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Mystery & Detective Literary Criticism Books

Books selected for readers looking for mystery & detective literary criticism books.

37 booksApril 2, 2026

Part of 470+ tracked lists·4 crossover shelves·111% reader overlap with Mystery & Detective Collections & Anthologies Books

1. The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries
Michael Sims
Fits this list for its focus on literary and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
2. Talking About Detective Fiction
P. D. James
Fits this list for its focus on detective and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
3. The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Collection (boxed Set)
Arthur Conan Doyle
Fits this list for its focus on detective and literary.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
4. The Big Book of Rogues and Villains
Otto Penzler
Fits this list for its focus on detective and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
5. Golden Age Detective Stories
Otto Penzler
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
6. The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Anne Perry
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
7. Golden Age Whodunits
Otto Penzler
Fits this list for its focus on literary and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
8. The Whole Art of Detection
Lyndsay Faye
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
9. The Edinburgh Mystery
Martin Edwards
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
10. Detective Mysteries Short Stories
Rosemary Herbert, Daniel Brock
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
11. Holmes Entangled
Gordon McAlpine
Included for strong mystery alignment with this mystery & detective literary criticism list.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
12. The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries
Otto Penzler, Piper Goodeve
Included for strong short story alignment with this mystery & detective literary criticism list.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
13. The Murder Game: Play, Puzzles and the Golden Age
John Curran
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
14. The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sidney Paget
Fits this list for its focus on detective and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
15. Agatha Christie’s Poirot: the Greatest Detective in the World
Mark Aldridge, Agatha Christie
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
16. The Big Four
Agatha Christie
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: British Mystery
17. Ellery Queen's Japanese Mystery Stories
Ellery Queen, Satoru Saito
Fits this list for its focus on detective and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
18. The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century
Otto Penzler
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery Anthologies
19. Sherlock Holmes
Mark Twain
Fits this list for its focus on detective and mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
20. The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories
Otto Penzler - editor, Nicholas Guy Smith
Included for strong short story alignment with this mystery & detective literary criticism list.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
21. In Pursuit of Spenser
Otto Penzler, Ace Atkins
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
22. Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks
John Curran
Included for strong short story alignment with this mystery & detective literary criticism list.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit
23. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Kate Summerscale, Simon Vance
Fits this list for its focus on detective.
Shelf signal: British Mystery
24. Hard-boiled Sentimentality
Leonard Cassuto
Fits this list for its focus on mystery.
Shelf signal: Mystery & Crime Crit