If you follow the blogs of Brad (Ah Sweet Mystery) and John (Countdown John’s Christie Journal) then you will already know that our book group did something different last Sunday, in that we shared our top ten mystery reads from the 1930s. I can get rather stressed by top tens, as there is always more than ten that I want to include, and then of course there is the nagging feeling you’ve got it wrong (despite the activity being a subjective one). So, I am very pleased that I managed to create a top ten that I was reasonably happy with, with only a modicum of mewling. The only restriction we had in picking our ten was that we could only pick one title per author. There were six of us sharing our lists in book group and across those lists 37 different authors were mentioned.
It goes without saying that I probably won’t have included many of your personal favourites, but the best way to remedy that is to share your own top ten in the comments below. Compared to everyone else’s top tens within my book group, my selection had the least in common with the other lists. I only had three shared authors and of these, two shared titles.
However, before I reveal my top ten here are the other authors/titles which very nearly, but did not quite make the cut…
Francis Beeding: The Norwich Victim
I was glad when John included this title on his list, as there is a wonderful bit of misdirection/deception. It is why it made my longer list, but in the end, I felt I didn’t remember enough about the rest of the plot.
Anthony Berkeley/Francis Iles: Murder in the Basement/Malice Aforethought
Not including Berkeley in my list is my biggest regret, but I felt my favourite by him was The Piccadilly Murder, and this was published in 1929. Moreover, I ruled out Malice Aforethought because I have not read it in over a decade, so I didn’t feel that I remembered enough of the plot to justify putting it on the list, and who knows maybe a re-read would change my feelings about the book. The reasons for exclusion are akin to splitting hairs, but some kind of differentiation needed to be made in order to whittle the list down to ten.
Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile
Don’t panic! I have not excluded Christie from my top ten, but I did go with another title in the end. When I re-read Death on the Nile two years ago, I got a lot out of the experience, finding the plot held some interesting parallels with the Greek tragedies. However, I went with another Christie mystery in the end (oh I wonder what that will be?) due to its shock factor and tense atmosphere.
Carter Dickson: The Judas Window
The fact Carter Dickson/John Dickson Carr does not make my top ten at all, will be the most unpopular opinion of my list. I don’t dislike his work, but I am not a big fan who loves the majority of what he wrote. I do however, have a handful of titles that I really enjoyed and The Judas Window is one of them. However, I would say my absolute favourites were published in the 1940s, so I suspect Carr would stand a better chance of making the cut if I did a top ten for the 1940s.
Edwin Greenwood: The Deadly Dowager
This title was recently featured on a recommendation list I made for inverted mysteries, so I kind of made that the excuse for not including it on this list. Nevertheless, it is a great book.
Elisabeth Sanxay Holding: The Death Wish
I remember loving the creativity of the plotting in this story, but again I removed it from my top ten as I felt it had not resonated with me long term, either emotionally or in terms of remembering the plot in detail. Hair splitting, I know, but my 20+ list had to be reduced by 50%. This is why I don’t do top tens very often lol
Helen McCloy: Dance of Death
I felt this was a strong debut for McCloy on a lot of fronts, but I think I decided in the end that the mystery was a bit too easy to figure out. If my book group do a top ten for the 1940s, I think she would be a serious contender.
A. A. Milne: Four Days Wonder
This was a very fun and silly read, but I exercised it from my list as I felt the comedy factor was greater than the crime/mystery element in this sendup of this fugitive-on-the-run focused story.
Q. Patrick: S. S. Murder
I read this one last Christmas, and it is a great mystery for puzzle-focused fans, with the narrative even pointing you in the direction of the key page for solving the case. I think the female protagonist is not always the most sensible in this story, deciding at one point someone couldn’t be the villain because of their choice in nightwear. For this slender reason I pushed it out of my top ten.
Tyline Perry: The Owner Lies Dead
I gave this book 5/5 when I reviewed it, but since what I remember about it, can be fitted onto the back of a postage stamp, it didn’t make it into the final top ten.
Anthony Rolls: Family Matters
I was pleased when another book group member included this title on their list, as this was another one I had toyed with, before casting it aside. Again, I think it had to come down to how well I remembered it, beyond the fact that I really enjoyed it. On the plus side I think this means I have a lot of good mysteries to re-read at some point.
James Ronald: Murder in the Family
This is a powerful character driven mystery, but I think in the end my heart or rather my reading preferences lean more towards the light-hearted. I have read it twice (the re-read being for book group), but in some ways I feel like it might not be one I would not think to return to, despite enjoying it. Are there any books which are like that for you?
Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison
Interestingly, I was the only person in book group to include a Sayers title in their top ten. Whilst I really enjoyed my re-read of this title last year, the simplicity of the mystery in Strong Poison made me decide to pick a different title for my top ten.
Ethel Lina White: Put Out the Light/ Some Must Watch
I knew I wanted to include a White title in my top ten, but it was difficult deciding which one to go for. I read Put Out the Light for the first time earlier this year and it is a great character focused mystery, which takes the unpleasant nature of the victim to a whole new level. Some Must Watch is also a recommended read for the way it cranks up the tension. Just don’t read it late at night, home alone, on a stormy evening! Yet I did not go for either of these two in the end, so you will have to keep reading to see which title I picked.
So, as you can see the titles which did not make the final cut are quite eclectic and I think this is continued in my top ten, which is organised in alphabetical order, as loud mewling would ensue if I had to rank the ten titles in terms of quality, and we wouldn’t want that would we?
Nicholas Blake: Thou Shell of Death
Only two of us in book group picked a Blake title for our top ten. The other group member chose The Beast Must Die, a title I had considered, but in the end, I went for Thou Shell of Death. It is a great snowbound country Christmas house mystery, with a strong vein of Jacobean revenge bleeding through its prose.
Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning: The Invisible Host
This mystery was a precursor to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and I love how this writing duo create a similar level of terror and tension within the confines of a New York apartment. The killer in this one toys with the other occupants of the apartment well, using radio messages to goad and egg them on. Speaking of Christie though…
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
I did wonder if it would be too samey to have both Christie’s title and the Bristow and Manning’s, but, in the end, I decided to ignore literary aesthetics and go for the books I enjoyed. This is one of Christie’s darkest books and its depiction of humanity is grim, yet I remain impressed with how Christie still makes her plot electrifying, rather than gloomy and depressing.
Todd Downing: Vultures in the Sky
This is the sole train mystery of the list and what sticks in my mind is how the setting is used to shape the mystery plot, with striking workers sabotaging the line, leaving the train passengers stranded in the middle of a desert in Mexico.
Richard Hull: Murder Isn’t Easy
Hull was an experimental mystery writer and some of his books worked better than others. Of the ones I have read, I think this is his best. It has a creative use of narrative voices which funnel our view of events. The story plays around with the concepts of the inverted mystery, and I love the complexity Hull brings to the piece as a whole.
Alan Melville: Death of Anton
This made my top ten as it is such a fun read, with a wonderful variety of humour, from verbal witticisms to the visually absurd. It is not without its moments of pathos though.
Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise
Sayers brings the world of advertising to life in this story, and I think Lord Peter Wimsey going undercover works really well. There is a proper space for the aspects of Wimsey’s persona which are larger than life and Wimsey feels more like a flesh and blood character as a consequence. How Wimsey handles the guilty party is also a memorable element of this novel, as it adds a poignant and impactful conclusion to the narrative.
Christopher St John Sprigg: The Perfect Alibi
This book has a lot going for it, including interesting and amusing characters, but what pushed into the final top ten was the way it had me fooled. I was convinced that I had solved the case, but Sprigg thoroughly pulled the rug from under my feet, which is what many of us crime fiction readers are looking for.
Alice Tilton: Beginning with a Bash
This is the first book in the Leonidas Witherall series, and it is a bibliomystery to boot. It is when Leonidas is at his financial lowest, and it has always interested me how this mystery is the darkest of the series, whilst not losing the comedy the later novels strongly lean into. It is a novel, and a series for that matter, that is ripe for reprinting.
Ethel Lina White: The First Time He Died
This is another book which needs to be reprinted. The beginning setup seems conventional, with its protagonists executing a life insurance scam, but what makes this mystery so special, is the direction White takes the story in next. It is full of surprises and shocking moments of poignancy.
So there is my top ten mystery reads from the 1930s. How many have you read? What would your top ten look like?