)

Armistead MaupinThe Modern Library named The Maltese Falcon one of the top 100 novels of the century. It was the first, and probably the greatest, hard-boiled detective novel. It pretty much invented the genre and its archetypes, including the femme fatale and the hard-drinking detective – in this case Sam Spade. Hammett created a prototype that’s been followed ever since. (Source)

James TwiningIn this one you’ve got an interesting central character, Sam Spade, who’s bitter and sardonic and plays each side off against the other. (Source)

Esther PerelYou can reread the Russians. They are timeless. (Source)

Irvine WelshIt is not a crime book in the way that we understand crime fiction today. Instead it is like an existential psychological thriller. (Source)

Ben Domenech@SohrabAhmari @li88yinc @jgcrum @BlueBoxDave @InezFeltscher @JarrettStepman Maybe the best book ever written. (Source)

The Secret BarristerThis was the holiday-reading book which, as a teenager, inspired me to pursue criminal law. The gritty reality of criminal practice is of course somewhat removed from the fictionalised ideal, and any lawyer acting in the way that our hero Jake Brigance does in securing a just outcome for his innocent client would have to deal with fairly serious professional consequences, but the underlying... (Source)

Mathew PrichardHugh Fraser reads it wonderfully. (Source)

Cristian-Dragos BaciuAnd let's not forget Along Came a Spider by James Patterson. Actually, Patterson is really something else. He doesn't even write the books himself. He just puts together a very detailed brief, that he hands over to a talented writer and bang!, you have a best-seller. (Source)

Casey Neistatjust finished this yesterday. absolutely fantastic book. super recommend if you're into spycraft and espionage. bravo @BenMacintyre1 https://t.co/4OG4C1cBQ1 (Source)

Isabel Hardman@holland_tom @BenMacintyre1 Oh it’s a brilliant book isn’t it. Another one I was sad to finish. (Source)

Amrullah SalehI had a great conversation with Ambassador Micheal Lund Jeppesen of @DKinAfghanistan . On the sidelines of our rich conversation we spoke of the Spy & the Traitor a great book in which Denmark's intelligence features highly. Proud of our alliance & cooperation. https://t.co/47GMb7ETWr (Source)

Lynda La PlanteRaymond Chandler is a master of the crime novel and his short stories are a terrific read that I return to very often. (Source)

Dennis McDougalIt’s a hardboiled Raymond Chandler murder mystery that’s been made and remade into movies. It’s not only a great read filled with crackerjack characters but it really captures the essence of Southern California, even though it was published well over a half century ago, back when there was no freeway system at all. (Source)

Peter JamesHe researches things, has rich characters and a real sense of pace. He is a former court reporter. You can pick up any of his books and feel you are in the hands of somebody who knows their subject, who knows the police and the law and the world in which he has set his books. (Source)

Lucy AtkinsWhat I adore about the book is how brilliantly she explores the idea of moral grey areas. (Source)

Simon BrettI think Ripley just set so many characters in motion because he was one of the first entirely amoral central figures, someone who commits appalling crimes and murders but you actually feel a kind of sympathy for. (Source)

Douglas Starr‘Alienist’ was the term for a psychiatrist or a psychologist at the time. They were called alienists because mentally deranged people were thought to be alienated from themselves. This is a wonderful historical novel, written in 1994, about one such alienist in New York City, who helps solve a series of grizzly serial killings at the time when Theodore Roosevelt was the commissioner of police. (Source)

Kurt Busiek Resists…rereading FINDERS KEEPERS by Stephen King instead. I’ve only read it once and I was probably ill at the time, so I don’t remember the details all that well, but it’s pretty much exactly the right book for my mood right now. I love libraries and e-books. (Source)

Reese WitherspoonY’all! I’m so excited to tell you that @kerrywashington and I will be bringing #LittleFiresEverywhere to the screen together ! I love this beautiful book about motherhood and I can’t wait to finally collaborate with one of my favorite actresses. https://t.co/98pq64llMU (Source)

Mathew PrichardI’ve chosen this because it’s a great Miss Marple. It features my favourite murderer. He or she – I’m not going to reveal the plot – behaves predictably one moment and unpredictably the next. The setting is an English country house in a village: classic Miss Marple territory. (Source)

Anders Roslund and Börge HellströmThis is the best non-Swedish crime book I have ever read. It has the same ingredients as his other more serial-like books – the surprising end and the language. He was in Stockholm not long ago and I missed that and I am still angry I wasn’t there. He is someone I really admire because he writes the almost complete crime. (Source)

Louise BagshaweThis was probably the last book I read where I literally stayed up until three o’clock in the morning because I could not stop reading it. I just think it is such a brilliant fast-paced story. The characterisation is sparse, terse, but nevertheless really well-drawn. He doesn’t do psychology but it’s a chase story with an ongoing mystery in the back. (Source)