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Award Winning Mystery and Crime Novels
152 books from 16 lists, 1860 to 2026
The Edgar Award has named the best crime novel of the year since 1954, and its winners make up the spine of this list. Around them sit the mysteries that won elsewhere, because a murder plot has taken the Pulitzer and the Booker more than once, and a reader looking for a great crime novel has no reason to care which committee noticed it.
Books by prize
One shelf per list, newest first on each. The prize name opens its full list.
- 2026 The Big Empty
- 2025 The In Crowd
- 2024 Flags on the Bayou
- 2023 Notes on an Execution
- 2022 Five Decembers
- 2021 Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
- 2020 The Stranger Diaries
- 2019 Down the River Unto the Sea
- 2018 Bluebird, Bluebird
- 2017 Before the Fall
- 2016 Let Me Die in His Footsteps
- 2015 Mr. Mercedes
- 2014 Ordinary Grace
- 2013 Live by Night
- 2012 Gone
- 2011 The Lock Artist
- 2010 The Last Child
- 2009 Blue Heaven
- 2008 Down River
- 2007 The Janissary Tree
- 2006 Citizen Vince
- 2005 California Girl
- 2004 Resurrection Men
- 2003 Winter and Night
- 2002 Silent Joe
- 2001 The Bottoms
- 2000 Bones
- 1999 Mr. White's Confession
- 1998 Cimarron Rose
- 1997 The Chatham School Affair
- 1996 Come to Grief
- 1995 The Red Scream
- 1994 The Sculptress
- 1993 Bootlegger's Daughter
- 1992 A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
- 1991 New Orleans Mourning
- 1990 Black Cherry Blues
- 1989 A Cold Red Sunrise
- 1988 Old Bones
- 1987 A Dark-Adapted Eye
- 1986 The Suspect
- 1985 Briarpatch
- 1984 LaBrava
- 1983 Billingsgate Shoal
- 1982 Peregrine
- 1981 Whip Hand
- 1980 The Rheingold Route
- 1979 Eye of the Needle
- 1978 Catch Me: Kill Me
- 1977 Promised Land
- 1976 Hopscotch
- 1975 Peter's Pence
- 1974 Dance Hall of the Dead
- 1973 The Lingala Code
- 1972 The Day of the Jackal
- 1971 The Laughing Policeman
- 1970 Forfeit
- 1969 A Case of Need
- 1968 God Save the Mark
- 1967 The King of the Rainy Country
- 1966 The Quiller Memorandum
- 1965 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- 1964 The Light of Day
- 1963 Death and the Joyful Woman
- 1962 Gideon's Fire
- 1961 The Progress of a Crime
- 1960 The Hours Before Dawn
- 1959 The Eighth Circle
- 1958 Room to Swing
- 1957 A Dram of Poison
- 1956 Beast in View
- 1955 The Long Goodbye
- 1954 Beat Not the Bones
- 2025 The Tainted Cup
- 2010 The City & the City
- 2008 The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- 1953 The Demolished Man
- 2022 The Devil Takes You Home
- 2005 Creepers
- 2003 Lost Boy, Lost Girl
- 2002 The Night Class
- 1999 Mr. X
- 1995 Zombie
- 1993 The Throat
- 1991 Boy's Life
- 1990 Mine
- 1988 The Silence of the Lambs
- 1987 Misery
- 2021 A Master of Djinn
- 2006 Seeker
- 1995 The Terminal Experiment
- 2021 Piranesi
- 2005 We Need to Talk About Kevin
- 1999 A Crime in the Neighborhood
- 2021 Trouble the Saints
- 2019 Witchmark
- 2018 Jade City
- 2012 Osama
- 2009 The Shadow Year
- 2000 Thraxas
- 1989 Koko
- 1987 Perfume
- 2019 The Silent Patient
- 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
- 2016 The Girls
- 2015 The Girl on the Train
- 2012 Gone Girl
- 2010 Room
- 2005 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- 2005 The Historian
- 2002 The Lovely Bones
- 2001 The Shadow of the Wind
- 1994 The Alienist
- 1992 The Secret History
- 1981 Red Dragon
- 1966 In Cold Blood
- 1955 The Talented Mr. Ripley
- 1953 Casino Royale
- 1939 And Then There Were None
- 1939 The Big Sleep
- 1938 Brighton Rock
- 1938 Rebecca
- 1934 Murder on the Orient Express
- 1931 Sanctuary
- 1930 The Maltese Falcon
- 2013 The Luminaries
- 2001 True History of the Kelly Gang
- 2012 Dead End in Norvelt
- 2010 When You Reach Me
- 1979 The Westing Game
- 2012 The Round House
- 1988 Paris Trout
- 1975 Dog Soldiers
- 2008 2666
- 1999 Motherless Brooklyn
- 1989 Billy Bathgate
- 1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- 1887 A Study in Scarlet
- 1868 The Moonstone
- 1866 Crime and Punishment
- 1860 The Woman in White