HRF Keating 100 Best Crime & Mystery Books (1987)

HRF Keating stated in introduction:

No author should be represented by more than three titles.

(Only) books with crime in them that are not pure thrillers, nor espionage novels, nor horror stories, nor stories of pure suspense. And certainly not novels proper that happen to have a crime in them

He also excluded authors that are no longer easily found: Fergus Hume R., Austin Freeman, Alice Tilton, Freeman Wills Crofts and Stuart Palmer.

1845 - Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination

1868 - Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone

1870 - Charles Dickens - The Mystery of Edwin Drood

1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

1899 - EW Hornung - The Amateur Cracksman

1902 - Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles

1907 - Jacques Futrelle - The Thinking Machine

1908 - Mary Roberts Rinehart - The Circular Staircase

1911 - GK Chesterton - The Innocence of Father Brown

1918 - Melville Davisson Post - Uncle Abner

1925 - Edgar Wallace - The Mind of JG Reeder

1926 - Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

1929 - Dashiell Hammett - Red Harvest

1929 - CHB Kitchin - Death of My Aunt

1930 - Dorothy L. Sayers - The Documents in the Case

1930 - Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon

1931 - Arthur W Upfield - The Sands of Windee

1932 - Francis Iles - Before the Fact

1933 - Erle Stanley Gardner - The Case of the Sulky Girl

1934 - Agatha Christie - Murder on the Orient Express

1934 - James M Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

1934 - Dorothy L Sayers - The Nine Tailors

1935 - John Dickson Carr - The Hollow Man

1935 - Rex Stout - The League of Frightened Men

1936 - Ethel Lina White - The Wheel Spins

1938 - Nicholas Blake - The Beast Must Die

1940 - Cornell Woolrich - The Bride Wore Black

1940 - Ngaio Marsh - Surfeit of Lampreys or Death of a Peer

1942 - Ellery Queen - Calamity Town

1942 - Cyril Hare - Tragedy at Law

1942 - Raymond Chandler - The High Window

1944 - Christianna Brand - Green for Danger

1945 - Michael Innes - Appleby’s End

1946 - Elizabeth Ferrars - Murder Among Friends

1946 - Helen Eustis - The Horizontal Man

1946 - Edmund Crispin - The Moving Toyshop

1947 - Frederic Brown - The Fabulous Clipjoint

1948 - Josephine Tey - The Franchise Affair

1948 - John Franklin Bardin - Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly

1948 - Margery Allingham - More Work for the Undertaker

1949 - Georges Simenon - My Friend Maigret

1949 - WR Burnett - The Asphalt Jungle

1950 - Michael Gilbert - Smallbone Deceased

1950 - Georges Simenon - The Stain on the Snow, The Snow Was Black.

1951 - Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

1952 - Hillary Waugh - Last Seen Wearing

1952 - Margery Allingham - The Tiger in the Smoke

1953 - John Bingham - Five Roundabouts to Heaven

1953 - Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye

1953 - Guy Cullingford - Post Mortem

1954 - Shelley Smith - The Party at No. 5

1955 - Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley

1955 - Margaret Millar - The Beast in View

1956 - JJ Marric (John Creasey) - Gideon’s Week

1956 - Stanley Ellin - Mystery Stories

1960 - Georges Simenon - Maigret in Court

1960 - Michael Innes - The New Sonia Wayward

1963 - Nicholas Freeling - Gun Before Butter

1963 - Dorothy Hughes - The Expendable Man

1964 - Jim Thompson - Pop. 1280

1966 - EB Eberhart - R.S.V.P. Murder

1967 - Julian Symons - The Man Who Killed Himself

1967 - Emma Lathen - Murder Against the Grain

1967 - Sjowall & Wahloo - Roseanna

1967 - George Sims - The Last Best Friend

1968 - Peter Dickinson - The Glass-Sided Ants Nest

1968 - Helen McCloy - Mr. Splitfoot

1968 - Nicholas Blake - The Private Wound

1969 - Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery

1969 - Chester Himes - Blind Man With a Pistol

1970 - Joan Fleming - Young Man, I Think You're Dying

1970 - Margaret Millar - Beyond This Point are Monsters

1972 - Ed McBain - Sadie When She Died

1972 - George V Higgins - The Friends of Eddie Coyle

1972 - Julian Symons - The Players and the Game

1972 - Stanley Ellin - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

1973 - Tony Hillerman - Dance Hall of the Dead

1974 - Peter Dickinson - The Poison Oracle

1974 - Gregory McDonald - Fletch

1975 - PD James - The Black Tower

1975 - Celia Fremlin - The Long Shadow

1975 - Colin Watson - The Naked Nuns

1976 - Ross Macdonald - The Blue Hammer

1976 - Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder

1976 - Dorothy Salisbury Davis - A Death in the Life

1976 - Dorothy Uhnak - The Investigation

1977 - Ruth Rendell - A Judgement in Stone

1977 - William McIlvanney - Laidlaw

1977 - Donald Westlake - Nobody's Perfect

1978 - Reginald Hill - A Pinch of Snuff

1979 - Joseph Hansen - Skinflick

1979 - PM Hubbard - Kill Claudio

1979 - John D MacDonald - The Green Ripper

1981 - John Wainwright - All On a Summers Day

1981 - Amanda Cross - Death in a Tenured Position

1981 - Joseph Wambaugh - The Glitter Dome

1982 - June Thomson - To Make a Killing

1982 - Peter Lovesey - The False Inspector Dew

1984 - James McClure - The Artful Egg

1986 - PD James - A Taste for Death