The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Oxford, $13). The founding text for my whole genre. It’s all there—deduction, forensics, intelligence, action, the flawed hero, the balance of plot and character. Twelve seminal stories, including “The Red–Headed League” and “The Engineer’s Thumb.” Want to know where Law & Order and CSI came from? Read on!
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (Vintage, $14). Like hearing from Conan Doyle’s American cousin 50 years later ..… our genre’s other bookend. Sherlock Holmes has morphed into Philip Marlowe. All the Marlowe books are great, but this tale of the hapless Terry Lennox mixes great humanity with world–weary cynicism. Style, wit, grace, a seminal hero, and some of the loveliest writing ever committed to paper.
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