Published Aug 11, 2026, 12:18 AM EDT
Dyah (pronounced Dee-yah) is a Senior Author at Collider, responsible for both writing and transcription duties. She joined the website in 2022 as a Resource Writer before stepping into her current role in April 2023. As a Senior Author, she writes Features and Lists covering TV, music, and movies, making her a true Jill of all trades. In addition to her writing, Dyah also serves as an interview transcriber, primarily for events such as **San Diego Comic-Con, **the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival.
Dyah graduated from Satya Wacana Christian University in October 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature, concentrating on Creative Writing. She is currently completing her Master’s degree in English Literature Studies, with a thesis on intersectionality in postcolonial-feminist studies in Asian literary works, and is expected to graduate in 2026.
Born and raised between Indonesia and Singapore, Dyah is no stranger to different cultures. She now resides in the small town of Kendal with her husband and four cats, where she spends her free time cooking or cycling.
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Like dead bodies, classic detective novels didn’t just pop out of nowhere. With its earliest origins in Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of ratiocination (logical reasoning) in the mid-1800s, the genre steadily gained popularity throughout the 19th century before exploding into the mainstream. From there, classic detective fiction flourished into the Golden Age of detective writing in the 1920s.
While these novels remained rooted in logical deduction and the pursuit of truth, they also explored the complexities of human nature, reflecting the tumultuous effects of industrialization and the chaos of the Great Wars. From an author who broke the rules of mystery writing to the writer who laid the foundation for noir fiction, here are the** **classic detective books that are perfect from the first page to the last.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is not for the gullible. After the sudden suicide of a wealthy widow, respected country doctor James Sheppard is drawn into a disturbing mystery when her close friend, Roger Ackroyd, is found murdered only hours after revealing he had learned a devastating secret. With the victim’s stepson missing and several family members, guests, and servants hiding personal motives, suspicion spreads throughout the serene village of King’s Abbot. At the request of Ackroyd’s niece, the recently retired detective Hercule Poirot reluctantly takes on the case. As he interviews suspects and reconstructs the night’s events, Poirot finds critical inconsistencies that challenge every assumption surrounding Ackroyd’s murder.
Suspicion is nothing new in the classic detective genre, but back in 1926, Agatha Christie delivered a plot twist that many considered literary blasphemy. Readers will have to pay extra attention not just to how the mystery unfurls, but to how the case is written and described. The clues aren’t just hidden in the suspects’ alibis or the physical evidence—they’re literally tucked between the lines. By the time readers reach the final page, they’ll realize just how thoroughly Christie has bamboozled them with her cunning tricks. Some will feel cheated by the author, while others will admire her sheer ingenuity.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote many **Sherlock Holmes **novels, but out of the four main novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles remains the most favored. A monstrous hound has haunted the Baskervilles for generations, claiming the lives of those who inherit the family’s vast estate. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead under mysterious circumstances, fears of the curse intensify as his heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, arrives from Canada to take possession of Baskerville Hall. While Sherlock Holmes remains in London to crack the case from afar, Dr. John Watson travels to the eerie Devonshire moor, where escaped convicts, suspicious neighbors, and unsettling encounters complicate the investigation.
Holmes is the last person to sacrifice logic for the mystical, but The Hound of the Baskervilles makes it surprisingly difficult to separate folklore from cold, hard fact. The novel cleverly toys with readers, making it seem as though something genuinely supernatural may be behind the mysterious deaths. With the atmosphere of a classic Gothic tale and the slightest echoes of Poe’s works, readers are drawn into a creeping sense of paranoia through the bleak, fog-covered Dartmoor and the isolated Baskerville Hall. It’s also one of the few Holmes novels where Dr. Watson proves he’s far more than the detective’s sidekick—he’s a capable investigator in his own right.
No other classic detective setup is more salacious than academia, as in Gaudy Night. Returning to her alma mater for a reunion celebration, mystery writer Harriet Vane hopes to reconnect with the more peaceful days of academic life. Instead, she finds Oxford’s Shrewsbury College plagued by anonymous threats, malicious graffiti, and increasingly disturbing acts of vandalism. Because the college wants to avoid a public scandal, Harriet agrees to investigate discreetly, drawing on her own experience as the target of public suspicion. Of course, the faculty and students aren’t too pleased with the sudden intrusion. If the mystery isn’t bad enough, there are also the personal grudges everyone carries within the college community.
Unlike your typical classic detective novel, Gaudy Night doesn’t begin with a dead body. Instead, the mystery revolves around finding a saboteur, which proves just as tricky. Part of the novel’s genius lies in its academic setting. Readers naturally assume that these highly intellectual individuals also possess strong-willed integrity, but that isn’t necessarily the case. As Harriet interrogates the academics one by one, Sayers demystifies the air of superiority surrounding them, offering insightful reflections that you wouldn’t typically get from solving a conventional murder case. Rather than focusing solely on who committed the crime, *Gaudy Night *explores ethics, truth, and the responsibilities that come with scholarship and human relationships.
Six actors. One role. Your answers point to the Bond who shares your presence, your method, and your particular way of carrying the weight of being the most dangerous person in the room.
You are the original — and you carry that fact without needing to announce it. There is an authority in the way you occupy a room that others spend careers trying to replicate.
You understand something that more serious people miss: that wit is its own form of intelligence, and that making people laugh is not a retreat from danger but a way of mastering it.
You took the role seriously when everyone wanted you to coast — and that refusal to take the easy version of anything is the most defining thing about you.
You are the complete package — and you know it, which is part of what makes you so effective and occasionally so infuriating to the people around you.
You stepped into something enormous with less preparation than anyone around you thought was sufficient — and you delivered something genuine anyway, which is the more impressive achievement.
You stripped everything back and found what was underneath — and what was underneath was harder, more honest, and more human than anyone expected.
Boredom does the craziest things to detectives in** **The Daughter of Time. Confined to a hospital bed with a broken leg, Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is desperate for something to occupy his mind. An actress friend challenges him to investigate a historical mystery instead of a present crime, sparking Grant’s fascination with the notorious reputation of King Richard III. Unconvinced that the king’s portrait matches the villain described in history books, Grant begins reexamining the centuries-old case of the Princes in the Tower. With the help of historical records and a young researcher from the British Museum, Grant approaches the mystery like any criminal investigation.
The Daughter of Time is innovative to its core. They say the best way to solve a case is to retrace the past, but this novel takes that idea one step further by reopening a centuries-old mystery instead. There are no living suspects to interview, no crime scene to investigate, and the alleged criminal has long been dead. The only resources Inspector Alan Grant has are historical records, and that’s precisely the novel’s central premise. The Daughter of Time reminds readers that history isn’t nearly as objective as it often appears. Rather than simply asking what happened, it challenges us to consider who gets to write history, whose version survives, and what narrative is ultimately passed down to future generations.
If you like the neo-noir detective series Bosch, you’ll appreciate its old-school hard-boiled roots in The Maltese Falcon. Private detective Sam Spade’s latest case begins when a woman calling herself Miss Wonderly hires him to follow a man she claims has run off with her sister. Before long, Spade’s partner is murdered, the man they were tailing is found dead, and the police begin treating Spade as a prime suspect. As more strangers enter the picture—including the smooth-talking Joel Cairo and the enigmatic Casper Gutman—Spade discovers they’re all searching for the legendary Maltese Falcon, a priceless artifact with a long and mysterious history.
Unlike Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, who investigate primarily through facts and deduction, Sam Spade relies on instinct. Much like the modern-day Detective Bosch, he has a knack for reading. He was one of the earliest detectives to be portrayed not as an untouchable hero, but as someone cynical and disillusioned by a world consumed by greed and self-interest. For grounded readers, The Maltese Falcon functions as much as** a commentary on human nature as it does a detective story**. Even the police force isn’t portrayed as entirely innocent, making The Maltese Falcon a perfect read for those who enjoy a classic mystery but aren’t easily swept up in the glorification of detectives.
The Maltese Falcon ](/tag/movie/the-maltese-falcon-1941/)
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San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.