Top 10 Detective Novels

Detective Novels: After receiving a gift of a box of chocolates from a mystery source, Mr Bendix decides to take them home for his wife. After sampling a few of the treats inside, Mrs Bendix becomes ill and sadly passes away. Scotland Yard looks into the crime for more than a year, but are completely bamboozled. Roger Sheringham, who is part of an amateur crime-solving group step in and try to get to the bottom of the facts, with each of the 6 people involved working independently of each other, using different techniques. This is a detective tour de force that keeps the reader enthralled throughout, as their collective deductive skill saves the day… or does it? Either way, it’s a cracking read.So, there you go. Our top 10 detective novels that will keep you entertained, intrigued and amazed in equal measure. We hope you have great fun working your way through them.

Based on a local legend of a spectral hound that haunted Dartmoor in Devonshire, England, the story is set in the moors at Baskerville Hall and the nearby Grimpen Mire, and the action takes place mostly at night, when the terrifying hound howls for blood.

Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs is a fictional novel that tells the tale of FBI agent Clarice Starling and her quest to find a serial killer who has been abducting women. However, in order to think like a serial killer, she must learn how the mind works in such a criminal.

When a despised magistrate is found shot to death in the library of the local vicarage, his wife and her lover, a portrait painter living on the church grounds, both confess to the crime. Miss Marple’s keen powers of observation clear both of them of the crime, but other suspects abound.

The book, A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton is a murder mystery featuring private investigator, Kinsey Millhone, in her debut role. Kinsey Millhone is a private investigator working in the modern-day town of Santa Teresa, California. She is approached by a woman who wishes for Kinsey to find her husband’s real killer.

From the mind that brought us Harry Potter and Voldemort comes a detective novel full of intrigue and subterfuge. The story centres around Cormoran Strike – a disabled war veteran turned P.I. – who is approached by the adoptive brother of his late old school pal Charlie to investigate the suspicious death of his sister and supermodel, Lula Landry. Partly down to a shortage of cash, Strike takes on the case of the lady some were calling ‘cuckoo’ due to the fact that she was adopted by Charlie’s parents when he died. Is this a clue as to who committed the murder? One thing’s for sure, things are pretty murky and it’s down to Cormoran Strike to unravel the tangled web of lies and deceit. A must-read for detective novel fans everywhere.

A Baron who is accused of killing his wife is the subject of this detective novel, as suspicions are raised when it has been discovered that the Baron took out 5 different life insurance policies for his wife prior to her death. At one point, it seemed like a tragic accident, as she had supposedly drunk acid from a bottle in her husband’s laboratory whilst sleepwalking, but it soon becomes apparent that foul play is at hand. The Baron’s guilt is fairly obvious from the first page, however, the mystery lies in how he did it and how he can be caught. A truly captivating novel that fully merits a place on our list.

Detective Joe Leland – A private detective, he investigates the supposed suicide of Colin MacIver per Norma’s request. During his investigation, he uncovers corruption, fraud, lies, and a shocking connection to a case he solved while working on the police force.

This intensely immersive detective novel has it all, with a major drug dealer (Michael Rebus) who has a police officer for a brother (John Rebus) being investigated by the story’s main protagonist – journalist Jim Stevens. Set against the shadowy criminal underworld of Edinburgh, Scotland, Stevens sets to find out exactly how much John Rebus knows about his brother’s criminal activities and the murder of two young girls. In a tale that focuses as much on the pasts of the novel’s main characters as it does on the present, readers are kept guessing right until the last word. A real page-turner and one for fans of dark, murder mysteries.

Plot. The series, based on a sequence of novels by Edgar Wallace including a 1905 novel titled The Four Just Men, presents the adventures of four men who first meet while Allied soldiers in Italy during the Second World War.

Top 10 Detective Novels

Foglight PI