Crime novels read? Not a whole lot.

Crime fiction is not one of my favorite genres, so I rarely read it. I like a few things, but very few. Here is a list I found via Ruminations of 50 Best Crime Novels. The list follows, with the ones I have read bolded. I am just doing the exercise and posting the list. Who knows? I may discover something new to read. So, to my two readers. Anyone out there read crime fiction? Any recommendations on what to read or avoid? Feel free to comment.

So, the list then (with any comments of mine added)

GK Chesterton - The Complete Father Brown (1986)
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) (I have read all the Sherlock Holmes works by Conan Doyle, and a good number of the creative extensions).
Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
Ed McBain - King’s Ransom (2003)
Kyril Bonfiglioli - The Mortdecai Trilogy (1991)
James Ellroy - The Black Dahlia (1987)
Janwillem van der Wetering - Outsider in Amsterdam (1975)
Carl Hiaasen - Double Whammy (1987)
Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon (1930) (I have read some of his short fiction)
Dan Kavanagh - The Duffy Omnibus (1991)
Margery Allingham - The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)
Charles Dickens - Bleak House (1852-3) (I have read Dickens, which I detest now. Reason I detest it is I had to teach Great Expectations to 9th graders. It was their required novel. Not Dickens's best, and certainly not very interesting to kids that age no matter what the curriculum "experts" say. The experience basically soured me on Dickens.)
Georges Simenon - The Yellow Dog (1931)
Agatha Christie - Peril at End House (1932) (I have not read this one, but I have read a couple other Poirot mysteries. My mother loves Agatha Christie, so her liking it led me to explore the works. I have read The ABC Murders and Murder on the Orient Express. However, I don't like Miss Marple).
Wilkie Collins - The Moonstone (1868)
Jonathan Latimer - The Fifth Grave (1941)
Ruth Rendell - The Water’s Lovely (2006)
Ngaio Marsh - Vintage Murder (1937)
Benjamin Black (a.k.a. John Banville!) - Christine Falls (2006)
John Dickson Carr - The Hollow Man (1935)
Michael Innes - The Weight of the Evidence (1943)
Raymond Chandler - Farewell, My Lovely (1940) (Again, an author I have read their short fiction)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt - The Pledge (1958)
Michael Gilbert - Even Murderers Take Holidays and other Mysteries (2007)
Donald Westlake - What’s So Funny? (2007)
Colin Bateman - Wild About Harry (2001)
Frances Fyfield - The Art of Drowning (2006)
Reginald Hill - Good Morning Midnight (2004) (Never read it. One of the librarians when I was in library school was a big fan of this author, which is why the name sticks with me.)
Andrea Camilleri - The Patience of the Spider (2007)
Henning Mankell - Sidetracked (1999)
Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
James Lee Burke - Black Cherry Blues (1989)
Jim Thompson - The Getaway (1959)
Walter Mosley - Devil in a Blue Dress (1991)
Denise Mina - Garnethill (1999)
Steig Larsson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)
Ronald Knox - The Viaduct Murder (1925)
EC Bentley - Trent’s Last Case (1913)
Lawrence Block - All the Flowers Are Dying (2005)
Edmund Crispin - Holy Disorders (1945)
William McIlvanney - Laidlaw (1977)
George V Higgins - The Rat on Fire (1981)
Dorothy L Sayers - Five Red Herrings (1931)
Anthony Boucher - The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars (1940) (I know him better from his scifi short fiction, which I have read).
Mickey Spillane - I, the Jury (1947) (I love Spillane: his Mike Hammer is hard, tough, and no nonsense).
James Grady - Six Days of the Condor (1974)
George Pelecanos - The Big Blowdown (1996)
Robert Crais - The Watchman (2007)
John Lawton - Black Out (1995)
Elmore Leonard - Maximum Bob (1991)

Yea, I know: three is pretty dismal. Oh well, maybe I will try something new soon.