Crime Novel Suggestions

[Zorba]

Im not usually into crime fiction because they are poorly written but I've just read dostovasky works and I'm in awe Are there any other authors who write crime novels as good as dostovasky ?

[Zenodotus_the_Ephesian]

Well, as Raymond Chandler notoriously wrote " Other things being equal, which they never are, a more powerful theme will provoke a more powerful performance. Yet some very dull books have been written about God, and some very fine ones about how to make a living and stay fairly honest." Call me a Philistine, but since I am rather easily bored with having drummed into my head that blessed are the poor in spirit, I am not and never expect to become a Dostoyevsky fan. On the other hand I can safely recommend Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Genre is genre is genre, but a good crime story, to be effective still needs to be a fairly good comedy of manners, or picture of social mores, or exploration of the soft underbelly of society. You will find that most of the classics or modern classics still manage somehow to do that. For the mores and the manners I would probably recommend Dorothy Sayers (starting with Gaudy Night, and, maybe, because of the advertising agency background, Murder must advertise), maybe even Agatha Christie at her good moments (forget the story, think of the description of social class); and (for the mores part) definitely Georges Simenon, starting with Queue de Brumes. For the soft underbelly, apart from Hammett and Chandler, I would suggest Ian Rankin (probably up to and including Exit Music) and most of the modern Nordic crime writers, dealing with the dark undercurrents beneath the placidity, the complacency, the hypocricy, and the paternalism of the nordic ideal of a well ordered, well mannered, mildly and desinterestedly caring social order (beware: nordic noir can be even more depressing than Dostoyevsky, because it is actually, and political correctness be damned, far less constructed and far more realistic). I should also mention, although spy novels are strictly speaking a different genre, John Le Carré.