Best Whodunit

The Philip Marlowe series is a sequence of detective novels by American writer Raymond Chandler, centered on a private investigator working in Los Angeles. Marlowe is known for his independence, moral skepticism, and distinctive first-person narration, while the stories combine investigations with d...

The Sherlock Holmes series is a collection of detective stories and novels by British author Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring Holmes, a consulting detective in London, and Dr. John Watson, his friend and chronicler. Holmes uses observation, inference, and scientific reasoning to investigate cases that...

The Hercule Poirot series is a body of detective fiction by Agatha Christie featuring Hercule Poirot, a Belgian former police officer who becomes a private detective. Poirot is distinguished by his methodical attention to psychology, motive, and what he calls his little grey cells, and many cases ar...

Sam Spade is a fictional private investigator created by American writer Dashiell Hammett. He is the central character of The Maltese Falcon, which was first published in 1930, and is portrayed as a tough, independent detective operating in San Francisco. Spade belongs to the hard-boiled tradition,...

The Miss Marple series is a group of mystery novels and short stories by Agatha Christie featuring Jane Marple, an elderly woman from the English village of St Mary Mead. Miss Marple has no official detective position, but she applies her knowledge of human behavior and village life to crimes involv...

Cluedo is a deduction board game created by Anthony E. Pratt and first released in the United Kingdom in 1949. Players investigate a fictional murder by gathering and eliminating clues about the suspect, weapon, and room involved in the crime. The game is designed for group play and combines movemen...

The Nero Wolfe series is a collection of detective stories and novels by American writer Rex Stout, centered on Nero Wolfe, a highly intelligent private detective who prefers to work from his New York brownstone. Wolfe is an orchid cultivator and avoids much of the physical investigation, while his...

And Then There Were None is a 1939 mystery thriller by British author Agatha Christie. The plot centers on ten individuals with hidden pasts who are lured to an isolated island and subsequently murdered one by one in accordance with a counting-out nursery rhyme. The novel is distinguished by its per...

The Dr. Gideon Fell series is a set of detective novels by English writer John Dickson Carr. Dr. Fell is an amateur investigator and scholar who examines crimes designed as seemingly impossible situations, including locked-room mysteries. He first appeared in Hag's Nook, published in 1933, and the s...

Murder on the Orient Express is a 1934 detective novel by Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian investigator Hercule Poirot. After a passenger is stabbed aboard a train immobilized by snow, Poirot examines the occupants of the carriage and uncovers their connections to an earlier crime. The book is...

And Then There Were None is a 1939 mystery novel by Agatha Christie about ten people summoned to an isolated island under different pretexts. Cut off from the mainland, they are accused of past deaths and then killed one by one according to the pattern of a nursery rhyme. The novel combines a closed...

The Lord Peter Wimsey series is a group of detective novels and short stories by English writer Dorothy L. Sayers. Lord Peter is an upper-class amateur investigator whose cases combine conventional clues with attention to social setting, language, and character, while his manservant Bunter often ass...

The Martin Beck series is a cycle of ten Swedish crime novels written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö and published between 1965 and 1975. Martin Beck is a police investigator whose cases are presented through police work, collaboration, procedural detail, and the pressures of Swedish society. The boo...

The Commissaire Maigret series is a body of detective novels by Belgian writer Georges Simenon featuring Jules Maigret, a police commissioner working in Paris and elsewhere in France. Maigret investigates through observation, interviews, patience, and an effort to understand the personal and social...

Miss Marple is a British television adaptation of Agatha Christie's stories produced for ITV and broadcast from 1984 to 1992. Joan Hickson played Miss Marple, an elderly amateur detective whose understanding of human behavior helps her interpret crimes in village and country-house settings. The seri...

The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett, developed from a story first serialized in Black Mask magazine. Private investigator Sam Spade becomes entangled with criminals seeking a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette whose history and value are obscured by decepti...

The Case of the Golden Idol is a 2022 detective puzzle video game developed by Color Gray Games and published by Playstack. Players inspect static, illustrated scenes depicting deaths and other pivotal events, identify characters and objects, and place discovered words into statements that explain w...

The Father Brown series is a collection of short mystery stories by English writer G. K. Chesterton featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who investigates crimes. Father Brown is physically unassuming, but he uses an understanding of human motives, sin, and moral psychology to reach explanations...

The Harry Bosch series is a group of crime novels by American writer Michael Connelly featuring Hieronymus Bosch, a detective associated with the Los Angeles Police Department. Bosch investigates murders and other serious crimes while confronting institutional pressures, incomplete evidence, and que...

The Easy Rawlins series is a group of crime novels by American writer Walter Mosley featuring Ezekiel Porterhouse Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator in Los Angeles. The stories are primarily set in the period after the Second World War and connect individual investigations with segregation,...

The Kurt Wallander series is a sequence of crime novels by Swedish author Henning Mankell, beginning with Faceless Killers in 1991. It follows Kurt Wallander, a police inspector based in Ystad in the southern Swedish region of Scania. The books combine murder investigations with attention to police...

The Matthew Scudder series is a collection of crime novels by American author Lawrence Block, beginning with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976. Matthew Scudder is a former NYPD detective who works in New York as an unlicensed private investigator and debt collector. The series uses a hard-boiled crime...

The Albert Campion series is a group of detective novels and stories by British writer Margery Allingham. Campion first appeared in The Crime at Black Dudley, published in 1929, and is presented as a seemingly frivolous or unintelligent gentleman whose observation and reasoning are sharper than his...

The Adam Dalgliesh series is a collection of crime novels by British author P.D. James, beginning with Cover Her Face in 1962. Adam Dalgliesh is a senior Metropolitan Police officer who also writes poetry, and the investigations often take place in London or other parts of England. The books combine...

The Inspector Morse series is a collection of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter, beginning with Last Bus to Woodstock in 1975. Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse investigates murders in and around Oxford, where his interests include crossword puzzles, classical music, and real ale. The no...

The Chief Inspector Gamache series is a collection of crime novels by Canadian author Louise Penny, beginning with Still Life in 2005. It follows Armand Gamache, a senior investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, as he examines murders connected with the fictional village of Three Pines. The books use...

Crooked House is a 1949 detective novel by Agatha Christie set within the wealthy Leonides family. After family patriarch Aristide Leonides is poisoned, suspicion falls on members of his multigenerational household, and Charles Hayward investigates while considering marriage to Aristide's granddaugh...

The Jack Irish series is a group of crime novels by Australian author Peter Temple, beginning with Bad Debts in 1996. Jack Irish is a Melbourne criminal lawyer who, after a personal tragedy, takes on work as a private investigator and debt collector. The novels use Melbourne as a central setting and...

Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None is a three-part BBC television adaptation broadcast in 2015. It is based on Agatha Christie's 1939 mystery novel, in which ten people are brought to an isolated island and are killed one by one. The production presents the story as a closed-circle murder mys...