Best Crime Fiction Writers

Most of her books are classics. She's one of the original crime fiction writers.

Why would you not put him on the list?

How is Elmore Leonard not at the top of this list, let alone excluded altogether? You pick any one of 20 or so of his books and find writing that rivals anyone's, including Hemingway's. Who else combines such tight prose, humor, and perfect dialogue? Tell me old Ernest wrote anything better than this more or less random Leonard excerpt from PAGAN BABIES: THE CHURCH HAD BECOME a tomb where forty-seven bodies turned to leather and stains had been lying on the concrete floor the past five years, though not lying where they had been shot with Kalashnikovs or hacked to death with machetes. The benches had been removed and the bodies reassembled: men, women and small children laid in rows of skulls and spines, femurs, fragments of cloth stuck to mummified remains, many of the adults missing feet, all missing bones that had been carried off by scavenging dogs. Or this one from UNKNOWN MAN #89: A friend of Ryan's said to hin one time, "Yeah, but at least you don't take any shit from anybody." Ryan said to his friend, "I don't know, the way things've been going, maybe it's about time I started taking some." This had been a few years ago. Ryan remembered it as finally waking up, deciding to get off his ass and make some kind of run.

Many of her books deal with crimes involving children or with telepathy.

Her Scarpetta series of novels include a great deal of detail on forensic science.

Her alphabet series ("A is for Alibi," "B is for Burglar," etc.) featuring detective Kinsey Millhone are some of the best crime fiction books available.

His books feature a fictionalized version of himself solving crimes in New York City.