Her Lord Peter Wimsey novels, of which Gaudy Night is one, are particularly wonderful, not least for Harriet Vane, everyone’s favorite ass-kicking mystery novelist, nor for its double duty as a philosophical novel. Ahem, please excuse those hysterical italics. Holmes is better at deducing.Īgain, read: everything Sayers has ever written. This one is a classic among classics because it manages to be both a great story and a particularly interesting take on Holmes and Watson’s dynamic, wherein the former disappears and the latter deduces. Really, you should read this as all the Sherlock Holmes stories, but choices have to be made. Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle Usual rules apply: one book by any given author, and all choices subjective - add your own favorites in the comments and keep the list of essentials growing. After the jump, check out 50 essential mystery novels (and spy novels, and crime novels - the genre tends to get a little blurry) that will bring color to your cheeks and set your brain ticking. Plus, what with a new season of Sherlock starting this week, your appetite for more murders, clues, and suspicious persons might just be piqued. In these weeks of midwinter, there’s nothing more satisfying than curling up by the fire with a good novel - and in particular a good mystery novel, because they somehow seem to keep you the warmest.

Blanche on the lam series