What are the best crime thriller books of all time? To answer that question and compile our list of recommendations, we must start at the beginning. The father of the modern crime thriller, Edgar Allan Poe, authored the short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1841. In the story, Poe introduced many elements that would become hallmarks of crime fiction, like the brilliant detective, the clueless police, and the use of logical reasoning to crack the case. His main character, C. Auguste Dupin, paved the way for later famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie. Two centuries later, the modern crime thriller genre – inclusive of detective fiction, noir, FBI thrillers, serial killer fiction, heist thrillers, police procedurals and many other flavors – continues to burn brightly. While classics from the genre’s old guard continues to sustain popularity, relative newcomers like Gillian Flynn, Mary Maddox, Michael Pronko and Lisa Jewell are contemporary masters. Likewise, some of the masters have broken out of their respective genres, with horror legend Stephen King cranking out three police procedurals (with a decidedly paranormal twist), and historical fiction master Robert Harris turning in an electrifying …