The 100 best mystery and thriller books of all time: A reading challenge
Goal: Read and review every book on Time's recent list.
Hi. I’m Ruth Penny. (Some of you may also know me as spicy romance writer Sally Glover.) Welcome! I’m writing my first cozy mystery book, Killer Cappuccino, coming later this year. In the meantime, I’m challenging myself to read (or reread) every book on Time’s The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time list.
Compiled with the help of Megan Abbott, Harlan Coben, S. A. Cosby, Gillian Flynn, Tana French, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Sujata Massey, who know a thing or two about great mystery writing, Time’s list features books published as long ago as 1860 and as recently as 2022.
I have a feeling I’ll love some, maybe struggle through others, and hopefully go on a fun adventure through the history of my favorite genre.
Will you follow along for the ride? I’ll be posting my thoughts and reviews here as well as on Instagram and TikTok. If you want to join me, use the hashtag #100MysteriesAndThrillers, and share the challenge with your mystery- and thriller-loving friends.
I debated about whether to read chronologically, but to properly experience the evolution of the genre, I’ve decided to adhere to the list—hopefully without spending a ton of money (look out, local library!). Lucky for me, Wilkie Collins’s lengthy The Woman in White is only 99¢ on ebook retailers. It’s nearly 1,000 pages, so I can’t predict when my first review will land, but I hope you’ll come back and find out.
Here are the first 25 titles on list:
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
The Patient in Room 18 by Mignon E. Eberhart
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher
A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester B. Himes
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
Beast in View by Margaret Millar
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
If you’re reading along with me but don’t have Instagram or TikTok, feel free to comment on my posts here in Substack.
