BOOKSELLERSâ€™ 100 FAVORITE MYSTERIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Best Mystery Books - Top 100

Members of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association compiled a list released in January 2000 of their 100 Favorite Mysteries of the century. It was agreed that each author would appear on the list only once. The Association is a trade association for owners of businesses wholly or substantially devoted to the sale of mysteries. As of January 2000 the group represented 58 stores in the United States and Canada.

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The Tiger in the Smoke	Margery Allingham
A Coffin for Demetrios	Eric Ambler
A Dram of Poison	Charlotte Armstrong
Aunt Dimity's Death	Nancy Atherton
In the Heat of the Night	John Ball
Death by Sheer Torture	Robert Barnard
Track of the Cat	Nevada Barr
The Beast Must Die	Nicholas Blake
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes	Lawrence Block
Green for Danger	Christianna Brand
The Fabulous Clipjoint	Frederic Brown
The 39 Steps	John Buchan
Black Cherry Blues	James Lee Burke
The Postman Always Rings Twice	James M. Cain
The Thin Woman	Dorothy Cannell
The Three Coffins	John Dickson Carr
Thus Was Adonis Murdered	Sarah Caudwell
The Big Sleep	Raymond Chandler
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd	Agatha Christie
The Concrete Blonde	Michael Connelly
The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes	K. C. Constantine
The Monkey's Raincoat	Robert Crais
The Moving Toyshop	Edmund Crispin
Dreaming of the Bones	Deborah Crombie
The Last Good Kiss	James Crumley
The Yellow Room Conspiracy	Peter Dickinson
The Hound of the Baskervilles	Arthur Conan Doyle
Rebecca	Daphne DuMaurier
Booked to Die	John Dunning
Old Bones	Aaron Elkins
One for the Money	Janet Evanovich
Time and Again	Jack Finney
Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?	G. M. Ford
Whip Hand	Dick Francis
The Hours Before Dawn	Celia Fremlin
A Great Deliverance	Elizabeth George
Smallbone Deceased	Michael Gilbert
“A” is for Alibi	Sue Grafton
The Killings at Badger's Drift	Caroline Graham
The Man With the Load of Mischief	Martha Grimes
The Maltese Falcon	Dashiell Hammett
An English Murder	Cyril Hare
The Silence of the Lambs	Thomas Harris
Tourist Season	Carl Hiaasen
The Talented Nr	Patricia Highsmith
On Beulah Height	Reginald Hill
The Thief of Time	Tony Hillerman
Cotton Comes to Harlem	Chester Himes
Hamlet, Revenge!	Michael Innes
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman	P. D. James
The Ritual Bath	Faye Kellerman
When the Bough Breaks	Jonathan Kellerman
The Beekeeper's Apprentice	Laurie King
Dark Nantucket Noon	Jane Langton
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold	John Le Carre
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee
Darkness, Take My Hand	Dennis Lehane
Get Shorty	Elmore Leonard
Sleeping Dog	Dick Lochte
Rough Cider	Peter Lovesey
The Deep Blue Good-bye	John MacDonald
The List of Adrian Messenger	Philip MacDonald
The Chill	Ross Macdonald
Bootlegger's Daughter	Margaret Maron
Death of a Peer	Ngaio Marsh
Sadie When She Died	Ed McBain
The Sunday Hangman	James McClure
If I Ever Return, Pretty Peggy-O	Sharyn McCrumb
Stranger in My Grave	Margaret Millar
Devil in a Blue Dress	Walter Mosley
Edwin of the Iron Shoes	Marcia Muller
Death's Bright Angel	Janet Neel
Mallory's Oracle	Carol O'Connell
Child of Silence	Abigail Padgett
Deadlock	Sara Paretsky
Looking for Rachel Wallace	Robert Parker
The Club Dumas	Arturo Perez-Reverte
Vanishing Act	Thomas Perry
Crocodile on the Sandbank	Elizabeth Peters
One Corpse Too Many	Ellis Peters
Blue Lonesome	Bill Pronzini
Cat of Many Tails	Ellery Queen
No More Dying Then
The Wrong Murder	Craig Rice
The Circular Staircase	Mary Roberts Rinehart
Blood at the Root	Peter Robinson
Strike Three You're Dead	Richard Rosen
Murder Must Advertise	Dorothy Sayers
The Laughing Policeman	Sjowall & Wahloo
Some Buried Caesar	Rex Stout
Brat Farrar	Josephine Tey
Chinaman's Chance	Ross Thomas
A Test of Wills	Charles Todd
Presumed Innocent	Scott Turow
The Sands of Windee	Arthur Upfield
The Ice House	Minette Walters
Sanibel Flats	Randy Wayne White