From The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rhinehart (1908).
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015002717935?urlappend=%3Bseq=30
When I saw a link on Twitter asking if I had read the top 101 crime novels of all time, of course I clicked on it. The quiz is based on a list of the 100 top mysteries of all time compiled by Mystery Writers of America (for some reason, it's actually 101). When I took the quiz, I was surprised only to score a 32 because I'm a pretty devoted mystery reader.
And then I realized what was missing from the list: women. Ok, it's not that there aren't any women on the list--there are, in fact, 23 books authored by women on the list. However, it is still an overwhelmingly male list, and it also doesn't really represent the kinds of mysteries that I like. Why are there so many Graham Greene and John Le Carré titles on the list? I know both Greene and Le Carré are very popular, but their spy thrillers tend to put me to sleep. Where's Anna Katherine Green's That Affair Next Door? Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes? M.M. Kaye? Patricia Wentworth? How on earth did Sara Paretsky not make the list? And, why is Margery Allingham only on the secondary, "recommended" list?
There are a lot of really good mysteries on that list, but, on the whole, it doesn't look at all like the must-read list that I would put together. Maybe I'll have to get to work on that...
What would you add?
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