100 Top Crime Novels

I'm always looking for ideas for good books to read. I've read some of these, but there are a lot of authors here that I haven't even heard of.

 In 1990, the Crime Writers’ Association (British) comprised a list of:

The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time

1. Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
2. Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
3. John le Carré: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
4. Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (1935)
5. Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
6. Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
7. Raymond Chandler: Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
8. Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
9. Len Deighton: The Ipcress File (1962)
10. Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
11. Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
12. Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing … (1952)
13. Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
14. Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
15. Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
16. Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
17. Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
18. Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1934)
19. Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (1939)
20. John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
21. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories (1892-1927)
22. Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
23. Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery & Imagination (1852)
24. Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939) (aka A Coffin for Dimitrios)
25. Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (1946)
26. Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
27. Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew (1982)
28. Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
29. Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
30. James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
31. Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
32. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
33. John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
34. E. C. Bentley: Trent’s Last Case (1913)
35. Ian Fleming: From Russia, with Love (1957)
36. Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
37. Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)
38. Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
39. Ruth Rendell: A Judgement in Stone (1977)
40. John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man (1935) (aka The Three Coffins)
41. Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
42. Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
43. Ellis Peters: The Leper of Saint Giles (1981)
44. Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
45. Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
46. Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
47. Raymond Chandler: The Lady in the Lake (1943)
48. Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (1987)
49. Ruth Rendell: A Demon in My View (1976)
50. John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet (1951)
51. Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
52. Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (1949)
53. P. D. James: A Taste for Death (1986)
54. Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
55. Mary Stewart: My Brother Michael (1960)
56. Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (1987)
57. Susan Moody: Penny Black (1984)
58. Len Deighton: Game, Set & Match (1984-1986)
59. Dick Francis: The Danger (1983)
60. P. D. James: Devices and Desires (1989)
61. Reginald Hill: Under World (1988)
62. Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)
63. Paula Gosling: A Running Duck (1978)
64. Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased (1950)
65. Lionel Davidson: The Rose of Tibet (1962)
66. P. D. James: Innocent Blood (1980)
67. Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison (1930)
68. Michael Innes: Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
69. Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1989)
70. Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon: A Bullet in the Ballet (1937)
71. Reginald Hill: Deadheads (1983)
72. Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
73. Anthony Price: The Labyrinth Makers (1974)
74. Adam Hall: The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
75. Margaret Millar: Beast in View (1955)
76. Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades (1984)
77. Desmond Bagley: Running Blind (1970)
78. Dick Francis: Twice Shy (1981)
79. Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
80. Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger’s Drift (1987)
81. Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
82. Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
83. Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End (1945)
84. Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (1945)
85. Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
86. John Fowles: The Collector (1963)
87. J. J. Marric: Gideon’s Day (1955)
88. Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (1976)
89. Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
90. Julian Symons: The Colour of Murder (1957)
91. John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
92. Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
93. Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death (1970)
94. Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
95. Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca (1980)
96. Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
97. H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
98. Simon Brett: What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
99. Gavin Lyall: Shooting Script (1966)
100. Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1906)