Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.  Every week a new topic is chosen. Today’s topic is  September 13: Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books Of X Genre.

There was an immediate problem with this. Not picking all time favourites although I know some people find that hard but picking a genre. I don’t tend to think of myself as a reader of a particular genre. I try to vary my reading experience as much as I can. However, once I started to think about it, I realised that there was one genre that I came back to more than any other and that genre was crime or detective novels. I haven’t ranked the books as I love them all.

Top Ten Crime Fiction Novels

1. Jackson Brodie series – Kate Atkinson – Although part of me thinks that Jackson Brodie is just a low-rent John Rebus, these novels are very enjoyable and well-written.
2. Philip Marlowe series – Raymond Chandler – I haven’t read all of these books but it was impossible to pick a favourite from the ones I have read. Easily the best hard-boiled detective.
3. LA Confidential – James Ellroy – I really wish I had read this before I had seen the film. It was hard to remember all the double crossing though so it was still a very enjoyable read.
4. Resentment: A Comedy – Gary Indiana – A dark, satirical novel about the trial of two privileged brothers who murder their parents. Indiana spares no one in this dark look at the public’s obsession with murder.
5. Adrien English series – Josh Lanyon – Adrien English is gay and owns a bookshop. He couldn’t be much further from the traditional American hard-boiled detective if he tried. The way Lanyon plays with the rules of the genre is what makes this series so enjoyable.
6. Millenium Series – Stieg Larson – Although The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is undoubtedly the best of these three books, I enjoyed the whole series enough to include the other two as well.
7. Shutter Island – Dennis Lehane – Another wish I’d read first. However, even reading it with the knowledge of the twist, it was suspenseful and exciting. I couldn’t put it down.
8. A Kiss Before Dying – Ira Levin – This is a taut psychological thriller. Levin has the audacity to reveal who the bad guy is but the reader is still on the edge of their seat in order to find out if he will get caught.
9. A Distant Echo – Val McDermid – An excellent thriller. A murder from the past is reopened causing problems for those who were involved at the time. I’ve just realised that this is the start of a series. I’ll definitely be reading on.
10. Rebus series – Ian Rankin – I’ve mentioned before how much I love the Rebus books. John Rebus is the perfect antihero, the stories twist and turn and they are set in Edinburgh and Fife. What more could you ask for?