Top modern detectives. Foreign detectives: list of the best books

29.09.2019

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I compiled a list from your advice, it turned out to be very solid and, apparently, promises a lot of fun.

For those who, like me, love detective stories, I will post it here. I will be glad if these tips are useful not only to me.

So:

1. Donald Edwin Westlake “The Cursed Emerald.” A masterpiece!) Sometimes you want unpredictability from a detective. I couldn’t say “Oh, I knew it!” about any of the Donald Westlake novels I read. or “Well, how could it be otherwise!” or “Who would doubt it!”
http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/uyestleik_donald/uyestleik_donald_proklyatyi_izumrud/
http://lib.ru/DETEKTIWY/UESTLEJK/
The fool is dead...
The dude is a waste...
2. J. Simenon - a series of books about Commissioner Maigret. I read it just when I was very interested in detective stories.
3. Earl Stanley Gardner with his hero lawyer Perry Mason. Gardner is great.
4. Wilkie Collins - "The Woman in White", "The Moonstone".
5. Neyo Marsh is quite a detective story, but there are funny moments. Maybe not a detective modern understanding, but it made an impression :)
6. The Magnificent J. Dixon Carr. If you find Carr, start with the Emperor's Snuff Box. Great stuff. That's class, that's class.
7. D. Francis
8. A. Christie
9. A. Conan Doyle
10. S. Japrizo. “A Lady with Glasses and a Gun in a Car” (simply high-class) and “Trap for Cinderella” (no worse, but different in atmosphere). "Killing Summer", "Farewell, Friend" - delight. "Women's Favorite" and "Running of the Hare through the Fields"
"The Executioner" is a detective story for the keen amateur.
11. B. Akunin
12. Rex Stout - delicious! real jam.
13. Carter Brown - boldly, brazenly, humorously and very much in the style of America a certain number of years ago (Lieutenant Wheeler is a kind of Dr. House, only serving in the police))
14. Mickey Spillane
15. D.H.Chase
16. Gaston Leroux. A bit boring, IMHO.
17. Hadley
18. Maurice and his Arsene Lupin.
19. John Le Carré "Our Game"
http://www.ingushetiya.ru/history/nasha_igra/
20. Deshiel Hammett
http://mydetectiveworld.ru/hemmet.html
21. Perez-Reverte - not action films with puzzle elements
22. Victor Canning, "Passed Pawn".
23. Also probably Ellery Queen. I've only read a couple of works, but the impressions are positive.
24. Chesterton
25. Alistair MacLean
26. Jerzy Edigei
27. From modern Russians Malyshev. Especially her early stuff.
28. Priestley - Blackout at Gretley. You can call him a military detective.
29. Have you read Patricia Wentworth? She wrote somewhat earlier than Agatha Christie. Wentworth has a funny detective: Miss Silver - spinster, former governess.
30. Charles Snow - a great detective story "Death Sailing"? This is a very worthy detective story. http://lib.ru/INPROZ/SNOW/snow.txt
31. Nora Roberts - not a classic, but somehow nice. There is reflection.
32. Chandler, http://www.lib.ru/DETEKTIWY/CHANDLER/
33. Eksbrayya, http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/E/EKSBRAYYA_Sharl "/_Eksbrayya_Sh..html
34. Andras Totis, http://lib.ru/DETEKTIWY/TOTIS/
35. Ross Thomas, http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/tomas_ross/
36. Penticost http://lib.ru/DETEKTIWY/PENTIKOST/
37. Boileau-Narcejac. "The one who was gone." And other books too.
38. Alistair MacLean
39. Yu. Semenov - why not political detectives?
40. Robert Ludlem
41. Try reading The Cat Who by Lillian Brown. There are about 20 very nice classic detective stories, I love them.
42. If you like historical detective stories, a series of novels by Ellis Peters about Brother Cadfael.
43. There is a wonderful Phyllis Dorothy James - this is no longer a historical detective story, but an ordinary one.
44. Ed McBain is a good police novel.
45. Patricia Cornell - a little dark and naturalistic, but overall not bad written.
46. Josephine Tay “Daughter of Time” and others.
47. Margaret Allingham
48. Dorothy Sayers - almost English. classic;
49. Georgette Heyer (she has a lot of romance novels, but detective stories are humorous)
50. Elizabeth Peters - a little lady-adventure-humorous
51. Of ours, I liked Elena Afanasyeva “ne-bud-duroy.ru” and its sequels, but this is not quite a detective story.
52. Robert van Gulik - classic detective from a stylized medieval China. Super.
53. Richard Stark
54. "The Paper Conspiracy" by David Liss. I recommend it to you with pleasure, it’s a wonderful thing. A good English novel, but also very good as a detective story.
55. Umberto Eco “The Name of the Rose” is a medieval detective story with psychology and mysticism.
56. Rebecca de Mornay - psychological detectives from English life 19th century.
57. Valeria Verbinina - series about an agent Russian Empire Amalia. The action takes place in the 19th century, the heroine is a very charismatic person. There are already about ten books, but what’s good about them is that each has its own genre. There is a thriller, there is an ironic, gothic and hermetic detective story, there is a western, there is a treasure hunt detective. And many books have different narrators, so the familiar heroine appears through the words of other characters - very interesting effect.
58. In modern detective fiction, I don’t miss the books of Olga Tarasevich (Artifact Detective series) and Maria Bricker (Reality Detective series). Tarasevich builds plots on cultural themes and biographies of famous people of the past ("Chagall's Weeping Angel", "The Curse of Edvard Munch" - about artists, "Deadly Fragrance No. 5" - about Coco Chanel and her famous perfumes). Detective stories combine two tenses - a crime in the present is intertwined with events of the past and life history famous people. I also read her books as a cultural reference book - in them the biographies simply come to life, and the work of artists or fashion designers is written in a very fascinating way. Bricker's plots are quite cleverly twisted and the characters are very colorful.
59. Chesterton
60. E. Po
61. Forsythe
62. I recommend Henning Mankell to everyone. If he forced me, not a detective fan, to read book after book, then this is a worthy author!
63. Well, Benaquista and Pennac (stories about Mr. Malosen).
64. Fred Vargas and Jean-Christophe Grange are amazing French detectives. Both write very psychologically, you can’t put it down. But Vargas is more sophisticated, with humor, while Granger has more shocking details and hints of mysticism (but everything turns out to be more prosaic).
65. Eugene Pepperow, one of the most enjoyable masters of the short detective story. I recommend it.
66. Victoria Platova to the list. All things except "Death in the fragments of a meben vase", "Nubian cross", "Dance of Lakshmi". That's not her.
67. Mary Higgins Clark. One of the best-selling detective stories in America and virtually unknown in Russia.
68. James Patterson.
69. Were there Weiners? What would it be like without them?! These are our detective classics!
The most famous and most read (and most loved):
“A Visit to the Minotaur”, “A Cure for Fear”, “The Noose and the Stone in the Green Grass” and so on.
70. Ellery Queen. Also a classic of the genre.
Here you can read his things: http://www.2lib.ru/getbook/6251.html
"Sanatorium of Death" I liked it very much.
71. Anton Chizh and his “Divine Poison”. This is an absolutely amazing book! It's a pity that she is little known. In my opinion, one of the best Russian detectives for recent years five.
72. Gregory MacDonald, Fletch series. Masterpiece!
73. Elizabeth George with her magnificent, dare I say it, series about Inspector Linley and Sergeant Havers. .
74. Ian Rankin and his series about Inspector Rebus.
75. Jeffrey Deaver and his books about Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs.
76. Natalya Solntseva, modern author of mystical detective stories:) http://www.solntseva.com/
77. S. Rodionov, “A Long Business” - Soviet detective story. Super!
78. Gregory MacDonald
79. Elmore Leonard.
80. There is also a good Scottish detective - Ian Rankin.
81. And my aunt writes well about maniacs (but in a painfully naturalistic, amateurish way) - Val McDermit.
82. Elizabeth George with her magnificent, dare I say it, series about Inspector Linley and Sergeant Havers. It's strange that she wasn't named.
83. Ian Rankin and his series about Inspector Rebus.
84. Jeffrey Deaver and his books about Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs.
85. Another very popular guy in the West - Jeffrey Deaver
86. Michael Connelly
87. Lee Child
88. Harlan Coben
89. David Baldacci
90. Popular aunts - Katie Reichs
91. Caryn Slaughter.
92. Joanna Khmelevskaya. Everything is red. What the dead man said. Wells of ancestors.
Although her works are sometimes called ironic detective stories, she has nothing in common either with Dontsova or with all the other “ironic detective stories.” The humorous wrapper is obvious, but at the core there is a real classic detective story.
Panya Vanya can be found here -
http://lib.ru/DETEKTIWY/HMELEVSKA/
93. Lev Sheinin “Notes of an Investigator”. The author is very ambiguous, but essentially this is a detective story. Although I would rather view it from a historical perspective - as another look at the USSR.

Undoubtedly, there are many people in the world who do not see a more pleasant way to relax than to plunge into the intricate course of the investigation of a complex crime committed on the pages of a quality detective story. But in order for the detective to be good, and the pleasure not to be spoiled, we decided to identify real masters detective genre.

10th place: Dan Brown (b. 1964)

Popular Novels:"The Da Vinci Code", "Angels and Demons", "Inferno"

Popular character: Robert Langton, a brilliant scientist with a worldwide reputation, in his usual tweed jacket, leather moccasins and a Mickey Mouse watch.

Interesting Facts: In his books, Dan distorts facts that later have to be refuted in favor of the truth. For example, in his book, Brown claims that Raphael was first buried in Urbino; a sign had to be added to his grave in the Pantheon stating that Brown made it up and that Raphael’s ashes always rested in Rome.

Dan Brown doesn't have many books to his name, but all of them are successful. Of the six published works, three have been filmed (this year we are expecting the premiere of “Inferno”). His books are based on a detective story with elements of historical inclusions, conspiracies and mysteries. On the pages of his books you can meet Masons, Illuminati, Assassins and many others, the existence of which is not known for certain. At the same time, Dan is not always accurate in his historical facts, which leads to some funny things with those who take it too closely fiction, confusing it with historical. Although, after reading some books, it may well seem that there is a worldwide conspiracy around you...

9th place: Raymond Chandler (1884 - 1959)

Popular Novels:"Deep Sleep", "Farewell, Beloved"

Popular character: Philip Marlowe, a private detective from Los Angeles, a life-worn cynic who observes with pessimism the moral decay of American society and the corruption reigning in it.

Interesting Facts: Along with D. Hammett and D. M. Kane, he became the founder of the “hard-boiled detective” genre, which later in the film industry began to be called noir.

Chandler has only eight detective novels to his name, but they are all very worthy. The main character of the novels, Philip Marlowe, combines honesty and cynicism. Despite his harshness and regular consumption of bourbon, Philip is a deeply positive character, putting duty above everything, even the charms of the fatal temptresses of the noir world. Philip first appeared on the pages of Chandler's works in 1934, in a short story, where he acts among other similar characters, and over time he will become the main character of the author's works.

While working on the script for the film Double Indemnity, Raymond Chandler accidentally walked into the frame. This is the only film where Chandler, albeit incidentally, is featured in the film.

8th place: John Grisham (b. 1955)

Popular Novels:"Time to Kill", "The Firm", "The Case of the Pelicans"

Interesting Facts: Grisham began his writing career after hearing the heartbreaking testimony of a twelve-year-old girl who was a victim of rape. John was so impressed by this trial, that he soon wrote his first work based on this story - “It’s Time to Kill,” which reflected his thoughts on what would happen if the father of a raped girl killed the attackers.

As a child, Grisham dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. But his fate did not follow a sporting pattern. While studying, Grisham worked part-time in a nursery, watering bushes for a dollar an hour; at the age of 16, he got a job as a plumber, and later managed to work as an asphalt paver and a salesman of men's underwear (which he considered extremely humiliating). As a result, having received a law degree, he became a trial lawyer and defended the law for more than ten years, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. Grisham abandoned the practice of law with the release of his second book, which brought him popularity.

7th place: Ian Fleming (1906 - 1964)

Popular Novels:"Casino Royale", "From Russia with Love"

Popular character: James Bond, commander of the British Navy, known as "agent 007", is adventurous, determined, passionate about women, gambling and alcohol.

Interesting Facts: In his youth, Fleming decided to become a diplomat. He successfully failed the examination for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And this would not be so surprising if it were not for the fact: the exam in which the future bestselling author received a “fail” was... literature.

In 1939, before the outbreak of World War II, Fleming worked for British intelligence. The service helped him in writing Bond novels, because being, according to his contemporaries, an observant person, he included many details of the service in his books. In 1933, while in Moscow, Fleming wanted to interview Joseph Stalin and was very surprised by the fact that he received a refusal in a personal form with the personal signature of the Supreme Leader of the USSR. In total, Ian wrote 12 Bond novels, as well as 2 collections of short stories dedicated to this hero. Nevertheless, twice as many films have been made based on these books - 25 to date.

6th place: Earl Stanley Gardner (1889 - 1970)

Popular Novels:"The Case of the Gloomy Girl", "The Case of the Velvet Claws"

Popular character: Perry Mason, a practicing Los Angeles lawyer who, in addition to representing him in court, personally conducts private investigations, in parallel with the police, personally examines crime scenes, the circumstances of the crime, physical evidence and obtains other information that can help exonerate his clients and incriminate criminals.

Interesting Facts: The prototype of lawyer Perry Mason's secretary was the author's chosen one - secretary Agnes Bethel.

82 novels were written about the inquisitive lawyer Perry Mason, which brought the author worldwide fame. Before writing the novels, the author himself worked as a lawyer for about twenty years, so his novels contain an exemplary knowledge of police and judicial procedure, aspects of forensic examination and many other subtleties of lawyering. But Perry Mason is not the only brainchild of Gardner; under the pseudonym A. A. Fair, Gardner wrote a good series of novels about private detective Donald Lamb and his boss Bertha Cool, which are partly a parody of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

5th place: Boris Akunin (b. 1956)

Popular Novels:"Azazel", "Turkish Gambit"

Popular character: Erast Petrovich Fandorin, the ideal aristocrat of the 19th century, noble, educated, devoted, incorruptible, good-looking, popular with the ladies, lucky in gambling.

Interesting Facts: In most books from the series “The Adventures of Erast Fandorin” published by the Zakharov publishing house, a portrait of Boris Akunin is present on the first pages. He is portrayed as minor characters novels.

Before starting his writing career, Akunin worked as a translator and literary critic. Lived for several years in Japan. The writer's first wife was Japanese.

The incredible success of the first novels about Fandorin, including among readers who do not recognize detective stories, is explained not only by masterful stylization and skillful mixing of many literary and historical sources, but also because in the novels, in addition to the detective riddle, the answer was sought: is it possible to remain an impeccable person while serving in flawed structures?

4th place: James Hadley Chase (1906 - 1985)

Popular Novels:"No Orchids for Miss Blandish", "The Dead Don't Bite", "Bad News from a Doll"

Popular character: Vic Malloy, private detective who owns the "universal service" agency

Interesting Facts: On the territory of the USSR, Chase became famous partly by accident. During perestroika iron curtain began to fall and a flow of foreign literature rushed into the USSR. When Chase hit the shelves, he had no one to compete with, so his detective stories gained popularity faster than the ideas of socialism in Cuba.

Chase begins his literary career with a series of humorous stories. In 1938, he made his first attempts to write an action movie in the spirit of “the adventures of American gangsters,” drawing information from newspapers. He writes his first detective story in 12 days. No Orchids for Miss Blandish was well received by the publisher, critics and readers, becoming one of the best-selling books of the decade. Chase has over a hundred detective novels to his credit, delighting the reader with a twisted plot and action-packed events.

3rd place: Rex Stout (1886 - 1975)

Popular Novels:"The League of Frightened Men", "Kill Again", "Black Orchids"

Popular character: Nero Wolfe, a private detective, is overweight, with a wide forehead, gray-black hair and magnificent teeth.

Interesting Facts: In 2001, the detective series “The Mysteries of Nero Wolfe” was released. And although the series was more than good, after two seasons it was closed due to a change in the direction of the channel that produced it. There are also Russian version series, but in comparison with the original it is very mediocre.

Stout is original in the plot, his character solves crimes without leaving home due to his own obesity. Assistant Goodwin does all the grunt work for him, and in exceptional cases, a couple of other detectives.

Stout and his character Wolf are a bit similar. The surname “Stout” translates as “overweight”, “obese”, and his character Niro is exactly that. Rex was fond of growing strawberries and repeatedly won various competitions, and Nero Wolfe was a passionate collector of orchids.

The series of novels about Wulf is one of the pinnacles of world detective literature. In them the author reflected his worldview, a vision of the world based on humanistic principles.

2nd place: Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)

Popular Novels:"Murder on the Golf Course", "The Man in the Brown Suit"

Popular character: Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective, is small in stature, with an egg-shaped head, black hair (dyes it with age), “cat eyes”, strict well-groomed clothes, shoes and a mustache, which is a source of pride.

Interesting Facts: Agatha Christie became the standard for creating detective stories; at her instigation, the “10 Commandments of the Detective Genre” were created, which the classics of the genre still adhere to.

One of the few detective authors who are women, especially successful ones. It is difficult to find a person who has not heard of the legendary detective with a mustache or has not seen the film adaptation of her novels on TV. Hercule Poirot has become an icon of style, an inimitable detective who unravels even the most mysterious stories with ease, and, of course, ends the investigation with a debut monologue-revelation. Therefore, he never shares his conclusions with either the police or the participants, leaving all the details and the solution to the next puzzle for the “last act.”

1st place: Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)

Popular Novels:"The Hound of the Baskervilles", "A Study in Scarlet", "The Sign of Four"

Popular character: Sherlock Holmes, a London private detective, biochemist, has versatile talents, knows anatomy, chemistry, medicine very well, is a confirmed bachelor, a heavily dependent smoker, uses cocaine intravenously with a complete absence of interesting crimes.

Interesting Facts: Conan Doyle was a giant with a powerful torso and bodybuilder's biceps, possessing incredible strength even in old age. He was fond of many sports and was an excellent billiards player. It was he who introduced alpine skiing to Switzerland, was one of the first organizers of the rally, and the first moped tester.

"A Study in Scarlet" - the first work that brought Doyle success, was published in 1887. Doyle's pen includes 60 stories and two literary compositions about Sherlock Holmes, the most famous hero English literature. Sherlock Doyle was inspired by Joseph Bell, who worked at the Royal Hospital of Edinburgh and was distinguished by his ability to draw subtle conclusions from the smallest observations. appearance patient. In turn, Sherlock Hill became one of the basis for creating the character of Gregory House, a brilliant doctor from the series of the same name. Like Holmes, House only likes difficult cases, is cynical, has a passion for music and is addicted to drugs.

If you consider modern detective stories to be frivolous literature, you are very mistaken. True detective is literature in pure form, a mixture of writing professionalism top level, multiplied by fantasy, but conditioned by very harsh rules of the game, since detective fiction is a very demanding genre!

Few people today follow the pure schemes of Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. The detective story is increasingly becoming a field of experimentation, where the search for the killer has always not been in the first place.

We offer a selection of recent novels that are impossible to ignore if you want to know what a first-class modern detective story looks like.

J. Nesbe. "Police"

Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø does the truly impossible on paper. Not only did he not give up until the tenth book in the series about detective Harry Hole, but he kept growing. And now he has published almost his best novel!

Nesbø is an exemplary Scandinavian writer whose style is famous for its murderous brutality. Its essence is criticism human nature and society as such, where you are either a criminal or a victim, and if you are a victim, this does not mean that you are innocent, because everyone is guilty.

The main character is such that you don’t know whether to spit in his face or become friends forever. That is, the now popular (with the advent of House and Dexter on screens) goodness with an inhuman face. Nesbe, by the way, formed this genre - together with Mankell and Vale.

Detective Hole is an alcoholic whose achievements in this field are proportional to the level of professional intuition. He almost died in the previous book, so he decided to quit his job, quit drinking, start teaching and even get married. But at the sites of long-standing unsolved crimes, the corpses of murdered police officers begin to be found one after another. It becomes more and more clear that the killer does not take revenge, but punishes those who themselves did not punish the evil. And the best detective gives lectures and has no intention of returning.

And this is where the fun begins: Hole understands that they won’t be able to cope without him. But he also understands that his demons will return to him along with his work...

"Police" is a standard example of a detective story that turns into a story about a detective.

Without a doubt, this is the best detective story of the past year - today only a few can maintain such tension on voluminous 600 pages with so many characters and constantly deceive even the most experienced readers. And Nesbe is definitely one of them.

Joel Dicker. "The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair"

The author of the detective story is only 27 years old. He is one of the main literary sensations of 2012: his book received various prestigious awards, was translated into more than 30 languages and currently has millions of copies in circulation. Ignoring such texts is a crime!

A very successful young, but already in a state of deep creative crisis, writer Markus Goldman goes to his teacher and good friend, a living classic American literature Harry Quebert looking for inspiration. But here's the problem - in Quebert's garden they find the remains of a fifteen-year-old girl who disappeared 33 years ago, and next to her in her purse is the manuscript of Harry's most famous novel, who, in turn, admits that he and the deceased had true love. And now Marcus, who sincerely wants to help his friend and understands the full potential of a book about such an investigation, is combing the American province in the hope of getting to the bottom of the truth.
There are so many postmodernist things in Pravda! In essence, this is a novel about novels and about writers, a textbook on writing (each chapter begins with advice from the elder to the younger), the laws of which do not work in the novel itself. The set of locations and characters that appeal to the widest cultural background makes your head spin!

If you want, start delving into “Pravda” and look for the basics, or if you want, savor the thrilling detective story to the hilt, because the rules of the game here are followed flawlessly: having set hundreds of traps, Dicker hides the real killer so deep in the plot that the likelihood of premature guesses is extremely small.

Critics are right who consider Dicker's novel uneven, twisted and not entirely cohesive. But he is so arrogant and ambitious in a good way that, without exaggeration, he becomes the main must-read of the season.

Kate Atkinson. "Crimes from the Past"

Once upon a time in England, in the Cambridge area, a three-year-old girl disappeared from her father's garden at night; The daughter of a famous lawyer was killed right at her workplace, it is unclear why and for what reason; in one family many years ago there was a scandal that ended with the use of an ax. Different time, different families, different stories. Behind such a strange and voluminous beginning (names, details, all sorts of oddities) you don’t immediately notice when Jackson Brody appears - an ex-police inspector, now a private detective, a loser who is going through a divorce, sleeps with clients, but tries to remain honest and principled in the world , which is filled with chaos and darkness.

It is to him that the relatives of the people who figured in these long-standing crimes turn to him. So he begins a hopeless investigation. Over time, Jackson realizes that everything is connected in some incomprehensible way.

In 2010, “Crimes of the Past” was translated for the first time, and is now being republished - we took advantage of this to add the novel to our list, since many sincerely consider this detective project of the writer best project decades (Stephen King, for example) and there are enough reasons for such a statement. It is from the example of this text that one can fully understand how the detective genre itself is mutating in the twenty-first century.

A lot of sarcasm and irony, enough farce, eccentricity, specific humor that goes hand in hand with horror - the genre of “Crimes of the Past” may raise questions. There really isn't much of a classic detective story here. “Novel with crime”, “black satire on English society”, “intellectual prose”: there can be many definitions.

And the fact that the story is indeed somewhat overloaded with events (3 crimes, attempts on Brody himself, his own secrets) does not spoil the novel in any way - the mechanism works perfectly, the style is verified to the letter. British literature, in a word.

Nikolai Svechin. "Warsaw Secrets"

Svechin was rightly compared to Akunin. But always from above. This would have continued to be the case if it weren’t for the most influential Russian critic Lev Danilkin, who one day decided to re-read Svechin’s novels, do an interview with him, and turn him into a star, if not the first, then certainly a serious one.

“Hunt for the Tsar”, “Shot on Bolshaya Morskaya”, “Bullet from the Caucasus”. Indeed, where the late Akunin has buffoonery and stylization for the sake of stylization, Svechin has a first-class historical novel with a strong detective background. The Novgorod writer’s heroes are not supermen like Fandorin, but ordinary people, provincials, whose origin is an important plot-forming point.

The author of “Secrets” sees the element of history itself as a priority. Svechinsky hero Lykov - collegiate assessor, nobleman in the first generation, middle mental abilities, does not know foreign languages at all, which often fails him catastrophically. But he sees evil, is not afraid and acts, and this is already strong foundation. In “Warsaw Secrets,” Lykov, together with his constant boss, intends to find out the real reasons for the brutal murders of Russian officers in the Polish capital.

Jesse Kellerman. "Heat"

That rare case when the words from the cover exactly correspond to the essence of the book - “sun-drenched noir”. It would seem like an oxymoron, which should be designated either some kind of stylistic chimera, or something that was not even close to classic noir. But no - “Heat” is one of those debuts with which one can go down in the history of American literature.

Los Angeles, around our time, earthquake. Thirty-five-year-old secretary Gloria goes into the office to check on the collection of figurines that her boss Carl, who in turn adores her, has survived. From the confusing messages on the answering machine, she understands that something happened to him, but it is impossible to understand what.

But most importantly, he is somewhere in Mexico, where she goes. And there is a surreal world provincial town, where the only visible places are a funeral home and a cemetery, and the people are real ghosts running away from the heat. But we shouldn’t rush to conclusions: Kellerman’s novel is as much a thriller and road movie ala Castaneda as it is a full-blooded detective story. The boss is unknown where and why. He's probably not who he said he is. And he didn’t die the way she thought. The policeman who does this behaves rather strangely. The son of the boss, with whom the heroine begins an affair, is not his son at all...

And at the end there is a plot somersault that will testify to the full power of the past, capable of returning. Yes, not a very classic detective story, or rather, not a classic one at all. A multi-genre mix, but it contains the main detective components. And most importantly, it is impossible to tear yourself away from this action-packed piece until you read to the end.

Kellerman is a 35-year-old American writer, the son of famous writers Fay and Jonathan Kellerman, not yet a cult author, but already close to this status, the author is probably the best of his generation, since each of his five novels became a sensation.

Kellerman is one of the greatest discoveries of recent times. A writer who so professionally and magically creates the fabric of his novels so amazingly that at some point you simply begin to enjoy the very air of literature, literature as a pure possibility. A very, very rare gift!

10. Death is a lonely business

The top ten best detective books opens with the novel “Death is a Lonely Business,” authored by the famous American writer Raymond Douglas Bradbury. The book was published in 1985.

The main character, whose name the author never mentioned in the novel, lives in a town called Venice in California. Events take place in 1949. The hero is just making his first attempts at writing, dreaming of the fame of a famous writer. He tries to find a hidden meaning in every thing, a metaphor in every statement. Perhaps because the words casually uttered by a random passer-by: “Death is a lonely matter,” make him think about life. Soon the main character finds himself in a series of events that is directly related to the breath of Death. In Venice, the dead are found one after another, the police are investigating, and the main character joins them.

9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is #9 on the list best books detective genre. The novel was written in 2004 by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. This is the first book in the Millennium series, which tells the story of the collaboration between journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander.

Mikael is engaged in the extraction and publication of incriminating evidence on famous personalities. One of his investigative reports goes wrong. Hans Wennerström files a lawsuit, claiming that what Mikael wrote about him is clean water slander. The journalist is suspended from work and detained for three months.

Meanwhile, with the help of Lisbeth, Henrik Vanger contacts Blomkvist. About 40 years ago, Vanger's young relative Harriet disappeared, and he suspects that family members are involved in her disappearance. Henrik hires Mikael and Lisbeth to investigate this case.

8. Murder in the Rue Morgue

In eighth place in the ranking of detective books is “Murder in the Rue Morgue.” The story was written in 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe and was included in his trilogy of detective stories about Auguste Dupin. This is the first detective work known in literature. Auguste Dupin is considered the prototype of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

The narrator comes to Paris in the 40s of the 19th century and meets Auguste Dupin. Auguste once lived in a wealthy noble family, but he squandered all his funds and is now borrowing money. He does not have a job or regular income. However, the main character immediately draws attention to Dupin's extraordinary analytical abilities. Auguste learns about the murders from the newspapers and investigates the crimes out of boredom. This time he has to unravel the mystery of the death of two women on the Rue Morgue.

7. Locked room

"The Locked Room" is an interesting detective novel written in 1972. The authors are Swedish writers Mai Shevall and Per Vale. This is one of the books in a series of works about the detective from Stockholm Martin Beck.

A classic example of a murder in a locked room, when there are more questions than evidence. The man's body was found in a room whose doors and windows were locked from the inside. There was no one in the room except the corpse before the police arrived. There is also no murder weapon. There is no evidence, the murdered man has no documents, and the motives are unclear. Did the murdered person enter the room while he was alive, or was the corpse already moved here? How is the killer above from the room? Perhaps this is suicide, but then who destroyed all the evidence? This is a puzzle for true mystery lovers; the intrigue in the novel remains until the very end.

6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The novel “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” came from the pen of the famous English writer Agatha Christie. The detective book was first published in 1926. This is one of a series of novels about detective Hercule Poirot.

The narrator is Dr. James Sheppard. A serious crime has been committed in the small English town of Kings Abbot. Widower Roger Ackroyd is killed. It is known that the murdered man wooed the widow Mrs. Ferrar. It had long been rumored across Kings-Abbot that she had killed her first husband, but the widow died, and then Ackroyd was killed. Flora Ackroyd, Roger's niece, approached Poirot. Her fiance, who is the stepson of the murdered man and the first heir, is suspected of murder. However, it turns out that many had the motive and opportunity to commit the crime.

5. Silence of the Lambs

Fifth place in the list of the best detective books goes to the famous novel “The Silence of the Lambs,” which was written by the American writer Thomas Harrison in 1988. Author for a long time he worked in a newspaper where he wrote a crime column, so the criminals in his novels are composite images of real-life maniacs. The Silence of the Lambs is the second novel in the Hannibal Lecter series.

Clarice Starling, a young FBI employee who recently arrived at work, was given a very difficult task. She must talk to Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic maniac who understands the criminal world better than any detective. Hannibal must help catch a killer who is skinning his victims. Lecter agrees in exchange for a little game. He will only answer questions in exchange for stories about Clarice's childhood memories.

4. Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express is a good detective novel by the English writer Agatha Christie. The book first appeared in print in 1934. The main character is the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Poirot travels from Istanbul to London on the Orient Express - passenger train luxury class. The carriages are packed to capacity, all seats are taken. The detective immediately noticed that the passengers were surprisingly different. The audience differs in age, nationality, gender and occupation. On the very first day of the journey, the American Ratchett turns to the detective, who believes that they want to kill him. That same night, Ratchett is killed and the train is stopped due to bad weather. Poirot has to investigate the mysterious murder of an American. However, the matter turns out to be quite complicated; why do unfamiliar fellow travelers provide each other with an alibi?

3. The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles rounds out the top three detective books in the world. The author of the story is English writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The work was published in one of the literary magazines of London from 1901 to 1902. The main characters are detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. John Watson.

The Baskerville family, who live in the large estate of Baskerville Hall, have an old legend. Not far from the mansion there is a swamp, where, according to legend, lives the ghost of a large dog, whose face and paws glow in the dark. This monster once killed Hugo Baskerville and now hunts all his descendants, as soon as they appear in the swamp. When Charles Baskerville died in the courtyard own home, his doctor immediately suspected something was wrong. He discovered traces of large dog paws and turned to Holmes to solve this mysterious murder.

2. Ten Little Indians

“Ten Little Indians” is one of the most famous and best literary works of the detective genre. The novel was written in 1939 by Agatha Christie. Chapters of the book were published in the USA and Great Britain in parallel, but in America the title was changed for political reasons.

Ten strangers arrived on Negro Island at the invitation of their friends. As it turns out, the house on the island belongs to the Onim family, whose members none of those present can remember. During the first dinner together, the gramophone is turned on, where the crimes of each of those gathered are told publicly. It turns out that all ten people are indirectly responsible for someone's death. In every bedroom there is a little counting rhyme hanging on the wall in which ten little black children die in succession. Exactly as in the script, guests of the island begin to die.

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The list of the best detective books is headed by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This is a collection of stories about the adventures of the famous detective, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The collection consists of 12 stories that were written between 1883 and 1890.

Sherlock Holmes is a detective with amazing analytical skills, living in London on Baker Street. The owner of the house where he rents a room decides to place another tenant. He turns out to be Dr. John Watson, who recently returned from the war. Watson is amazed that Sherlock reads him like an open book, talking about John's past. Deductive method Holmes was rescued by Scotland Yard more than once. A detective and a doctor begin a joint career as detectives, solving the most complicated crimes.