Top 100 Mysteries & Thrillers on Goodreads

Posted by Cybil on April 30, 2017

Mystery & Thriller Week is sponsored by The Fact of a Body, a Goodreads Best Book of May.


Culprits, spies, bad guys, and women with vendettas: There's something so very satisfying about spending your time with the criminal element. And by that, we mean following the clues and solving the capers when you sit down with a great mystery or thriller. Always in search of a great book, Goodreads recently set out to uncover your 100 most-loved thrillers and mysteries.

There are, of course, rules to this game. Namely, every one of these books has at least a 4.0 rating from the Goodreads community. That means it's a bit of a popularity contest, for example Gone Girl is represented with a 4.02 rating, but another girl—Girl on a Train—just misses the list at 3.88. Then there are the usual suspects you won't find on this list: The Maltese Falcon (3.92), Angels & Demons (3.85), and Strangers on a Train (3.84) among others. It may seem brutal, but the readers have spoken.

Of course, many of your favorite writers have stayed with a character for a while, so in the cases of serialized mysteries and thrillers, we picked the books that, again, are over 4.0 and have the largest number of ratings.

It's time to unveil the top 100 Mysteries & Thrillers on Goodreads, arranged in alphabetical order. How many have you read? Tell us in the comments.

1st to Die

A Fatal Grace

A Great Deliverance

A Red Herring Without Mustard

A Scandal in Bohemia

A Study in Scarlet

A Time to Kill

Absolute Power

Along Came a Spider

American Tabloid

And Then There Were None

Big Little Lies

Black Betty

Blindsighted

Burial Rites

Child 44

Clear and Present Danger

Confessions

Crocodile on the Sandbank

Dead to the World


Dissolution

Double Indemnity

End of Watch

Eye of the Needle

Fatal Voyage

Fer-de-Lance

Finders Keepers

Fingersmith

Gaudy Night

Gone Girl

Gorky Park

Heaven's Prisoners

I Am Pilgrim

I Let You Go

Journey Under the Midnight Sun

Killing Floor

L.A. Confidential

Love You More

M is for Malice

Mean Streak


Murder at the Vicarage

Murder on the Orient Express

Mystic River

Naked in Death

No Country for Old Men

One for the Money

Patriot Games

Postmortem

Presumed Innocent

Rebecca

Red Dragon

Red Harvest

Relic

Rules of Prey

Shroud for a Nightingale

Shutter Island

Storm Front

Tell No One

The Alienist

The Beekeeper's Apprentice


The Big Sleep

The Black Echo

The Blessing Way

The Bone Collector

The Bourne Supremacy

The Boys from Brazil

The Camel Club

The Day of the Jackal

The Devotion of Suspect X

The Forgotten Garden

The Full Cupboard of Life

The General's Daughter

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Godfather

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hunt for Red October

The Innocent

The Likeness

The Lincoln Lawyer


The Long Goodbye

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Name of the Rose

The Odessa File

The Poet

The Secret History

The Secret Keeper

The Shadow of the Wind

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silkworm

The Snowman

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

The Surgeon

The Westing Game

This Present Darkness

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Triptych

Two for the Dough

Watchers

When the Bough Breaks


Tell us how many you've read in the comments! And be sure to check out more of our Mystery & Thriller Week coverage here.

Fact of the Body

Comments Showing 451-473 of 473 (473 new)

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message 451: by Trudy (new)

Trudy Ackerblade I have read 40.


message 452: by Beth (new)

Beth Wynne 44/100


message 453: by Karl (new)

Karl -- 22/100 .. Who came up with this list ?? it's mostly contemporary books/authors... --


message 454: by Alexandra (last edited Nov 13, 2017 05:37PM) (new)

Alexandra "-- 22/100 .. Who came up with this list " I imagine someone on the GR staff, I highly down that's the top 100 Mysteries and Thrillers among GR readers.

Ah, they went by averaged ratings, which don't mean much. Particularly if not also compared with the number of ratings.

A book with 4 4.0 ratings isn't rightfully considered more "top" than one with 2,000 ratings averaging 3.8.

"but the readers have spoken."

Yeah, sorry, I'm not buying it.

The Forgotten Garden isn't even a Mystery or Thriller. This Present Darkness is Christian Fiction. The Westing Game is Middle Grade. A bit strange to throw that one in the mix.


message 455: by Iah (new)

Iah I've not read the books Alexandra mentions but can't they be in more than one category?
While it may not be a true top list, it's useful for people like me looking for titles to read.


message 456: by Catherine (last edited Nov 17, 2017 03:33AM) (new)

Catherine Alexandra wrote: ""-- 22/100 .. Who came up with this list " I imagine someone on the GR staff, I highly down that's the top 100 Mysteries and Thrillers among GR readers.

Ah, they went by averaged ratings, which do..."


Whilst I agree in part with your assessment of how the books were chosen, I do have to disagree on one point. The Forgotten Garden is a historical mystery. It may not be considered so to you, but there is a definite mystery/thriller aspect to the story.
Now, I know there are hundreds of thousands of books on here being rated and reviewed, so I get what you are saying about how the books were picked, because most certainly a book with more ratings should be the more obvious choice even if it has a lower overall average.


message 457: by Chloe (new)

Chloe 43/100


message 458: by Arif (new)

Arif Sayed I am a big fan of Thrillers but has still read only 20 books from the above list.


message 459: by NILTON (new)

NILTON TEIXEIRA 24/100. Most of titles are on TBR pile.


message 460: by Pam (new)

Pam Pam wrote: "I've only read one and watched quite a few on film. I'm disappointed that my favorite mystery author is not included on the list: Deborah Crombie. Her brilliantly written whodunit tales are set in ..."

Agree - great series!


message 461: by Sonja (new)

Sonja 21 read and 10 on my to-read list


message 462: by Jane (new)

Jane Severance I have read forty-two of these. I am so excited to have found this list! I will start ordering today. Michael Connelly is such a favorite.


message 463: by Adrienne (new)

Adrienne 58


message 464: by Rob (new)

Rob Nussbaum I read 28 of them!


message 465: by David (new)

David Dunlap I've read 21 of the titles on the list, with another 17 on my TBR list... (Almost all of the 21, incidentally, earned 5 stars to my way of thinking, so I suppose there's a reason why they're all here! ;-) )


message 466: by Fran (new)

Fran Irwin I've read 32 of them ... and enjoyed every one!


message 467: by [deleted user] (new)

I've read 20 of these books and over half of those I gave one or two stars.


message 468: by Yves (new)

Yves interesting list - will consult it in the future - so far I've read 23 of them.


message 469: by L.G. (new)

L.G. I've read 29 of these books so far!


message 470: by Arif (new)

Arif Sayed 24 Books Out Of 100


message 471: by Greg (new)

Greg 33 so far


message 472: by Augusto (new)

Augusto Delgado Stuck on 5 of this list. But read like a couple of dozen of same authors other titles or different authors same genre.


message 473: by Rob (new)

Rob Nussbaum 29 of 100 but I plan to read more from this great list too -- after I finish the ten books currently on my night stand :)


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