This Collider feature recommends classic mystery novels that hold up brilliantly from beginning to end, opening with two picks that helped shape the genre. Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is credited as the origin of the detective fiction genre, introducing C. Auguste Dupin, the prototype for later sleuths such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, in a locked-room murder mystery solved through pure deduction.

The list also highlights Henry James's 1898 gothic novella "The Turn of the Screw", praised for blending ghost story, psychological thriller and mystery in a way that has made it one of the most frequently adapted works in the genre, most notably as Mike Flanagan's "The Haunting of Bly Manor". The article's full list promises eight titles in total, though the supplied text covers only these two in detail.