Curated and verified by British TV Hub · Checked August 2026 · 10 minute read
Several of the shows already covered on this site started life as novels. Here's where to go if you'd rather read the mystery first — or if you've finished the show and want more.
The best-selling novelist of all time, whose two most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, have been adapted for television more times than almost any other literary characters.
Read our guide to Best British Cozy Mysteries →Pen name of Marion Chesney (1936–2019), who created two of cozy fiction's most beloved series, Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth, both continued since her death under the M.C. Beaton name by R.W. Green.
Creator of DCI Vera Stanhope and the Shetland series, both adapted into long-running, widely loved British crime dramas grounded in real, atmospheric places.
Read our complete Vera guide →TV presenter turned novelist whose Thursday Murder Club series — four retirees in a retirement village solving cold cases — became a publishing phenomenon and a Netflix film.
A British-born, award-winning novelist best known for two long-running historical mystery series: Her Royal Spyness, following a penniless minor royal in 1930s London, and the Molly Murphy Mysteries, about an Irish immigrant detective in turn-of-the-century New York.
An Agatha Award-winning American author whose Max Tudor mysteries feature a former MI5 agent turned Anglican vicar in the fictional village of Nether Monkslip, a natural next read for Father Brown or Grantchester fans.
Creator of the BBC's Death in Paradise (and its spin-offs) before turning novelist with The Marlow Murder Club, later adapted into its own TV series on PBS Masterpiece.
See our Marlow Murder Club guide →A Scottish author born in Zimbabwe, best known for The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, following Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's first female private detective.
A towering figure of the Golden Age of detective fiction alongside Christie, best known for her aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
Author of the "Her Majesty the Queen Investigates" series, which imagines Queen Elizabeth II as a sharp, quietly brilliant amateur detective solving mysteries behind palace walls.
Tell us in the comments — and see what everyone else picked.
Agatha Christie, M.C. Beaton, Ann Cleeves, and Richard Osman are among the most widely read, with Rhys Bowen, G.M. Malliet, Robert Thorogood, and Alexander McCall Smith close behind for readers who've worked through the classics.
Agatha Christie, Ann Cleeves, M.C. Beaton, and Robert Thorogood have all had their books adapted for television.
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novels are the genre's foundation, and Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club is the most talked-about modern entry point.
Yes. Thorogood created Death in Paradise for the BBC before writing The Marlow Murder Club novels, which were later adapted into their own TV series.
M.C. Beaton (Marion Chesney) died in 2019, but both the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series have continued under the M.C. Beaton name, written by R.W. Green.
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