My 21 favorite mystery and thriller writers

Over the course of the past three and a half years, I’ve reviewed well over 100 mysteries and thrillers. A great many of these novels were written by well-established authors with long lists of widely read books to their names. In every case of the 21 writers listed below, I’ve read several of their books (some of them before I launched this blog in January 2010). 

If 21 seems a large number of “favorite” writers, consider all the names you won’t find on this list. Those include several — Ross McDonald, Graham Greene, and Eric Ambler, for example — whom I last read years ago. Also excluded are the potboilers and slapdash works by the likes of James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, Robert Crais, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Val McDermid, and Robert B. Parker. I read most of these when younger and am happy to leave them behind. 

What follows here is a list of links to my reviews of individual mysteries or thrillers by the 21 prolific authors I most enjoy. The list is in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names.

The Midnight House, by Alex Berenson

Berenson is a former New York Times reporter who writes beautifully researched stories about soldier-spy John Wells, featuring plots centered on contemporary military and foreign policy issues.

The Drop, by Michael Connelly

Most of Connelly’s 30 novels to date center on the life and work of Los Angeles Police Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. 

Now May You Weep, by Deborah Crombie

Crombie, a Texan who spends extended periods in Great Britain, has written 15 English detective novels that read as though she was born and bred in England.

The Trinty Six, by Charles Cumming

A Briton who has written superior six spy novels, Cumming is often mentioned as a spiritual heir to John Le Carre.

Buried Secrets, by Joseph Finder

Finder is the American author of 11 beautifully crafted thrillers. So far, just two of his novels feature Nick Heller in what appears to be the beginning of a series.

Mission to Paris, by Alan Furst

Since 1976, Furst has written 16 historical spy novels, most of them set in Europe between 1933 and 1944. Furst’s work recreates the mood and atmosphere of the Continent in that era like few others.

Believing the Lie, by Elizabeth George

An American, George has written 18 complex and well-written novels featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley (plus four other novels).

Long Time Coming, by Robert Goddard

Goddard is an English novelist whose two dozen excellent novels are typically set in rural towns, with the origins of their plots found decades in the past.

The Racketeer, by John Grisham

Most of Grisham’s 26 crime novels are set in the American South and involve lawyers and legal shenanigans. He has also written 7 other books since he began writing full-time in 1989.

John Le Carre

Though I wasn’t impressed with Le Carre’s recent novel, Our Kind of Traitor, I can’t help but include him in this list. I’m now immersed in his latest work, A Delicate Truth, which strikes me as on a par with his earlier, much praised novels. (To be reviewed soon.)

The Man From Beijing, by Henning Mankell

A Swede, Mankell’s 11 Kurt Wallander crime stories are dark, complex, and often politically tinged novels that reflect his experience as a long-time progressive activist. He has also written 25 other books.

The Leopard: A Harry Hole Novel, by Jo Nesbo

Nesbo, a Norwegian, has written 10 complexly plotted mystery novels about the troubled Detective Harry Hole as well as 8 other novels.

Breakdown, by Sara Paretsky

All but two of Paretsky’s 17 novels feature private detective V. I. (Victoria) Warshawski, who tackles Chicago’s corrupt establishment without compunction.

The Cut, by George Pelecanos

Pelecanos, best known for his writing on the HBO series “The Wire,” is the author of 21 novels, most of them gritty detective stories set on the streets of Washington, D.C.

Silken Prey, by John Sandford

Sandford has written 23 crime novels with the word “Prey” in their titles, all featuring Lucas Davenport, an independently wealthy senior investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Sandford has written 13 additional novels, 7 of them featuring Virgil Flowers, a colorful member of Davenport’s team.

Criminal, by Karin Slaughter

Of Slaughter’s 17 books, 14 are haunting crime stories set in Georgia about the lives of a set of interrelated characters in Atlanta and fictional Grant County.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection, by Alexander McCall Smith

Smith’s 14 adult novels (so far) about the #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana, comprise just one of many series in a list of works that’s almost too numerous to count. The man must turn them all out through automatic writing in his sleep!

Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel by Martin Cruz Smith

The 8 fascinating novels in Smith’s Arkady Renko series about the Soviet, later Russian crime investigator are among a total of 27 he’s written under several pseudonyms.

Victory Square, by Olen Steinhauer

Steinhauer, an American who has spent extensive periods in Eastern Europe, is the author of a brilliant five-book series about the members of the murder squad in the capital of a fictional country in that region. More recently, the young author has written three thrillers about an American spy and his fictional agency.

Harbor Nocturne, by Joseph Wambaugh

A former Los Angeles police officer, Wambaugh has written 16 novels and 5 nonfiction accounts about crime and crimefighters since 1971. Nearly all his novels are police procedurals set in L.A., bringing the authentic experience on the streets to life.

Get Real, by Donald E. Westlake

Writing under his own name as well as 16 pseudonyms, Westlake produced a total of 111 novels from 1959 until his death in 2008, nearly all of them set in New York City, two of them published posthumously. My favorites are the many humorous caper tales about the sardonic master criminal, John Dortmunder.

In addition to these 21 writers, I’ve read excellent mysteries and thrillers by 12 other authors whose output is more limited either because they’re young and just beginning their careers, they write primarily in other genres, or, in at least the case of Stieg Larsson, they’re dead. 

Among the younger writers here that show special promise are Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Tom Rob Smith.  

Following are links to my reviews of individual novels by these 12 authors. 

Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson

Disciple of the Dog, by R. Scott Bakker

A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Faithful Place, by Tana French

So Much Pretty, by Cara Hoffman

The Silent Oligarch, by Chris Morgan Jones

Shaman Pass: A Nathan Active Mystery, by Stan Jones

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson

The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville

Primitive by Mark Nykanen

Agent 6, by Tom Rob Smith

A truly superior novel of espionage at the dawn of World War II

A review of Mission to Paris, by Alan Furst

@@@@ (4 out of 5)

Alan Furst writes deeply engrossing novels of suspense about espionage in Europe in the years leading up to and during World War II. Mission to Paris, the latest of these books, is good enough to satisfy the most exacting fans of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. It’s difficult to accept the fact that Furst grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City and now lives nearby in Sag Harbor. He lived in Europe (Paris, actually) for only a limited period, seemingly far too short a time to explain the convincingly European sensibility about his work.

An Austrian-born Hollywood film star named Fredric Stahl is the protagonist of Mission to Paris. The title is ironic, as Stahl has come to Paris at the behest of Jack Warner to star on loan to Paramount Pictures in a war movie. As production on the film slowly commences, Stahl becomes increasingly attracted to the German emigre seamstress who creates the costumes for the movie, and soon finds himself starring in his own private love story. Meanwhile, the resolutely anti-Nazi Stahl finds himself targeted by Nazi operatives intent on enmeshing him in their propaganda machine. As the action unfolds, the two story lines intersect, endangering both Stahl and his lover.

When the story opens, it is late in 1938, with Europe on the brink of war. Chamberlain’s capitulation at Munich and the tragedy of Kristallnacht unfold in the background, occasional subjects of conversation and concern. Meanwhile, heated debate is underway in France about proposals from the Left to rearm the country in the face of inevitable German aggression, with sometimes violent opposition from the Right and the Nazi underground. Mission to Paris draws to a satisfying close shortly before Germany’s invasion of France in June 1939.

Mission to Paris is the twelfth of Furst’s “Night Soldiers” stories, which have appeared at an average of about one every two years since 1988. Far in the background of these novels is a lengthy cast of characters who may crop up from time to time in any given novel — occasionally with major roles, but usually more akin to spear carriers.

More power to Alan Furst! I can’t wait for the next book.

Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst

A review of Spies of the Balkans, by Alan Furst

@@@@@ (5 out of 5)

In the long, tense years of the Cold War, spy stories and films grounded in the rivalry between East and West appeared in such profusion that the genre degenerated into self-parody, eventually giving birth to bawdy satires. The public, it appeared, had long since ceased taking spy novels seriously.

Then, in 1988,  came Alan Furst with Night Soldiers, cultivating fresh ground with its wickedly insightful and historically accurate portrait of European espionage in the time between the wars. With each successive novel, Furst broadened his view of the period, setting his tales in such far-flung cities as Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and Salonika, the Greek setting of his latest creation, Spies of the Balkans. In these complex and tightly written stories, Furst came across as not just a talented writer but an able historian as well.

Spies of the Balkans delves into the world of Costa Zannis, a senior police official in Salonika in 1940-41 as Hitler’s war machine lurches south toward Greece. Zannis, heir apparent to the police commissioner, becomes caught up in the characteristically Byzantine political affairs of the Balkans while juggling overlapping love affairs with two extraordinary women. An anti-German military coup in Yugoslavia, an “underground railway” for Jews escaping Nazi Germany, and the British Secret Service all figure prominently in the story. It’s a gripping tale.

Spies of the Balkans is Alan Furst’s 15th novel and the 11th of his superb historical espionage stories set immediately before and during the Second World War in Europe. Each of the spy stories — I’ve read most of them — reflects the author’s seemingly insatiable appetite for in-depth research. The characters in Furst’s novels are so authentically European in attitude and outlook that it’s a surprise to learn that he was born and lives in New York.

ISBN-10: 1400066034

ISBN-13: 978-1400066032

ASIN: B0036S4A18