New York Times Bestsellers: Ages of Authors

One aspect of literature that fascinates me is the fact that it celebrates accumulated wisdom. Authors often bloom in their middle and senior years. 

I examined the ages at which the authors had their bestsellers. To simplify the process I subtracted birth year from year initially appearing on the bestseller list rather than seeking out birthdate versus list date.

A special award goes to J.R.R. Tolkien who, 34 years after dying at age 81, had the novel The Children of Húrin rise to the number one position on the bestseller list, 115 years after his birth.

Another remarkable story is that of Helen Hooven Santmyer. In the 1910s, she was a suffragette and in the 1920s, an Oxford scholar. For the bulk of her professional life she worked as a librarian in Dayton, Ohio. At age 86, and in failing health, she published her 1200 page epic, "...And the Ladies of the Club." It sold several hundred copies, languishing in obscurity for two years until it got noticed. In 1984 it was selected as a Book of the Month, and rose to the number one position on the New York Times Bestsellers List where it stayed for seven weeks.

Eleven novels reaching the number one spot on the New York Times Adult Fiction Bestseller list between 1960 and 2015 were by authors over the age of 80. Another 38 were by authors between 70 and 79 and 133 novels were by authors between 60 and 69. The average age was 54.1 and the median 54.

On the other extreme, two novels were by authors in their twenties. Rachel Van Dyken with her novel The Bet, owns the position as the youngest.

Martin Hill Ortiz is the author of one novel, A Predatory Mind (2013) from Loose Leaves Publishing. His mystery, Never Kill A Friend, will be available June 15th from Ransom Note Press. The sequel to A Predatory Mind is set to come out later this year.

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The New York Times Adult Fiction Bestselling Novels: 1960 to 2015

I've put together a database to analyze the novels which made it to the number one position on the New York Times Adult Fiction Bestseller list during the period of 1960 through April 2015. I excluded from my analysis the occasional collection of short stories (mostly Stephen King), two inspirational books that ran under 15,000 words, a graphic novel, and a pair of poetry books.

Overview

Since 1960, there have been 598 novels averaging 4.6 weeks at number one. The length of stay has changed greatly over the years. In the 1960s, the average entry stayed in the number one position for 16.1 weeks (four months). In the 2010s, the average stay has been 1.9 weeks.

If you wish to read all of these novels, they total 256,659 pages or 444.2 pages per book.

Novel lengths and word counts.

Word count is the gold standard for determining a novel's length. Page counts vary between printings and are manipulated so that short novels are puffed up and long novels are shortened, the latter to save printing expenses.

I could find actual word counts for 320 of the books in my database. I estimated word counts for an additional 261 using the length of the unabridged audio recording by a process previously described. This provided word count information for 97.2% of the novels and all but two of 487 novels since 1986, the exceptions being: Where is Joe Merchant? by Jimmy Buffett and The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams.

Word counts increased from the 1960s to the 1980s when the short novel disappeared: None of the 70 number one novels in the eighties was under 80,000 words*. The short novel returned in the 1990s and peaked in the 2000s. In the 2010s, so far, the average length has ticked upwards. While historical novels made up many of the lengthy books of the 1980s, in the 2010s it has been the epic fantasy. 

*I could not find or estimate the word count of Who Killed the Robins Family? by Thomas Chastain, 1983 and Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut 1979/1980 both of which were likely under 80,000 words.

The Great Feculence of Logorrhea of the 1980s

In the 1960s and 70s, novels under 100,000 words equaled the percentage of novels over 200,000 words. In the 1980s, the 200K+ novels were three times more common than those with less than 100K. In the 2000s this was reversed, those with less than 100K words were four times more common than those with more than 200K.

 The Bestseller List can be thought of as a vote of popularity (popularity = marketing x appeal). In this sense, presence on the list is less significant than the number of weeks present. Do people want long or short novels? In my above analyses, a novel appears for one week it gets an equal say as another novel which stayed for twenty weeks. I will follow-up with an analysis that weights for numbers of weeks present. 

In the meantime:

James Patterson Versus James Michener with a Surprise Appearance by a Celebrity.

The change in who dominated the bestseller list between the 1960s and the 2010s might best be illustrated by the difference between James Michener, who had the number one best selling novel for 49 weeks in 1960 to 1961, and James Patterson, who has had 49 number one bestsellers between 2001 and 2014.

As noted in a previous post, James Patterson is a serial tree killer (if only someone could invent a detective to hunt him down). He writes short books which he sells as medium-length books. While I have already commented on this phenomenon within the space of my more limited dataset, I now have the information to place his work in the context of all number one bestselling novels from 1960 to April 2015. 

The typical James Patterson number one bestselling novel has 68,565 words and is 383 pages. This averages out to be 178.2 words per page. If you remove Patterson's influence from this analysis, the remaining books average 314.9 words per page. For the unabridged audio versions of the other books, the readers take 2.2 minutes per page. For Patterson's books, a page is read in 1.2 minutes.

In contrast, James Michener wrote excruciatingly long novels. He first appeared in the top spot on the bestseller list in 1960 and had eight more novels in the number one position through 1988. His works averaged 437,463 words and 885 pages. Although his books were massive, they averaged 502.5 words per page. If Michener's Texas had as few words per page as the average Patterson novel, it would have run 3080 pages.

With just 9 novels in the number one position, Michener totaled more words than those in Patterson's 49 novels, 3,937,167 to 3,359,675.

In my database of the 581 novels since 1960 with word counts, James Patterson's novels take 35 of the top 37 spots of fewest words per page, including 11 of the top 12.

Although not known as a fiction author, Glenn Beck slunk into the number three spot with The Christmas Sweater, 43,500 words in 284 pages.

Martin Hill Ortiz is the author of one novel, A Predatory Mind (2013) from Loose Leaves Publishing. His mystery, Never Kill A Friend, will be available June 15th from Ransom Note Press. The sequel to A Predatory Mind is set to come out later this year.

Continued with: A Look at the Authors

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King of the Golden Hill, Part Four

What Questions Can I Answer?

I initially assembled a database of the New York Times Bestseller Adult Fiction List with a modest goal: to look at those novels which had stayed on top at least four weeks, a sort of peek at the blockbusters among the top selling fiction.

Along the way I decided this was unsatisfactory to address some of the questions which were popping up, so I decided to extend my database to include all novels that made it to number one over the period 1960 to 2015. This will allow me to make more comprehensive statements and will also allow me to look at the more recent time period.

I am extending my database now and I am approximately 80% finished. What questions can I answer? Here are some that come to mind.

• To what extent has the bestseller list been dominated by male authors? Has this changed in recent times?
• The short novel all but disappeared in the 1980s. Has it made a comeback? Or is its reemergence limited to just Patterson, Evanovich and Mary Higgins Clark? And if it is three productive writers does that constitute a comeback?
• How long are the novels of a specific genre? Which genres have dominated over the different time periods? I am still pondering how to identify genre for each. Do books that are equal part romance and mystery get counted as both? What should be my list of genres? For example, was Michener's ouevre "historical epic?" Or should his works be in a larger category that include dramatic epics?
• How well is the literary novel surviving? How has its representation in the list changed over time?
• What age were the authors when they made the top of the list? How many were first time authors? How much do veteran bestsellers dominate the list?
• Does anyone puff-up their novels as much as James Patterson? Preview: a well-known name gives him a run for the money.

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King of the Golden Hill: Part Two

Some Motley Observations.

Before going into more detail as to the nature of the books which made it to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List, I thought I'd toss out a few miscellaneous and, hopefully, interesting notes.

If You Want Your Novel to Succeed Include the Word "Gone" in the Title.

On April 16, 2006, Jonathan Kellerman's novel Gone reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller List for Adult Fiction. 

On May 24, 2009, Charlaine Harris scored the same feat for Dead and Gone.

Two weeks later, Lee Child had the number one novel with Gone Tomorrow.

Gone by Mo Hayder won the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn began a multi-week reign at the number one position on the NYT list on December 30, 2012 and returning to the number one spot in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Four separate years is a feat matched only by The Da Vinci Code.

Gone by James Patterson became the number one bestseller on October 20, 2013.

James Patterson Has Page Count Envy. 

James Patterson is a machine for writing bestsellers. I don't fault him for that: he knows how to give people what they want. However, I am annoyed by the way he writes short novels which are printed out to appear to be long books. From 2005 to 2008 he had these six entries which stayed at least four weeks in the number one position on the bestsellers list*.

Year, Title, Page count, Word count
2005 Honeymoon, 393 pages, 65572 words
2005 4th of July, 392 pages, 68000 words
2005 Lifeguard, 394 pages, 71634 words
2005-06 Mary, Mary, 392 pages, 72436 words
2006 Judge and Jury, 421 pages, 74288 words
2008 Double Cross, 2008, 389 pages, 70753 words
*He had 16 total number one books during this period.

These average out to be 397 pages and 70447 words, or 177.4 words per page. 

In contrast, the seven other novels which stayed for four weeks on the number one list during this period averaged 292.2 words per page. All of the equivalent entries on the lists from 1960 through 2009 averaged 346.7 words per page - although many of these entries are skewed at the other end. Those novels with 800 plus pages tried to limit their page count with an average of 405.3 words per page. 

This phenomenon is not limited to Patterson, but out of the 197 books included in my analyses he has 7 out of the top 9 positions for fewest words per page.

James Patterson versus John Grisham versus Dan Brown.

From the year 2000 to 2015, James Patterson's novels totaled 93 weeks as the number one bestseller on the NYT Adult Fiction list. Dan Brown's novels have stayed 76 weeks on top while, since 2000, Grisham's works have spent 62 weeks in first place.

Patterson performed his feat of domination with a remarkable 49 novels which averaged 1.9 weeks in the number one position. Only one of his novels stayed in the number one position for five weeks. Grisham had 16 novels on top with five of his novels staying for  five or more weeks. Brown had just three bestsellers, each on top for at least seven weeks led by The Da Vinci Code which totaled 59 weeks.

Continued with It's Crowded Getting to the Top.

Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.
 
A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook editions through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game,  features Nikola Tesla as detective.


  

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The Case of the Middle-Aged Author - Youth's Revenge

Cold Youth Soup.

In a previous post regarding the list of the Top 100 Mystery Novels assembled by the British Crime Writers' Association (CWA, 1990), I examined the ages of the authors when they wrote their celebrated works. In that analysis, I emphasized the success of middle-aged authors. The average age was 44 and, in deference to the elderly, the extreme age was 69. Furthermore, some of these authors continued to write thrilling mysteries through their eighties and into their nineties.

That previous post: The Case of the Middle-Aged Authors

However, to quote someone who must have been very confused when they said it, youth must be served and they are a dish best served cold. Youth are vichyssoise.

Another way to look at the numbers is to examine the median age (the midpoint between high and low) and the mode (the most frequent occurrence). These can tell you something average won't tell you, something which that number is hiding. While the average of 44 is bumped up by those twenty years older, those authors who are in their thirties can not have their influence lowered by authors in their teens and preteens. In other words, the peak production of these authors lives as measured by having an entry on the CWA list ranges from 23 to 69, not over the whole of their lives.

Let's add in the Mystery Writers of America (1995) and Mystery Writers of Japan (1985 and 2012) lists and see how the ages string out.

Ages:     Mean     Median    Mode   Range
CWA       43.5       42       46    23-69
MWA       43.0       40       34    25-79
MWJ '85   40.8       40       36    25-70
MWJ '12   41.5       40       36    23-60

Here the thirties fair better. The ages can be represented graphically.

The individual bars represent the number of authors who fit in the specified age range (e.g. 30s). In each case, twenties plus thirties have more authors than do the forties.

The MWJ lists are skewed by the fact that they loved the early Ellery Queen (5 entries from their twenties, 9 overall). Perhaps the takeaway message is good news: you can succeed old or young.

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An Analysis of the MWA Top 100 Mystery Novel List

Now, with several analyses of the CWA list complete, along with the combination of the CWA and MWA lists, let's pay some more attention to the 1995 MWA list and contrast the two. Again, these analyses exclude the short story compilations and the translated works to offer a direct comparison between the novels. This left 92 of the 101 MWA selections.

As already mentioned, the Mystery Writers of America list shared 45 selections with that of the CWA. This left 56 unique selections for the MWA (with a tie for the 100th spot).

Dorothy Sayers led with five selections while Chandler, Hammet and le Carré each had four. Josephine Tey had three, and so did Westlake and Graham Greene. Fifty-two authors had single entries. There was a total of 67 authors.

Although several authors were born in other countries (e.g. Joseph Conrad), the bulk of their writing careers could be clearly placed in either the United States or Britain for all of the authors recognized. While the CWA list chose British authors over Americans (52 to 12 authors) and British works (78 to 19 books), the American MWA list did the opposite with 39 American authors accounting for 50 novels and 28 British authors accounting for 42.

Female authors were slighted in both lists. For the MWA list, 16 females authored 24 of the novels, 51 males authored 68.

                               MWA (1995)  CWA (1990)

British female authors (books)    8 (16)    15 (28)
British male authors (books)     20 (26)    37 (50)
American female authors (books)   8 (8)      2 (3)
American male authors (books)    31 (42)    10 (16)

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The Combined Ranking of the CWA and MWA lists: the rest of the selections.

In deference to those books and authors who did not make the top 100 combined list cut, here is the remainder of the list in order. All of these appeared on just one list. Ranking was straightforward. If you were 65th on only one list you were tied with 65th book on the other list (if it also placed on one list) and you were one place ahead of a similar situation for the 66th selections.

After the tie for 100th:
102 Paula Gosling: A Running Duck (1978)
103 W. Somerset Maugham: Ashenden (1928) (short story collection)
103 Lionel Davidson: The Rose of Tibet (1962)
103 Nicholas Meyer: The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1974)
106 P. D. James: Innocent Blood (1980)
106 Rex Stout: The Doorbell Rang (1965)
108 Elmore Leonard: Stick (1983)
109 John le Carré: The Little Drummer Girl (1983)
109 Michael Innes: Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
111 Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon: A Bullet in the Ballet (1937)
111 Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
113 Reginald Hill: Dead Heads (1983)
114 John Grisham: A Time to Kill (1989)
114 Anthony Price: The Labyrinth Makers (1974)
116 Adam Hall: The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
117 W. R. Burnett: Little Caesar (1929)
118 Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades (1984)
118 George V. Higgins: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972)
120 Desmond Bagley: Running Blind (1970)
120 Dorothy L. Sayers: Clouds of Witness (1927)
122 Dick Francis: Twice Shy (1981)
123 Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
124 Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift (1987)
125 Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
126 Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975)
127 P. D. James: Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
127 Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End (1945)
129 Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October (1984)
130 Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (1945)
131 Ross Thomas: Chinaman's Chance (1978)
131 Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
133 John Fowles: The Collector (1963)
133 Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907)
135 John D. MacDonald: The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1975)
135 J. J. Marric: Gideon's Day (1955)
137 Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (1976)
138 Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
139 Julian Symons: The Colour of Murder (1957)
139 Josephine Tey: Brat Farrar
141 Ross Macdonald: The Chill (1963)
141 John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
143 Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
144 Joseph Wambaugh: The Choirboys (1975)
145 Donald E. Westlake: God Save the Mark (1967)
146 Craig Rice: Home Sweet Homicide (1944)
146 Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca (1980)
148 Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
149 H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
149 Richard Condon: Prizzi's Honor (1982)
151 James McClure: The Steam Pig (1974)
152 Simon Brett: What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
153 Gavin Lyall: Shooting Script (1966)
154 Jack Finney: Time and Again (1970)
155 Ira Levin: Rosemary's Baby (1967)
155 Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1906)

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A Top 100 List Combining the Rankings of the CWA and MWA Lists

A Combined Top 100 of the CWA and MWA Lists.

CWA 1990 Lists: (in ranked order) (by author)
MWA 1995 (in ranked order) (by author)

Some 156 works were presented between the CWA and MWA lists. Only 45 books appeared on both lists with 56 unique entries for the Americans and 55 unique entries for the Brits.

In order to create a combined ranking, for those books that appeared on both lists, their ranks were summed and halved. (For example, The Maltese Falcon ranked 10th and 2nd, average 6, which is the fourth best overall.) Two entries on the MWA list appeared too late to be counted on the CWA list and this was not penalized. They were treated as though both lists gave them their MWA ranking (which the CWA surely would have done, given the opportunity.)

For those that appeared on only one list, I began with the assumption that the books would have been acknowledged on the complementary list if the list had been extended to the Top 154 (156 minus the two which appeared late). The corresponding rank of 128 (midpoint between 101 and 154) was added to those which appeared on only one list and the sum was halved. Then the final figures were ranked, 1 to 156.

In the practical application of this method of combining the lists, those books which were on only one list and ranked 63rd or worse did not make the top 100 while all those ranked 62nd or below on just one list or else appeared on both lists, did make the cut.

The cut-off line appropriately came at Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edward Drood, the only novel on the list with "mystery" in its name. Being an uncompleted work, it seems symbolically fitting, this list also is never finished.

Paula Gosling's The Running Duck, which suffered the indignity of not one but two dreadful film adaptations (Stallone's Cobra and Cindy Crawford's Fair Game (1995)—if you can imagine they came from the same novel), missed the cut by one.

Combined list of CWA and MWA, by rank.

  1 Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
  2 John le Carré: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
  3 Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
  4 Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
  5 Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
  5 Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
  7 Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
  8 Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes* (1892-1927)
  9 Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (1935)
10 Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery & Imagination (1852)
11 Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely (1940)
11 Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
13 Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (1939)
14 Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
15 Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
16 Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
17 John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
18 James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
19 Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1934)
20 Len Deighton: The IPCRESS File (1962)
21 Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (1987)
22 Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
23 John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
24 E. C. Bentley: Trent's Last Case (1913)
25 Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
26 Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
27 John Grisham: The Firm (1991)
28 Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
29 Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
30 Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (1946)
31 Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison (1930)
32 Raymond Chandler: The Lady in the Lake (1943)
33 Ian Fleming: From Russia, with Love (1957)
34 Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
35 Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
35 Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
37 Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
38 Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
38 Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1989)
40 Ruth Rendell: A Judgement in Stone (1977)
41 Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
42 John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man [aka The Three Coffins] (1935)
43 Robert Traver: Anatomy of a Murder (1958)
44 Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
45 Mario Puzo: The Godfather (1969)
46 Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased (1950)
46 Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
46 Thomas Harris: The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
49 Agatha Christie: The Witness for the Prosecution (1948)
50 Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866)
51 Ken Follett: Eye of the Needle (1978)
52  Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
52 John Mortimer: Rumpole of the Bailey (1978) (short story collection)
52 Margaret Millar: Beast in View (1955)
55 Thomas Harris: Red Dragon (1981)
56 Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew (1982)
57 Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death (1970)
58 Gregory Mcdonald: Fletch (1974)
58 Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
60 Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man (1934)
61 Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
62 James M. Cain: Double Indemnity (1943)
63 Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)
63 Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
65 Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)
66 Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
67 Donald E. Westlake: The Hot Rock (1970)
68 Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase (1908)
69 Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
69 Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
71 Ellis Peters: The Leper of Saint Giles (1981)
72 Vera Caspary: Laura (1942)
72 Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
74 Mickey Spillane: I, the Jury (1947)
75 Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman (1968)
76 Donald E. Westlake: Bank Shot (1972)
77 Jim Thompson: The Killer Inside Me (1952)
77 Ruth Rendell: A Demon in My View (1976)
78 Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
80 John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet (1951)
81 Mary Higgins Clark: Where Are the Children? (1975)
82 Sue Grafton: "A" is for Alibi (1982)
83 Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (1949)
83 P. D. James: A Taste for Death (1986)
83 Lawrence Sanders: The First Deadly Sin (1973)
86 Truman Capote: In Cold Blood (1966)
86 Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
88 Mary Stewart: My Brother Michael (1960)
89 Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
89 Susan Moody: Penny Black (1984)
89  Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (1987)
92  G. K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911)
93  John le Carré: Smiley's People (1979)
93  Len Deighton: Game, Set & Match (1984-1986)
95  Dick Francis: The Danger (1983)
96  P. D. James: Devices and Desires (1989)
96  Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
98  Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana (1958)
98  Reginald Hill: Underworld (1988)
100 Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)
100 Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)


Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.
 
A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook editions through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game,  features Nikola Tesla as detective.


 

Continue reading →

A Combination of the British and American Lists, by author

Combining the CWA and MWA Lists.

CWA 1990 Lists: (in ranked order) (by author)
MWA 1995 (in ranked order) (by author)

Before comparing the MWA and CWA lists, here is a combined list by author. As may be obvious, those with two rankings are on both lists. Those with one ranking are on one list.

Ranking, without brackets: CWA. [In brackets, MWA]

26    Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
24,[17] Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
34,[33] E. C. Bentley: Trent's Last Case (1913)
41    Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
16    Francis Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
77    Desmond Bagley: Running Blind (1970)
81    Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
70    Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon: A Bullet in the Ballet (1937)
84    Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (1945)
98    Simon Brett: What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
20,[22]    John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
91    John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
[75]    W. R. Burnett: Little Caesar (1929)
30,[14]    James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
[34]    James M. Cain: Double Indemnity (1943)
[54]    Truman Capote: In Cold Blood (1966)
40,[96] John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man [aka The Three Coffins] (1935)
50    John Dickson Carr: The Devil in Velvet (1951) 
[44]    Vera Caspary: Laura (1942)
76    Sarah Caudwell: The Shortest Way to Hades (1984)
2,[8]    Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
7,[21]    Raymond Chandler: Farewell My Lovely (1940)
15,[13]  Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
47,[59]  Raymond Chandler: The Lady in the Lake (1943)
[57]    G. K. Chesterton: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911)
92    Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
5,[12]  Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
19,[10]  Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (1939)
83    Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End (1945)
[19]  Agatha Christie: The Witness for the Prosecution (1948)
[41]  Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
[84]  Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October (1984)
8,[7]  Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
28,[32] Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
21,[1]* Arthur Conan Doyle: The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories (1892-1927)
32    Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
79    Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
[97] Richard Condon: Prizzi's Honor (1982)
[86] Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907)
25,[72] Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (1946)
81,[35] Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
65    Lionel Davidson: The Rose of Tibet (1962)
88    Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (1976)
9,[43] Len Deighton: The IPCRESS File (1962)
58    Len Deighton: Game, Set & Match (1984-1986).
36    Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)
[62] Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
[24]  Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866)
6,[9] Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
13,[23] Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
[99]  Jack Finney: Time and Again (1970)
35,[78] Ian Fleming: From Russia, with Love (1957)
95    Ken Follett: The Key to Rebecca (1980)
[25]  Ken Follett: Eye of the Needle (1978)
17,[20] Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
86  John Fowles: The Collector (1963)
59  Dick Francis: The Danger (1983)
78  Dick Francis: Twice Shy (1981)
64,[80] Michael Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased (1950)
63    Paula Gosling: A Running Duck (1978)
[51] Sue Grafton: "A" is for Alibi (1982)
80    Caroline Graham: The Killings at Badger's Drift (1987)
46,[69] Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
72,[50] Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
[61]  Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana (1958)
[42] John Grisham: The Firm (1991)
[73]  John Grisham: A Time to Kill (1989)
74   Adam Hall: The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
10,[2]   Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
31,[88] Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
94,[39] Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
[31]      Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man (1934)
85   Cyril Hare: Tragedy at Law (1942)
[16] Thomas Harris: The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
[27] Thomas Harris: Red Dragon (1981)
[76] George V. Higgins: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972)
54   Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed (1975)
[50]  Mary Higgins Clark: Where Are the Children? (1975)
38     Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
45,[71] Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
61  Reginald Hill: Underworld (1988)
71  Reginald Hill: Dead Heads (1983)
69,[53] Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1989)
[37]  Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)
14,[55] Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
Francis Iles: See Anthony Berkeley.
52  Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (1949)
68  Michael Innes: Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)
52  P. D. James: A Taste for Death (1986)
60  P. D. James: Devices and Desires (1989)
66  P. D. James: Innocent Blood (1980)
[83] P. D. James: Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
97  H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
3,[6] John le Carré: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
33,[30] John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
[58] John le Carré: Smiley's People (1979)
[68] John le Carré: The Little Drummer Girl (1983)
[60] Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
[67] Elmore Leonard: Stick (1983)
44    Ira Levin: A Kiss Before Dying (1953)
[100]  Ira Levin: Rosemary's Baby (1967)
27    Peter Lovesey: The False Inspector Dew (1982)
56    Peter Lovesey: Bertie and the Tin Man (1987)
93,[63] Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death (1970)
99    Gavin Lyall: Shooting Script (1966)
[64]  W. Somerset Maugham: Ashenden (1928) (short story collection)
[87]  John D. MacDonald: The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1975)
[91]  Ross Macdonald: The Chill (1963)
89    Alistair MacLean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
87    J. J. Marric: Gideon's Day (1955)
36    Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
96    Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
[98] James McClure: The Steam Pig (1974)
[29]  Gregory Mcdonald: Fletch (1974)
[65]  Nicholas Meyer: The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1974)
75,[79] Margaret Millar: Beast in View (1955)
56    Susan Moody: Penny Black (1984)
[26]  John Mortimer: Rumpole of the Bailey (1978) (short story collection)
[92]  Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
[82]  Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975)
42,[100] Ellis Peters: A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
42  Ellis Peters: The Leper of Saint Giles (1981)
23,[3] Edgar Allan Poe: Tales of Mystery & Imagination (1852)
73  Anthony Price: The Labyrinth Makers (1974)
[15]    Mario Puzo: The Godfather (1969)
39,[89] Ruth Rendell: A Judgement in Stone (1977)
49    Ruth Rendell: A Demon in My View (1976)
29    Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
50    Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
[95]  Craig Rice: Home Sweet Homicide (1944)
[40]  Mary Roberts Rinehart: The Circular Staircase (1908)
[52]  Lawrence Sanders: The First Deadly Sin (1973)
4,[18] Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (1935)
18,[28] Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors (1934)
22,[56] Dorothy L. Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
67,[36] Dorothy L. Sayers: Strong Poison (1930)
[77] Dorothy L. Sayers: Clouds of Witness (1927)
[46]  Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman (1968)
[45]  Mickey Spillane: I, the Jury (1947)
[70]  Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
[66]  Rex Stout: The Doorbell Rang (1965)
90    Julian Symons: The Colour of Murder (1957)
55    Mary Stewart: My Brother Michael (1960)
62    Mary Stewart: Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)
1,[4] Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
11,[81] Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair (1948)
[90] Josephine Tey: Brat Farrar
[85]  Ross Thomas: Chinaman's Chance (1978)
[49]  Jim Thompson: The Killer Inside Me (1952)
[11]  Robert Traver: Anatomy of a Murder (1958)
48,[5] Scott Turow: Presumed Innocent (1987)
Barbara Vine: See Ruth Rendell
100    Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1906)
[93]    Joseph Wambaugh: The Choirboys (1975)
12,[74] Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
[38] Donald E. Westlake: The Hot Rock (1970)
[47] Donald E. Westlake: Bank Shot (1972)
[94] Donald E. Westlake: God Save the Mark (1967)

*While the CWA references The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, the MWA refers to The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

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Amateurs, Professionals, Villains and Victims.

 CWA 1990 Lists: (in ranked order) (by author)

The Protagonists of the 1990 CWA List of the Top 100 Mystery Novels.

It is facile to think of crime fiction as centering around the detective, whether it is an amateur caught up in circumstances, or a hard-drinking gumshoe or a world-weary law enforcement official. While many of the novels on the CWA list fit this description, others focused on the perpetrators or the victims, and occasionally on the families of the victims. Furthermore, spy novels and war adventures are also represented. 

To some extent, my determination of who was the central protagonist was arbitrary. In Christie's And Then There Were None, the victims share time with the unknown killer, while the detectives are footnotes. Nevertheless, a choice was made, in the above case, the central characters were deemed victims. Accepting this imprecision, the entries were categorized as follows.

If a protagonist assumes the role of the detective but does not belong to a profession which commonly investigates crimes, I am placing these entries in the category of amateur sleuths. These can be family members, bystanders, and individuals of most any job description. These appear in stand-alone novels or else those in series where the principal characters seems fated to live out their lives happening upon one crime scene after another. Brother Cadfael is a prime example of the latter. If you want to live to a ripe old age, stay away from Father Brown and Jessica Fletcher. Amateur sleuths were the most common of the main characters with 24 entries.

Law enforcement officials including police investigators, FBI, sheriffs and constables place 15 entries on the CWA list. Private eyes (in British parlance, public eyes, e.g. Samuel Spade) and that rare breed of freelance consulting detectives (Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Whimsey and Hercule Poirot) appear as the main protagonist in 18 novels. Lawyers, barristers, solicitors and prosecutors, those who are involved in the judicial branch of the criminal justice system are the central figures in 7 selections.

The perpetrators are front and center in 16 novels. The victims and their families are the focus of four.

Spies, occasionally involved in traditional mysteries, occasionally in professional intrigue, account for 10 selections. Two of the novels were primarily military adventures.

CWA list by category.

Amateur sleuths  24

Law enforcement officials  15 

Private eyes, freelance  18

Legal professionals    7

The perpetrator(s)  16

The victim(s)    4

Spies and espionage     10

Military adventures        2

Up next, comparing the Mystery Writers of America selections to those of the Crime Writers' Association.

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The CWA List: How Old Were The Authors?

Further analysis of the CWA List. 

CWA 1990 Lists: (in ranked order) (by author)

The Case of the Middle-Aged Authors

You have yet to write that great mystery novel? If so, you may be comforted by the range of ages of the authors when they put out their magnum opuses. From the CWA list, the authors averaged 43.5 years of age* when they wrote the novels which made the list. The youngest was Ira Levin who struck pay dirt with A Kiss Before Dying at age 23**. This novel with the victim's sister and a DJ playing detective also appears prominently on the MWJ lists. At the other extreme, P.D. James scored with Devices and Desires at age 69. The Leper at St. Giles by Ellis Peters, came in a close second at the age of 68. Neither of these can beat the entry by Rex Stout (MWA list). His anti-Hoover novel, The Doorbell Rang, was published when he was 79.

Placing a book on the list may be a measure of the apex of these writers' careers, but their productive writing lives often extended for many years. P.D. James continued to publish until she was 91, Elmore Leonard 87 (with the well-received, Raylan), and Michael Gilbert 86. Raymond Chandler published his first novel, The Big Sleep, number 2 on the CWA list, when he was 50.

*Note. To calculate all but the extreme ages, I subtracted the year of birth from the year of publication rather than researching the date of each.

**In what may be the most varied career for an author, Ira Levin wrote six more novels including Rosemary's Baby (horror), The Stepford Wives (science fiction) and The Boys from Brazil (thriller), jumping from genre to genre with incredible success. He focused much of his time on plays, authoring, among others, No Time for Sergeants and Deathtrap.

Up next: Who were the protagonists of the mysteries?

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An Analysis of the Crime Writers' Association List (British, 1990)

The CWA List. 

CWA 1990 Lists: (in ranked order) (by author)

When They Were Written or: These Are The Good Old Days.

Do novels need time to age in our memories in order to be accepted as great? Not necessarily. For the Crime Writers' Association 1990 list, the decade of the eighties was the best represented with 22 entries (counting Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match as one). The seventies held out for 12 entries. In contrast, the combined total before 1930 was 12, 13 if you include the acknowledgement of Conan Doyle's entire Sherlock Holmes short stories.

Although the Golden Age of Mysteries is said to have begun in the twenties, this decade had three. In contrast, the 1930s took off with 18 entries. The fifties also had eighteen novels acknowledged. The forties had 8 and the sixties, the most ephemeral and groovy of decades, had only 8 entries.

Crime Writers' Association by Decade.

<1920.  9
1920s.   4
1930s. 18
1940s.   8
1950s. 18
1960s.   7
1970s. 12
1980s. 22

The CWA List: The War Between Men and Women and Brits versus Yanks.

The 97 mystery novel entries were written by 64 authors with one collaboration between a man and a woman. Three authors were represented with four books: Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine. Four authors had three novels: Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Dashiell Hammett and Peter Lovesey. Forty-one authors had single entries. 

With several female authors so prominent in the history of mystery writing, it surprised me that only 17 authors of these books were female while 47 were male. The 17 female authors accounted for 31 books and the 47 males, 67. 

Although there were several authors born in other countries, there were no ambiguities regarding where they lived during the productive writing careers. All of the authors were either from some part of the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) or were from the United States. The CWA favored Brits over Americans by a score of 52 to 12 authors and by a score of 78 to 19 when counting the books written by these authors. Other English-speaking countries accounted for none of the entries. Two of the female authors were American, 15 were British. Ten of the male authors were American and 37, British.

Next up: the subjects of their mysteries.

Links to the other lists.

Mystery Writers of America (1995) (in ranked order) (by author)
Mystery Writers of Japan (1985) (in ranked order) (by author)
Mystery Writers of Japan (2012) (in ranked order) (by author)

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An Analysis of the Lists of the Best Mystery Novels

A History of Mystery: Top Mystery Novel Lists. 

In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association (CWA), based in England, presented a list of the top 100 crime novels of all time. In 1995, the Mystery Writers' of America (MWA) undertook a similar task, compiling their own list of the top 100 mystery novels. Companion guides were published for both the CWA and MWA of these lists with a synopsis and essays.

Both of these venerable organizations were beaten to the punch by Shukan Bunshun magazine of Japan which, with the help of the Mystery Writers of Japan (MWJ), published a list of the top 100 all-time best Western mysteries in 1985 which they followed up with in 2012. At the same time they also included separate surveys of the best Japanese mysteries.

Although today, everyone makes and posts lists, these represent historical documents, illuminating the mind-set of the selectors and providing insights into what was considered the best of mystery writing. 

I am going to make a series of posts which analyze these lists to see what they say about the worldwide impact of the mystery genre and its most recognized authors and works. I have no intention of critiquing the lists for which authors are included and which are neglected.

I believe the following lists represent the first time they have been sorted by author.

CWA 1990 (in ranked order) (by author)
MWA 1995 (in ranked order) (by author)
MWJ 1985 (in ranked order) (by author)
MWJ 2012 (in ranked order) (by author)

Comparisons and Exclusions

First, although the compilations stressed novels, these rules were broken. The British list includes Conan Doyle's The Collected Sherlock Holmes Short Stories and Poe's Tales of Mystery & Imagination. The British list also includes Deighton's trilogy, Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match, as a single entry. 

The American list includes a short story/novel compilation with The Complete Sherlock Holmes, a novel, short story, and poem compilation in Tales of Mystery & Imagination, and short story collections in Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey, Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, Chesterton's The Innocence of Father Brown, and Maugham's Ashenden. 

The Japanese list includes individual short stories, short story collections and the Millennium trilogy by Larsson (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc.) as single entries.

To compare lists, I have made the following choices. First, short stories and collections will not be considered. It is likely that many more collections would have been chosen if this were part of the selection criteria up front. 

Secondly, I have excluded works translated to English. These lists leaned so heavily on English-first works, that it is clearly the mission of the selectors. For example, I believe it unlikely that the CWA would exclude Crime and Punishment if they were compiling the best mysteries worldwide. Indeed, the CWA included only one novel originally written in a foreign language (Eco's The Name of the Rose). The MWA included three. The MWJ, whose goal was noted as Western mysteries, included six translated to English language novels in their 1985 list and eight (counting Larsson's Millennium series as one entry) in 2012.


With these minimal exclusion criteria, the CWA has 97 novels, the MWA has 92. The 1985 and 2012 iterations of MWJ list have 85.

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