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.

A murdered heiress, a missing necklace, and a train full of shifty, unusual, and suspicious characters leaves Daisy and Hazel with a new mystery to solve in this third novel of the Wells & Wong Mystery series. Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells are taking a vacation across Europe on world-famous passenger train, the Orient Express—and it’s clear that each of their fellow first-class travelers has something to hide. Even more intriguing: There’s rumor of a spy in their midst. Then, during dinner, a bloodcurdling scream comes from inside one of the cabins. When the door is broken down, a passenger is found murdered—her stunning ruby necklace gone. But the killer has vanished, as if into thin air. The Wells & Wong Detective Society is ready to crack the case—but this time, they’ve got competition.

This is a richly entertaining collection of stories from the golden age of crime fiction - a period when crimes were solved by the wit and ingenuity of the sleuth with only his own intelligence to rely on

Essential reading for all armchair detectives, this collection of 33 classic whodunits is the cream of crime writing.

The Grand Babylon Hotel is an exclusive London establishment, and American millionaire Theodore Racksole, visiting the hotel with his spirited 23-year-old daughter Nella, decides to buy the place. What he hasn't counted on is having to deal with a criminal conspiracy whose purposes are not at all clear, and events take an unexpected turn as Theodore and Nella play detective. Replete with evil villains, physical dangers, and secret passages, The Grand Babylon Hotel is a mesmerizing thriller that will be enjoyed by mystery lovers everywhere.

The world’s most beloved mystery writers celebrate their favorite mystery novels in this gorgeously wrought collection, featuring essays by Michael Connelly, Kathy Reichs, Ian Rankin, and more. In the most ambitious anthology of its kind, the world’s leading mystery writers come together to champion the greatest mystery novels ever written. In a series of personal essays that reveal as much about the authors and their own work as they do about the books that they love, over a hundred authors from twenty countries have created a guide that will be indispensable for generations of readers and writers. From Agatha Christie to Lee Child, from Edgar Allan Poe to P. D. James, from Sherlock Holmes to Hannibal Lecter and Philip Marlowe to Lord Peter Wimsey, Books to Die For brings together the best of the mystery world for a feast of reading pleasure, a treasure trove for those new to the genre and for those who believe that there is nothing new left to discover. This is the one essential book for every reader who has ever finished a mystery novel and thought…I want more!