This week’s Top 10 Tuesday theme is books I can’t believe I read. I don’t think that any book I’ve read I regretted or was astonished I finished. Some I loved more than others; some are a bit forgettable (see last week’s post). So I tweaked this week’s theme a bit and came up with books that were part of a self-imposed reading challenge of classic mysteries. I title this Classic Mystery/Crime/Detective Novels That I Can’t Believe I Did Not Know About Before I Read Them. Die-hard fans may yawn at this list, but I loved discovering books from the early days of mystery fiction when authors were trying out all the devices, plot twists, and tropes that are standard today. Next week I promise not to monkey around with the theme. 😉
To find out what books other bloggers cannot believe they read, click HERE.
Top 12 Classic Mystery Fiction I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Know About
Bat Wing by Sax Rohmer
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill
The “Canary” Murder Case by S. S. van Dine
The Deserted House by E. T. A. Hoffman
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes
The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton
Midnight in Beauchamp Row by Anna Katherine Green
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Window at The White Cat by Mary Roberts Rheinhart
What book can’t you believe you read?
These would fit right in to a mystery challenge that I have this year! I do have some of them. I’ve seen several as adaptations : The Moostone, I’ve seen a couple but they were different! I know now it’s because the book is so long! Then there are The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps. Both have a Hitchcock version and a newer version. I believe there is an old movie version of The Lodger also. I’ll have to check out some of the others as well. Thanks for the great list!
Happy mysterious reading, Paula. I used an online list to get suggestions when I did that challenge. It is Bourgeau’s Classic Mystery List. It’s arranged by year of publication and then alphabetically. I got many of them for free from ManyBooks, because a lot of them are out of print and beyond copyright. Another list you may be interested in is the Booksellers’ 100 Favorite Mysteries of The Twentieth Century.
Wow. The list is looking interesting. Please tell me that are these books available in the public domain. I am also interested in the list that you have mentioned above (Booksellers’ 100 Favorite Mysteries of The Twentieth Century) Thank you.
Yes, a lot of them are. Check out Many Books or Feedbooks to find them.