A Century of Crime

Well, I was going to wait to start any major new reading projects until I finished at least one of either the Classics Club or the Century of Women project, but, in my usual style, I find myself unable to wait. Because that’s how I roll. Also, I note how far I still have to go on those projects – it will likely be years before I finish either.

I came up with this idea when I was reorganizing and updating my Century of Women project. I was thinking about how much classic/vintage crime I read, and I thought how much fun it would be to do a Century of Crime project, starting in 1920, which is basically the beginning of the golden age of detective fiction, through 2020.

This project is going to have a few “rules.” Unlike the Century of Women project, male authors are definitely going to part of it. In addition, I am only going to allow one book per series (and not necessarily the first book); and no more than 3 books by the same author (from different series). Anything that is broadly encompassed under the crime, mystery, espionage, thriller or suspense categories is fine. I want to try to avoid re-reads, but given that I have read all of Agatha Christie’s mysteries and a survey of a century of crime fiction would be glaringly incomplete without at least one of her novels, I’m not going to make that a hard and fast rule.