Sarah Waters’s brilliant evocation of the Victorian world is full of mirrors and tricks, featuring two female leads whose lives are linked inextricably in ways which they could never imagine.  Susan has grown up in a den of thieves, the ‘fingersmiths’ of the title, raised by fearsome Mrs Sucksy. She’s drawn into a plot to marry the mysterious Gentleman to a wealthy heiress, Maud, by posing as her maid. But she soon realises her feelings for Maud are not what they should be – and that she is just as much a pawn as the other girl.

You should read it: to see how to blend erotica with crime fiction; for the dazzling double-crosses; to see how to use voice and unreliable narration to build breathtaking suspense.

A publishing phenomenon that began the Millennium trilogy; the author, deceased before publication, had a life at least as exciting as any character in a crime novel. Mikael Blomkvist, a tough investigative journalist, is suspended after losing a libel case, when he’s invited to a remote Swedish island by a rich industrialist. He wants to know what happened to his granddaughter, who went missing as a teenager years before. The island was sealed off that day for a festival, so it must be someone in the extended family who killed Harriet, if she is dead. But who? Teaming up with brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander (the girl of the title), Mikael delves into the dark secrets of the family.

You should read it because: it’s a brilliant reworking of the locked room or country house mystery; it has the original ‘strong female lead’; and it unflinchingly examines the nature of violence in crime fiction, especially against women (the original Swedish title was ‘Men who Hate Women’).