Crown has published "The Crown Crime Companion" ($12), which polls the Mystery Writers of America for their choices on the 100 best mystery novels of all time. From the top: "The Complete Sherlock Holmes," "The Maltese Falcon," "Tales of Mystery and Imagination," "The Daughter of Time," "Presumed Innocent" (they must be joking), "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," "The Moonstone," "The Big Sleep," "Rebecca" and "And Then There Were None."
It would seem that the classics still have a home with the Mystery Writers of America. Of recent books, "The Silence of the Lambs" comes in at No. 16, "The Name of the Rose" at No. 23 and "A Is for Alibi" at 51. The book also features a series of original essays by, among others, Mary Higgins Clark ("Suspense"), Joseph Wambaugh ("Police Procedural"), Richard Condon ("Criminal") and Scott Turow ("Legal/Courtroom").- Scott Eyman