THE BEST CRIMES (according to the Penguin List)
Maigret and the Ghost
Georges Simenon
The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins
The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler
A Study in Scarlet
Arthur Conan Doyle
The Thirty-Nine Steps
John Buchan
No, No, NO! These are decent, predictable choices. But the best crimes . . .
Best Crimes according to Semicolon:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.
Cover Her Face by P.D. James.
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.
Gambit by Rex Stout.
That was difficult. I had to leave out Erle Stanley Gardner, A. Conan Doyle, and Ellis Peters. But the five I chose are best.
Dear Sherry,
We’re close on two, but I’m afeard I differ on three.
My Bests would be:
The Judas Window John Dickson Carr
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Daughter of Time
Trial and Error Anthony Berkeley
The Quincunx Charles Palliser
The last might also be The Little Friend or The Secret History by Donna Tartt, or perhaps even An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. And that’s only if we don’t count Crime and Punichment among Best Crimes. So I suppose I’d prefer to rename the category and go for “Best Mysteries” and then I’d include The Westing GAme
shalom,
Steven
You could be right. I had forgotten Crime and Punishment, and I haven’t read the three you chose instead of mine. We are all limited by what we have actually read, aren’t we?
The Westing Game is a good mystery, isn’t it?