Rarely does a murder mystery instill us with a sense of awe quite like The Devotion of Suspect X, which truly deserves its place among the greatest detective stories of all time. Coming in first place for our 2020 recommendations, The Devotion of Suspect X is a peculiar beast that subverts the traditional mystery structure to its core, and uses the character’s own innate understanding of the genre that they’re a part of to guide their actions towards a tragic but inevitable outcome. After Yasuko Hanaoka murders her ex-husband in full view of the reader, Yasuko, her daughter Misato and their neighbour Ishigami set about trying to evade the police in the ensuing investigation. With the police circling their shark-cage, a battle of genius between Ishigami and Detective Galileo takes centre-stage in this astonishing mystery.

Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair series is one of the strongest franchise detectives of the modern day, for our money. The 1930s playboy son of a wool-shearing fortune has travelled the world and made many enemies in Gentill’s many allegories to the looming return of fascism and authoritarianism to our modern day. Coming in second for Review Season 2020 is the ninth entry in the series, All The Tears in China. After his older brother Wilfred sends Rowland to delay a doomed deal with Japanese buyers in Shanghai, Rowland grabs a couple of his closest confidants for what promises to be a relaxing holiday. When Rowland is nearly kidnapped moments after arriving, he realises he’s once again wrapped up in something larger and sets about trying to figure it out.

Jock Serong’s The Rules of Backyard Cricket was a bit of an unusual inclusion in our roster for 2020, arriving on our radar after Robert Gott described it as one of the greatest crime fiction novels of the past decade. Turns out, we agree! The Rules of Backyard Cricket comes in third on our rankings after tearing our hearts to pieces as much as we tore it to pieces. A story about brothers, cricket and crime, this book opens with our protagonist and perspective, Darren Keefe, tied up and gagged in the back of a car, with a bullet wound to keep him company. Our story follows Darren’s reminisces as he reflects on his career, from his childhood playing cricket all the way through his life playing club and national representative cricket. As his loose-cannon inability to make sensible choices continues to get him into trouble, we start to unravel how Darren ended up in that car, and why it might have been inevitable.

If you followed the show you’ll know that this was a very contentious book for me this year, but despite the hard time we initially gave Robert Gott for his creative reimagining of an infamous death in his hometown of Maryborough, the chaotic William Power finds himself just shy of a podium finish.

Good Murder follows the self-centred William Power as his troupe of actors, the Power Players, arrive in Maryboruough for a performance of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus to a town who are so disinterested that most of them presume that it’s the circus in town and pay it no more mind. All of a sudden William finds himself the town’s main act after local girl Polly Drummond is found dead in the town’s watertower the night after a flirtatious encounter between the two.

This Review Season on Death of The Reader has been a nasty one, with stories new and old vying for the top spot, and with two entries Ngaio Marsh is almost cheating, but there's one big difference with this novel. Money in the Morgue was conceived by the late Ngaio Marsh but continued and completed by Stella Duffy, who we had the absolute pleasure of interrogating about the process recently on Death of the Reader. The story takes place in the New Zealand wilderness, as a storm approaches and threatens to seal off a military hospital camp from the outside world, we are challenged by the combined wits of Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy to penetrate this closed circle of suspects when a murder most foul is committed within the camp walls.

Some entries into the detective fiction genre are so highly regarded, so genre-defining that it would be a crime to even attempt to rank them in any kind of list, lest their impact on our criminal world be diminished even in the slightest. Written by one of the four queens of crime Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express redfined the murder mystery genre on its release in 1934. Set on the culturally diverse train of the Orient Express as it makes its way through a continent-spanning trip, the ever classy and lovable Hercule Poirot takes a compartment next to a vulgar American man known only as Ratchett, who recognises Poirot and implores him as protection, as he fears someone is out for his life.

Sat atop the pantheon of Japanese Murder Mystery sits one name. Edogawa Rampo. One of the most acclaimed murder mystery awards in the genre bears his name, both in honour of his contributions as an author, and his role in pioneering the Mystery Writers of Japan, the largest club in Japan’s extremely active community. Rampo is best known as an author for his character Akechi Kogoro, who has gone on to have a life of his own in Japanese pop-culture outside of Rampo’s works. Seventh place on our list for 2020 is the Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro, a collection of four of the first Akechi Kogoro tales, The Murder on D Hill, The Black Hand Gang, The Ghost and The Dwarf.

We’re well into the better half of review season here and you might be saying it’s time for a rest, for a break, but wait, look behind you! There’s a body in the room, where did it come from? There’s blood everywhere, a seemingly innocuous visit to the star actor’s room has made you the number one suspect in a murder case! A Decent Interval, written by long time friend of the show, British author Simon Brett, takes the number eight position in Review Season for 2020.

Robert Galbraith, as an alias, is said to be an attempt for J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, to write a series without the same scrutiny she experiences given the high profile her wizarding fantasy novels have afforded her. Her first outing as Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling, comes in at 9th place on our list for 2020.

When you think of murder mystery protagonists, you probably picture history’s greats, like the sharp and observant Sherlock Holmes, or the unrelenting Hercule Poirot, but Naomi Hirahara’s Mas Arai is a special case. This elderly Hiroshima survivor is an unlikely hero, but all the stronger for it, and Sayonara Slam, coming in 10th on our list for 2020, is all the stronger for his quirks.