20 of the Best Classic Murder Mystery Books of All Time

No classic murder mystery book list is complete without the queen herself, Agatha Christie. While there’s much debate over the best Agatha Christie book (here’s what Christie herself has to say on the matter), Murder on the Orient Express is a classic—and one of her best known—for a reason. A murder takes place on a train one snowy night, and detective Hercule Poirot has to solve the mystery.

Dorothy L. Sayers’s debut novel, Whose Body?, was published in 1923, and introduced readers to Lord Peter Wimsey, a nobleman who investigates crimes on the side. Sayers is a deeply influential crime writer, and her books with Wimsey as a main character all feature him solving crimes during the interwar period.

Classic murder mysteries aren’t just by British writers! First serialized in Japanese in 1948, but not translated into English until 2019, this classic Japanese crime novel is the first in a series that follows detective Kosuke Kindaichi, who solves locked-room mysteries. The first takes place at a rural village in Okamura, where newlyweds are killed with a samurai sword.

This 1932 novel is believed to be the first-ever detective novel published by a Black author. In The Conjure-Man Dies, the body of N’Gana Frimbo is discovered, and one of Harlem’s ten Black detectives, Perry Dart, is called to investigate. Rudolph Fisher, a Harlem Renaissance writer, would tragically die just two years later, but as the publisher notes, “Fisher’s witty novel is a genuine crime classic from one of the most exciting eras in the history of Black fiction..”

In A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle introduces Sherlock Holmes and John Watson—and changes detective fiction forever. The first crime they solve is when an American tourist to London is killed in an empty house.

Josephine Tey’s 1951 novel features Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, who decides to investigate King Richard III and his alleged crimes. It’s an interesting, unique take on a murder mystery as it features a modern protagonist looking into historic crimes.

Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone was one of the first detective novels ever written, and considered a precursor to the modern mystery novel. The plot begins when Lady Rachel Verinder’s uncle gives her the Moonstone, a diamond as large as an egg, for her 18th birthday. However, it’s not a generous gift—it was acquired by nefarious means, and the Moonstone disappears the night of her birthday party.

Another Golden Age classic author is Ngaio Marsh, and this is the first of her novels to feature gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn. (She wrote 32 Alleyn novels!) A Man Lay Dead is the tale of a murder committed during a detective game of murder during a weekend party.

A.A. Milne, best known for his Winnie the Pooh books, authored this whodunnit set at an English country house. The Red House Mystery was his only detective novel, and had a twisty plot surrounding the murder of the host’s brother.

Classics don’t need to be centuries old: Walter Mosley, an American novelist best known for his crime work, began his Easy Rawlins series in 1990 with Devil in a Blue Dress, a mystery set in 1948 Los Angeles. Easy is a Black war veteran, and takes a job to find a missing woman, not knowing it’ll change his life forever.

Sam Spade, a private detective, takes on a case where he inadvertently ends up with three criminals. No more spoilers, as this detective novel is better the less you know about the plot. And, after you read: turn on the 1941 film stars Humphrey Bogard and Mary Astor.

This classic Japanese murder mystery by Yukito Ayatsuji—who was a founding member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan—is a play on Christie’s And Then There Were None. In it, seven university students travel to a remote island, and events soon turn deadly.

The titular malice aforethought is a legal term that describes having the intent to kill or harm; this 1931 novel by Anthony Berkeley Cox (under the penname Francis Illes), reveals the murderer on page one—making this more of a “howcatchem” or an inverted detective story.

Margery Allingham’s The Tiger in the Smoke follows Meg Elginbrodde, a young war widow. Meg’s husband was presumed dead in D-Day, but she starts receiving photographs that he may be alive. Her cousin, detective Albert Campion, helps her figure out the truth. (It’s the 14th novel in Allingham’s Campion series.)

Hercule Poirot isn’t Christie’s only famous detective: the elderly Miss Marple featured in many of her stories, beginning with The Murder at the Vicarage, where a local magistrate is found dead in the small village of St. Mary Mead.

Raymond Chandler’s 1939 detective novel features a dying millionaire, who hires Philip Marlowe to deal with a blackmailer who is threatening one of his daughters. As the publisher writes, “Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in…”

Lowell Mitchell is having a normal day as a student at a Massachusetts university, until she disappears out of thin air. Police Chief Frank Ford, a small town cop, is on the case—and Hillary Waugh’s Last Seen Wearing is considered one of the first-ever police procedurals.

This historical murder mystery is set at an Italian monastery in 1327. When Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate heresy at the abbey, he soon finds himself investigating murder. It was Umberto Eco’s debut novel.

Margarey Allingham—another Golden Age mystery writer—introduced her gentlemen sleuth Albert Campion in The Crime at Black Dudley, where he solves a crime during a weekend party. It’s a classic whodunit, and Allingham would go on to write 18 Campion novels.

Coming this November is this anthology of classic murder mysteries, a must-read for any classic murder mystery fan. As the publisher explains: “For The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, writer and anthologist Michael Sims did not summon the usual suspects. He sought the unfamiliar, the unjustly forgotten, and little-known gems by writers from outside the genre.” We can’t wait!