Best Mystery Novels Compared
From Agatha Christie to modern thrillers, Jim compares the greatest mystery novels ever written. Who done it best? Let's find out.
| Book | Rating |
|---|---|
 And Then There Were None | 5/5
|
 Gone Girl | 5/5
|
 The Silent Patient | 4/5
|
 Murder on the Orient Express | 5/5
|
 Rebecca | 5/5
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 The Hound of the Baskervilles | 4/5
|
Jim's Quick Takes
And Then There Were None
The purest puzzle on this page and Christie at her most suspenseful. No detective takes charge: ten strangers lured to an isolated island die one by one, and the reader is left to work it out. At 272 pages it's short and relentless, darker than Murder on the Orient Express, and a strong first classic mystery.
Read full review →Gone Girl
The most modern and most adult book here. Flynn alternates between a husband under suspicion and his missing wife's diary, then upends the story partway through. Its violence, sexual content and venomous tone set it far apart from Christie's tidy puzzles; it suits readers who enjoy unreliable narrators and dark mind games.
Read full review →The Silent Patient
The fastest read of the modern picks, with short chapters built toward one big twist. A therapist tries to get a patient who stopped speaking to talk, and her diary entries are woven in. It's simpler and less savage than Gone Girl, suiting readers who want a plot-driven thriller to finish in a few sittings.
Read full review →Murder on the Orient Express
Best for readers who want a detective at the center. Hercule Poirot interviews each passenger in turn on a snowbound train, so the pleasure lies in clues, alibis and deduction rather than fear. It's cozier than And Then There Were None and its solution is famous, so steer clear of spoilers.
Read full review →Rebecca
The slowest burn and the most atmospheric, closer to gothic romance than whodunit. A nameless young bride lives in the shadow of her husband's dead first wife at a grand estate, and tension comes from mood and dread more than clues. It suits patient readers who enjoy rich prose and a late-turning plot.
Read full review →The Hound of the Baskervilles
The oldest book here, from 1902, and an easy first Sherlock Holmes novel. It blends deduction with gothic atmosphere on the Devon moors, and Watson carries much of the investigation himself. At 256 pages it's the shortest on the page and lighter on shocks than either modern thriller.
Read full review →How to Choose
The first question is puzzle or manipulation. The classic fair-play mysteries, where the clues are all on the page, are Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None and The Hound of the Baskervilles. The modern psychological thrillers, built around a late reversal, are Gone Girl and The Silent Patient. Rebecca sits between the two camps, a gothic novel of suspense whose secrets surface slowly.
Content and pace matter too. The two Christies and the Holmes novel involve murder but little graphic detail, which makes them suitable for teens and squeamish readers. Gone Girl is the most explicit book here, with sexual content and disturbing violence, and The Silent Patient deals with violence, trauma and mental illness. For a fast weekend read, choose The Silent Patient or And Then There Were None; for something to savor slowly over a week, choose Rebecca.
Classic Mysteries vs Modern Thrillers
The three classic puzzles here were published between 1902 and 1939, and they play by rules: a crime, a closed circle of suspects and a solution that accounts for every clue. Christie in particular is a master of hiding the answer in plain sight, inside a detail you read and dismissed. Their pleasures are puzzle-solving and atmosphere, and their endings tie up neatly, even when, as in And Then There Were None, the ending is grim.
Gone Girl and The Silent Patient belong to the twist-driven psychological thriller, a style that boomed in the 2010s. Their suspense comes from what the characters keep hidden, so the reveal changes how you read everything before it. Rebecca, from 1938, is an ancestor of this style, with an insecure narrator and a dead woman who dominates every room. Reading it next to Gone Girl shows how far back that tradition runs.