SteveR wrote:
In my opinion, the queen of them all is Agatha Christie. The Poirot Series on PBS bears that out. And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians), also a great classic. With Poirot she invented bringing all the subjects together at the end to announce the murderer.
My second favorite is Collin Dexter, author of Morse
P. D. James, is my favorite, she knew how describe characters.