World Mysteries and Thrillers discussion

Found an item this morning: Lucy Worsley, the author of The Art of the English Murder: From Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock, has come up with a list of the 10 Best Detectives in Books. She has some very interesting choices:

Catherine Morland -- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Susan Hopley -- Susan Hopley, Or, The Adventures of a Maid-servant: Or, the Adventures of a ... by Catherine Crowe
Inspector Bucket -- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Sergeant Cuff -- The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Mrs Paschal -- Revelations of a Lady Detective by William Stephens Hayward
Sherlock Holmes -- A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
Hercule Poirot -- The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Harriet Vane -- Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
Philip Marlowe -- The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Ida Arnold -- Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...

Already on that! It's probably a must have.

"Kid, who's the best law man?"
" 'Best'--how d'you mean 'best'? Toughest..? Or easiest to bribe?"

Sounds of Chandler turning in grave. He despised most English sleuth novels and would not be pleased to be in this company. Although I imagine he would have admired Graham Greene.

Gerard wrote: "Sue wrote: "Sounds of Chandler turning in grave. He despised most English sleuth novels and would not be pleased to be in this company. Although I imagine he would have admired Graham Greene."

He ..."

I agree - that's messed up. Chandler's novels were all set in Southern California. And how the hell is Catherine Morland a "detective?"

Best how?

What are the criteria? Because it can't be "best", as in "most talented and/or skillful".

Now I have to buy it just to see how she figures Catherine Morland as a detective. Obviously that's really bothering me right now.

ah - I actually went to the pw website and found this:

"Could the boy-chasing, pleasure-seeking Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey —a young lady ‘in training for a heroine’ — really be described as a ‘detective’? But Miss Morland finds herself an amateur one when she is invited to stay in a country house (the spooky-sounding ‘abbey’ of the title) and finds herself suspecting that her host may have done away with his wife. She gathers clues, explores locked chests, seeks hidden passages. Ultimately, she fails to find any mystery at all. Silly, but lovable, Miss Morland!"

snoop? Yes. detective? no.

I've got to throw Lincoln Rhyme in the mix, though I'm not sure everyone would qualify him as a detective