Detective stories are a uniquely thrilling genre. You get to follow your curiosity by solving a puzzle alongside the sleuth, slowly unraveling a mystery until you find the truth. There are so many fantastic detective novels and stories that it's hard to choose a list of favorites, but we’ve done our best to identify the ones that have truly become staples of the crime fiction genre. In this article, we’ve compiled our list of the best detective books and mystery series of all time. Happy reading! Best Detective and Mystery Stories Let’s start with our picks for the best standalone detective stories. Many stories on this list are part of a series, but we’ve only included stories that you can enjoy on their own—either the first story in a series, or a later in a series that you don’t need to read in chronological order.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019 Monsieur X is a dazzling tale of glamour, riches, violence and ultimately tragedy. Patrice des Moutis was a handsome, charming and well-educated Frenchman with an aristocratic family, a respectable insurance business, and a warm welcome in the smartest Parisian salons. He was also a compulsive gambler and illegal bookie. Between the late 1950s and the early 1970s, Des Moutis made a daring attempt to beat the French state-run betting system. His success so alarmed the authorities that they repeatedly changed the rules of betting in an effort to stop him. And so a battle of wills began, all played out on the front pages of the daily newspapers as the general public willed Des Moutis on to ever greater triumphs. He remained one step ahead of the law until finally the government criminalised his activities, driving him into the arms of the underworld. Eventually the net began to close, high-profile characters found themselves the target of the state's investigation, and people began turning up dead...

BRAM STOKER AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed thriller of supernatural horror from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Story, Koko, and The Talisman. “Ghastly, hide-your-eyes horror; when Peter Straub turns on all jets, no one in the scream factory can equal him.”—Stephen King BRITISH FANTASY AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan has a paralyzing seizure in which he is forced to witness scenes of ruthless slaughter perpetrated by a mysterious figure in black whom he calls Mr. X. Now, with his birthday fast approaching, Ned has been drawn back to his hometown of Edgerton, Illinois, by a premonition that his mother is dying. On her deathbed, she imparts to him the name of his long-absent father and warns him that he is in grave danger. Despite her foreboding, he embarks on a search through Edgerton’s past for the truth behind his own identity and that of his entirely fantastic family. But when Ned becomes the lead suspect in three violent deaths, he begins to realize that he is not the only one who has come home. . . .

Between 1750 and his death in 1781, the Marquis de Marigny?brother of Madame de Pompadour, courtier to Louis XV, and one of eighteenth-century France's important patrons of art and architecture?amassed a collection that was broad in scope, progressive in taste, and exceptional in quality and provenance. This book offers a transcription of the exhaustive inventory of Marigny's estate together with an essay in which Alden R. Gordon not only sketches Marigny's life and times but also re-creates the interiors and grounds where the paintings, statues, books, household goods, and other property listed in the inventory were displayed and used. Also included are plans of Marigny's last four residences; lists of heirs, paintings, and auction sales; transcriptions of shipping manifests and sales catalogs; indexes; and a glossary.