We asked 15 different crime bloggers and reviewers to pick 5 crime books they would recommend to any reader.
With thanks to Crime Book Club, A Crime Reader’s Blog, Miss Chapter’s Reviews, Killing Time Crime, Keith B Walters, Our Book Reviews, Shotsmag Confidential, Laura’s Little Book Blog, Books and Reviews, Dark Readers, Reading Room with a View, Gymkhana Club, House of Crime and Mystery and The Welsh Librarian.
Here’s their list:
** denotes recommended multiple times
A House of Knives by William Shaw
A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell
A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Song from Dead Lips by William Shaw
Angel’s Flight by Michael Connelly
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
Bloodstream by Tess Gerritson
Broadchurch by Erin Kelly
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson **
Cut Dead by Mark Sennen.
Cut Short by Leigh Russell
Dead Man Walking by Paul Finch
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie **
Disclaimer by Renee Knight
Dissolution by C J Sansom
Drive by James Sallis
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
Farewell my Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn **
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
Helen Grace series by MJ Arlidge
I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh
Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly
Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Misery by Stephen King
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie **
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
One for the Money – Janet Evanovich
Postmortem – Patricia Cornwall**
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer
Shatter The Bones by Stuart Macbride
Silent Scream by Angela Marsons
Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary
The Abomination by Jonathan Holt
The Accident by C.L. Taylor
The Bat by Jo Nesbo
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler **
The Black Echo by Michael Connolly
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith**
The Coroner by M.R. Hall
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown **
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson **
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins **
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle **
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
The Last Witness by Denzil Meyrick
The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
The Long Fall by Julia Crouch
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
The Three by Sarah Lotz
The Unquiet Grave by Steven Dunne
The White Trilogy by Ken Bruen
The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood
Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell
An Unsuitable Job For A Woman by P D James
Want to Play by P.J Tracy
Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback
Any Sherlock Holmes Story
Anything by Agatha Christie but I love The Sitafford Mystery