Hi everyone! If you don’t know me already I am Peony and the creator of this quest. Japanese crime fiction has been a love of mine for a few years now and I hope that this quest helps other people discover this wonderful genre. I have a mix of murder mysteries and thrillers in this quest so I hope there is a little bit for everyone. Will write a big break down of book genres and timelines for Japanese come writing soon.

Hi i just wanted to write to say why books have been chosen and the criteria to add more books.

1. The Author was of British or Irish nationality.
2. If the author was not, they were a member of the detection club and wrote the books in English and lived in either Britain or Ireland permanently, while the books were written .
3. The books were either written in the Golden age of Crime fiction 20s to 30s or were of historical/literary signficance before and after those years. I don't want to go later than 1960, while currently the book that is newest i believe was from 1952.
4. They have to be in print and accessible. Unfortunately a lot of books are not in print so i tried to stick to books, that i know are in print and you can at least buy them online, (i have tried my best with this and hopefully most people are able to access books on this list).

Why certain books were chosen over others? A great part of classic crime novels are that they are pretty self contained and you don't need to read the precdeding books in the series. Generally i have stuck with the first book in the series and then the most important /popular work by that author. To do this i looked for how popular a book was at the time, the crime writers association list of best crime novels from 1990 and looking at detection club members books that were most popular/still in print.

I have also tried to stick with max 3 books per author, an exception to this was Agatha Christie in which this list has 5 of her works. Which are considered her most renowned/the first Miss Marple.

I would love to get suggestions for books if they meet the criteria above so that this list does occaisionally have add ons. So if you have any more questions/suggestions for books please write in the comments of this post.

I started with good omens, the tv show was coming out and I read the book. Loved it then it, was then a toss up between trying Pratchett or Gaiman and it turns out I chose correctly!!