Best Novel Series
The Philip Marlowe series is a sequence of detective novels by American writer Raymond Chandler, centered on a private investigator working in Los Angeles. Marlowe is known for his independence, moral skepticism, and distinctive first-person narration, while the stories combine investigations with d...
The Sherlock Holmes series is a collection of detective stories and novels by British author Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring Holmes, a consulting detective in London, and Dr. John Watson, his friend and chronicler. Holmes uses observation, inference, and scientific reasoning to investigate cases that...
The Hercule Poirot series is a body of detective fiction by Agatha Christie featuring Hercule Poirot, a Belgian former police officer who becomes a private detective. Poirot is distinguished by his methodical attention to psychology, motive, and what he calls his little grey cells, and many cases ar...
The Miss Marple series is a group of mystery novels and short stories by Agatha Christie featuring Jane Marple, an elderly woman from the English village of St Mary Mead. Miss Marple has no official detective position, but she applies her knowledge of human behavior and village life to crimes involv...
The Nero Wolfe series is a collection of detective stories and novels by American writer Rex Stout, centered on Nero Wolfe, a highly intelligent private detective who prefers to work from his New York brownstone. Wolfe is an orchid cultivator and avoids much of the physical investigation, while his...
The Dr. Gideon Fell series is a set of detective novels by English writer John Dickson Carr. Dr. Fell is an amateur investigator and scholar who examines crimes designed as seemingly impossible situations, including locked-room mysteries. He first appeared in Hag's Nook, published in 1933, and the s...
The Lord Peter Wimsey series is a group of detective novels and short stories by English writer Dorothy L. Sayers. Lord Peter is an upper-class amateur investigator whose cases combine conventional clues with attention to social setting, language, and character, while his manservant Bunter often ass...
The Martin Beck series is a cycle of ten Swedish crime novels written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö and published between 1965 and 1975. Martin Beck is a police investigator whose cases are presented through police work, collaboration, procedural detail, and the pressures of Swedish society. The boo...
The Commissaire Maigret series is a body of detective novels by Belgian writer Georges Simenon featuring Jules Maigret, a police commissioner working in Paris and elsewhere in France. Maigret investigates through observation, interviews, patience, and an effort to understand the personal and social...
The Father Brown series is a collection of short mystery stories by English writer G. K. Chesterton featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who investigates crimes. Father Brown is physically unassuming, but he uses an understanding of human motives, sin, and moral psychology to reach explanations...
The Harry Bosch series is a group of crime novels by American writer Michael Connelly featuring Hieronymus Bosch, a detective associated with the Los Angeles Police Department. Bosch investigates murders and other serious crimes while confronting institutional pressures, incomplete evidence, and que...
The Easy Rawlins series is a group of crime novels by American writer Walter Mosley featuring Ezekiel Porterhouse Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator in Los Angeles. The stories are primarily set in the period after the Second World War and connect individual investigations with segregation,...
The Kurt Wallander series is a sequence of crime novels by Swedish author Henning Mankell, beginning with Faceless Killers in 1991. It follows Kurt Wallander, a police inspector based in Ystad in the southern Swedish region of Scania. The books combine murder investigations with attention to police...
The Matthew Scudder series is a collection of crime novels by American author Lawrence Block, beginning with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976. Matthew Scudder is a former NYPD detective who works in New York as an unlicensed private investigator and debt collector. The series uses a hard-boiled crime...
The Albert Campion series is a group of detective novels and stories by British writer Margery Allingham. Campion first appeared in The Crime at Black Dudley, published in 1929, and is presented as a seemingly frivolous or unintelligent gentleman whose observation and reasoning are sharper than his...
The Adam Dalgliesh series is a collection of crime novels by British author P.D. James, beginning with Cover Her Face in 1962. Adam Dalgliesh is a senior Metropolitan Police officer who also writes poetry, and the investigations often take place in London or other parts of England. The books combine...
The Inspector Morse series is a collection of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter, beginning with Last Bus to Woodstock in 1975. Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse investigates murders in and around Oxford, where his interests include crossword puzzles, classical music, and real ale. The no...
The Chief Inspector Gamache series is a collection of crime novels by Canadian author Louise Penny, beginning with Still Life in 2005. It follows Armand Gamache, a senior investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, as he examines murders connected with the fictional village of Three Pines. The books use...
The Jack Irish series is a group of crime novels by Australian author Peter Temple, beginning with Bad Debts in 1996. Jack Irish is a Melbourne criminal lawyer who, after a personal tragedy, takes on work as a private investigator and debt collector. The novels use Melbourne as a central setting and...
The Inspector Alleyn series is a collection of detective novels by New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh, beginning with A Man Lay Dead in 1934. Roderick Alleyn is a Scotland Yard investigator who works on complex murder cases, with many stories set in England and some reflecting Marsh's New Zealand backgr...
The Judge Dee series is a collection of historical detective novels by Robert van Gulik. It is based on Di Renjie, a historical Chinese magistrate of the Tang dynasty, known in the novels as Judge Dee. The books place murder investigations, legal reasoning, and interrogation within a reconstructed i...
The Inspector Wexford series is a collection of crime novels by British author Ruth Rendell, beginning with From Doon with Death in 1964. Reginald Wexford is a thoughtful police inspector who investigates crimes in the fictional Sussex town of Kingsmarkham. The series combines conventional police wo...
Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series is a collection of Italian crime novels centered on Salvo Montalbano, a police inspector working in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigàta. The series began in 1994 with The Shape of the Water and combines murder investigations with portraits of Sicilian...
Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael series is a sequence of historical murder mysteries set mainly in and around the Benedictine abbey at Shrewsbury in 12th-century England. Brother Cadfael, the central character, is a monk and former soldier whose knowledge of herbs, medicine, travel, and human behavior...
The Ellery Queen series is a body of detective fiction created by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, who used Ellery Queen as a shared authorial name and as the name of their fictional detective. Ellery is an amateur investigator and writer who applies logical deduction to difficult cases,...
Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series follows Victoria Iphigenia Warshawski, a private investigator based in Chicago. The novels combine investigations of murder and financial crime with conflicts involving corporations, political institutions, organized crime, and social inequality. The series beg...
The Commissario Brunetti series is a set of crime novels by Donna Leon featuring Guido Brunetti, a police commissioner working in Venice. The series begins with Death at La Fenice (1992) and uses investigations into murders and other crimes to depict Venetian neighborhoods, institutions, family life...
The Perry Mason series is a group of legal-detective novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, beginning with The Case of the Velvet Claws in 1933. Perry Mason is a Los Angeles defense attorney who investigates the circumstances behind criminal charges and tests the prosecution's case in court, often helping...
The Kinsey Millhone series is a sequence of crime novels by Sue Grafton about Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator based in the fictional Southern California city of Santa Teresa. The series opens with A Is for Alibi (1982), and its titles follow an alphabetical pattern through Y Is for Yesterday...
The Spenser series is a set of crime novels by Robert B. Parker featuring Spenser, a private investigator based in Boston. It begins with The Godwulf Manuscript (1973) and combines investigations of murder, corruption, organized crime, and personal disputes with a first-person narrative voice. Spens...
