Before espionage fiction took over, there was a rather different dapper, sleuthing figure who captured the imagination of literary fiends across the globe.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has developed such a cult following in the century since The Hound of the Baskervilles was first published that you’ll still see hordes of tourists lining up outside the dedicated detective’s museum at 221b Baker Street to this day.
Indeed, the endless fascination with the world-renowned, ingenious detective is all well and good – until we remember that Mr Holmes is a work of fiction. We regret to inform you, in case you weren’t already aware, that there was no 221b Baker Street until Conan Doyle dreamt it up.
Yet contrary to popular belief, Conan Doyle wasn’t actually the inventor of detective fiction. Though supernatural mysteries reigned supreme in Victorian literature, Edgar Allan Poe was the first to introduce a tertiary figure in the form of an ingenious detective who would help the police with a seemingly unsolvable murder case.
Published in 1841, Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue introduced C. Auguste Dupin as the very first literary detective who would bring mysterious murders to a head by analysing the facts and engaging in top-tier sleuthing. Combining the already wildly popular Gothic genre with an additional, eccentric and almost preternaturally intellectual figure would enrapture the Victorian imagination more than ever before.
Fast forward a few short decades, and detective fiction involving seemingly unconquerable, murderous mysteries would reign supreme. From Conan Doyle’s Hound (1902) to Agatha Christie’s beloved And Then There Were None (1939) and the invention of the boardgame Cluedo in 1943 – fictional murder mysteries would soon take over the literary and entertainment space.
Later, the CSI boom of the early 2000s which had tweens seriously considering careers in criminal profiling, was met with the rise of unsolved crime media in the late 2010s through long-form podcasts and YouTube videos.
Detective work and murder mysteries appeal to our innermost desire to understand and conquer the unknown – whether that be the mystery itself, or the inherent evil that could possess a person or creature to commit such heinous acts.
Sherlock Holmes, Auguste Dupin and Hercule Poirot, in all of their fiction, are the only characters who can deliver the answers to seemingly impossible mysteries with ease. These fictional detectives don’t need corkboards and red string, for they can piece together a sprawling puzzle in their mind’s eye in just a few hundred pages.
Whether you’re on the hunt for a mysterious novel that follows a central, sleuthing character as the murderous crimes unfold, or a third-person narration that delves into the lives of each and every character involved – we’ve rounded up a series of the best murder mystery novels of all time.
Keep scrolling to get a clue.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe
What better place to start on your murder mystery fiction journey than with the story which invented detective fiction? Though only 160 pages long, any enthusiast of the Victorian Gothic genre should most definitely delve into the blood-stained pages of this thrilling tale, which follows C. Auguste Dupin as he attempts to unravel the brutal murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter Camille.
Buy now £9.55, Amazon
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The very first of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels which features Detective Sherlock Holmes and Watson, The Hound of the Baskervilles takes place within the hills and crevices of the mist-covered moors at Baskerville Hall. Following the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, which locals are putting down to the hellish, ghostly hound which is said to have haunted his family for generations – the ever-rational Holmes sets out to disprove such irrational mysticism and solve the case once and for all.
Buy now £14.29, Amazon
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
A novel which arguably served as the blueprint for classic Whodunnits for years to come, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express encapsulates all of the most thrilling tropes associated with the detective fiction genre with seamless and page-turning efficacy. Plunge into the gruesome story which unfolds after the Orient Express stops dead in its tracks due to a snowdrift, following which a billionaire tycoon is found dead in his train cabin with a dozen stab wounds. Hercule Poirot attempts to reveal the murderer, who remains on the train with all of its passengers - before it is too late.
Buy now £9.15, Amazon
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Perhaps the most beloved novel to come from the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is the story of a motley bunch of 10 strangers who are picked off one by one while on a remote island near the Devon coast. The year is 1939, and Europe is on the precipice of war. Hosted by two mysteriously absent, yet highly generous benefactors referred to as Mr and Mrs U.N. Owen – when the first member of the party is killed, the remaining survivors must piece together the unravelling events before they too meet a most terrible fate.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
Referred to as the Japanese rival to Agatha Christie, Yokomizo’s intrepid piece of crime fiction is set in the winter of 1937. As the village of Okamura busies itself with preparation for the upcoming wedding of one of its most prolific families, its inhabitants are visited by a masked man wielding a samurai sword in the dead of night. It is up to amateur detective Kindaichi to solve the mystery of the bloody sword left still warm in the pristine snow.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
If you haven’t yet seen the Oscar-winning 1999 film starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman, we highly recommend delving into the captivating pages of its source material first – a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. When a struggling, debt-riddled Tom Ripley is offered an unexpected trip to Europe by a dapper acquaintance, he leaps at the chance to start a new life. But just how far will Mr Ripley go to keep it?
Buy now £6.98, Amazon
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier
In the idyllic French countryside, Patrice Bergogne sets about planning a surprise birthday party for his wife. This innocent endeavour, however, is cruelly disrupted by a series of bizarre and mysterious events which begin to plague the small hamlet in which Bergogne and his family reside. From disturbing anonymous letters to ghostly strangers stalking the houses of the hamlet’s inhabitants, the reader is plunged into an emotional rollercoaster of events which unfold over the course of just 24 hours.
Buy now £16.99, Waterstones
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The first in a series following archaeologist Ruth Galloway, our protagonist is tapped to analyse the bones of a child which have been discovered near a prehistoric henge on the salt marshes of north Norfolk. Between anonymous notes quoting passages from Shakespeare and the Bible sent to attending DCI Harry Nelson, Galloway finds herself at the centre of danger when yet another child goes missing.
Buy now £11.53, Amazon
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s The Secret History isn’t your average murder mystery – for we know who is killed, and who the killers are, within the first few pages of this dark tale. The narrator of this inverted piece of crime fiction, Richard Papen, transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont to escape his disinterested and abusive family in California.
Papen finds himself enamoured by a small group of seemingly perfect, erudite Greek students who are taught in secretive tutorials by an eccentric professor. Desperate to enter into the folds of the seemingly impenetrable group, Papen manages to convince the faculty to switch majors – a decision which would turn out to be both deadly and damning.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
If We Were Villains by M.L Rio
A newer entry into the dark academic genre popularised by the likes of Donna Tartt, If We Were Villains takes place within the hallowed walls of a prestigious conservatoire. Following a group of intimately close classmates as they embark on their penultimate year of Shakespearean acting studies, a drunken night leads to a deadly discovery come sunrise – a murder that could only have been committed by one of seven bosom friends.
Buy now £6.29, Amazon
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Described as “Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror,” it’s fair to say that Turton’s contemporary murder mystery is one that will get the cogs turning. What begins as a wondrous celebratory ball at the home of the Hardcastle’s ends in the gruesome death of Evelyn, the daughter of the house.
Until the mystery is solved, Evelyn is doomed to repeat the day of her death, which ends each time with the same fateful shot of a pistol. A rhythmic narrative with nail-biting revelations with each turn of the page, this is an instantly devourable work of fiction.
Buy now £5.99, Amazon
Dissolution by C.J Sansom
Lovers of both historical fiction and murder mysteries rejoice for C.J. Sansom’s Dissolution offers an enthralling blend of both best-selling genres. The first of a five-book series, Dissolution takes place during one of the most tumultuous periods of British history – the period immediately following Henry VIII’s self-proclamation as the Supreme Head of Church and Country.
A commissioner was sent by Thomas Cromwell to dissolve the remaining monasteries across the United Kingdom. but meets his untimely death at the monastery of Scarnsea on the Sussex Coast. Lawyer and long-term supporter of Reform Dr Matthew Shardlake is on Cromwell’s orders to solve the mystery, yet finds himself forced to confront the seemingly unshakeable belief system which governs his sense of self in this explosive mystery.
Buy now £10.99, Waterstones
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
An instant classic from the moment it was published in 2020, Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club is about a group of four septuagenarians who meet up every week to discuss murderous cold cases. Proving you don’t have to be young to get into the thick of mystifying investigations, Osman’s brilliant novel puts the unorthodox gang of retirees at the centre of a crime which takes place on their very doorstep.
Buy now £7.99, Waterstones
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
In Cold Blood is widely considered the greatest true crime novel of all time, despite being an inexplicable literary detour at the time of its release from the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the famed Truman Capote.
Blending a high literary writing style imbued with emotional poeticism with the clinical documentation of evidence and transcriptions of Capote’s own meetings with the killers in question utterly transformed the way in which true crime was written for years to come.
Detailing the horrific murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, Capote’s non-fiction book is written like a fictional novel. In the first half, the author describes their idyllic small-town life before moving into the nature of the crime itself, the intricate psyches of the killers, and the concept of justice within the American system.
Buy now £8.96, Amazon
