Top ten golden age detective novels

Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist, and is the author of two non-fiction works and the recipient of an Escalator Award from the Arts Council England. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey—one of the leading authors of Britain's age of crime-writing. The newest novel in the series is Sorry for the Dead. Her research for the books has included many conversations with people who lived through the period and who knew Josephine Tey well, most notably Sir John Gielgud.

At the Guardian, Upson tagged ten favorite golden age detective novels, including:

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939)

Christie was ruthless with her characters and readers. Nothing is off-limits: the child did it; the policeman did it; they all did it. No pillar of the community was above suspicion. It’s hard to think of a more brutal novel than this groundbreaking, characteristically ingenious story of 10 people invited to a small island, only to be killed off one by one. It is almost unbearably claustrophobic and its dazzling solution is a scream against injustice.

Read about another entry on the list.

And Then There Were None is among Jane Robins's ten favorite creepy psychological thrillers, Molly Schoemann-McCann's nine great books for people who love Downton Abbey, Sjón's top ten island stories, and Pascal Bruckner's five best books on guilt.

--Marshal Zeringue