Murder mystery novels account for a huge proportion of the book industry, and they are widely considered to be one of the most popular genres. Throughout the years, authors from Edgar Allan Poe to Richard Osman have devoted much of their work to a classic murder mystery, but there is one author who dominates the genre, appearing three times on this listing. Here are the top 10 best murder mystery novels of all time, as selected by Goodreads.

The blurb reads: “What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn’t matter?

“Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. But after Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer.

“It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life. But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast Listen for the Lie and its too-good looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it. The truth is out there, if we just listen.”

The plot reads: “I spy with my little eye… For the past two months, FBI Special Agent Journey Russo has had nothing to focus on except working with her therapist to heal the lingering trauma caused by the fire that claimed her family. Until back to school at a nearby university has her grappling with a different kind of tragedy. Murder.

“The victim, a sophomore at a small local college, was raped and stabbed in her first-floor apartment. Unfortunately, she’s not the first. The crime eerily echoes the death of another female student just two weeks before. Local police arrested the woman’s boyfriend. But if he was in jail, who committed the second crime? Suddenly, what seemed like an open-and-shut case is far from it.

“Both women attended the same university, were the same age, had several classes together, looked almost identical to each other, and were killed shortly after their date left their apartment. One homicide could be an isolated incident. Two deaths with similar modus operandi and signatures mean more murders are imminent. Unless Journey can catch the killer roaming Mason University before he spills more blood.

“School is back in session. And Journey’s Paradox, book six of the Journey Russo FBI series by bestselling author Mary Stone, will have you pulling an all-nighter.”

The blurb reads: “By-the-book forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck and rogue BCA agent Van Reed must catch a cold-case killer who’s returned to abduct a small town’s children one by one in this heart-stopping novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author of Unspeakable Things.

“In 1998, an Alku, Minnesota, family of five was brutally murdered in their sleep. The event shook the insulated community but, without any solid leads, was relegated to the cold case files, where it mouldered for twenty-five years. Until today.

“Agent Harry Steinbeck hoped never to return to the northland, a place that holds terrible memories of his sister’s abduction. But when a recent homicide is connected to Alku’s unsolved mass murder, he and cold case agent Evangeline Reed have no choice but to investigate.

“The case grows impossibly darker as, one by one, the children of Alku begin disappearing. And Harry and Van can’t shake the sensation that someone is watching every move they make.

“As an elusive killer’s trail leads to a truth more sinister than either imagined, Harry knows there’s only one way to crack this: he must finally face the secrets of his own past—even if doing so will cost him everything.”

The book’s synopsis is as follows: “Sheriff Bree Taggert becomes a target when she follows the twisting trail of a serial killer in a bone-chilling novel of suspense by #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

“A pair of hikers find a tarp-wrapped body in a clearing in the woods. When a search in the surrounding area yields two more, Sheriff Bree Taggert knows they’ve stumbled onto a serial killer’s dumping ground.

“With the help of investigator Matt Flynn, Bree works the case. They go to interview Jana, the best friend of one of the victims. But when they arrive at her apartment, it’s been ransacked and set on fire. And Jana is missing.

It’s clear the killer is escalating. To make matters worse, he threatens Bree’s family and a young mother vanishes. Will Bree and Matt uncover the link between the victims before more women die?”

The plot reads: “Someone’s found the skeleton in the closet, and it’s not the only one. Wall Street Journal bestselling author Debra Webb presents an emotional new mystery. Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is. She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable. It’s a summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think…”

The book’s synopsis reads: “Considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s greatest and also most controversial mysteries. ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ breaks the rules of traditional mystery.

“The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.”

The summary states: “Hiding her own dark past in plain sight, a TV reporter is determined to uncover the truth behind a gruesome murder decades after the investigation was abandoned. But TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past…

“Avery Mason, host of American Events, knows the subjects that grab a TV audience’s attention. Her latest story—a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal—is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner’s office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence.

“Emma Kind has waited twenty years to put her sister to rest, but closure won’t be complete until she can clear Victoria’s name. Alone she’s had no luck, but she’s convinced that Avery’s connections and fame will help. Avery, hoping to negotiate a more lucrative network contract, goes into investigative overdrive. Victoria had been having an affair with a successful novelist, found hanging from the balcony of his Catskills mansion. The rope, the bedroom, and the entire crime scene was covered in Victoria’s DNA.

“But the twisted puzzle of Victoria’s private life is just the beginning. And what Avery doesn’t realise is that there are other players in the game who are interested in Avery’s own secret past—one she has kept hidden from both the network executives and her television audience. A secret she thought was dead and buried…

“Accused of a brutal murder, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11. Twenty years ago, no one listened. Today, you will.”

The plot states: “En route to London, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot has booked winter passage on the fabled Orient Express. Among the assortment of fellow passengers, one wealthy American holds a unique distinction: he has been found dead of multiple stab wounds in the night compartment of the Calais coach. By dawn, thirteen travellers, each bearing a secret, will find themselves suspects in the most ingenious crime Poirot has ever solved…”

The book’s synopsis states: “Who is killing off members of the Falconer family and why? Such is the challenge confronting highly skilled, extraordinarily intuitive Mary Wandwalker when she finds herself single, sixty and jobless. Long ago as an Oxford student with an unplanned pregnancy, Mary knew the Falconers as the family who refused to help when her fiancé, David Falconer, died in a car crash. Now the baby boy she gave up for adoption is a policeman, George Jones, and he wants to meet her. Can Mary bring herself to confront her past? She must, for lost in her memory is a clue that could save her son’s life. Back in 1979, Mary wrote to the Falconers and was rejected. Now, forty years later, key phrases from her letter appear in the faked suicide note of Perdita Falconer. Neither Perdita nor her killer had access to Mary’s document. Too exact for coincidence, the link is the pseudonym of the drug dealer who supplied her fatal dose. He or she is known as “the Kestrel. ”When Mary was romanced by David Falconer in the 1970s, “the Kestrel” was the codename for a Russian spy entertained at Falconer House. Could the resurrection of the nom de plume be connected to Viktor Solokov, the Russian oligarch renting the Falconer estate with his beautiful wife, Anna? For the Falconers have dark secrets, some centuries old. When George Jones’s wife Caroline begs Mary to save her husband from treacherous Anna, and the murderous talons of the Kestrel, Mary must act.”

The book’s blurb reads: “First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion:

“‘Ten little boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little boys travelling in Devon; One said he’d stay there, then there were seven. Seven little boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.'”

“When they realise that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.”