I personally am a big fan of James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss, and George Pelecanos. They can all be extremely hard-boiled, though, so be warned, they aren't for the easily offended.

I don't have any recommendations, but damn, that sounds like a cool job. Congrats!

Janwillem van deWetering is my all time favorite mystery novelist and the one I recommend on all the askme threads. Those aren't really classic detective novels at all although they are sort of police procedurals. My other all time fave is Dorothy Sayers and she, of course, is one of those 1920s grand doyennes. You can't really go wrong by diving into the 20s & 30s - Agatha Christie, of course, Ngaio Marsh (the villain is pretty much always the sex starved spinster), Marjorie Allingham and so on. I know I'm forgetting a couple. In the 60s & 70s, John D. McDonald's Travis McGee books are amazing. Michael Innes is really good and I like Ellis Peters' medieval mysteries too. As for the contemporary stuff, I like Janet Evanovich but okay, it's a guilty pleasure. Sue Grafton is pretty good and so, in a similar vein, is Sara Paretsky. Rita Mae Brown is not a great writer but she is entertaining.

Be warned, though: there's a lot of heinous dreck out there nowadays - horrifying faux cutesy stuff set in antique shoppes and Amish country and so on, complete with recipes. Gack.

For something on the lighter side, Lawrence Block's "Burglar" series is always fun.

I don't have any recommendations, but damn, that sounds like a cool job. Congrats!

Thanks! It's been a couple of years since I last had to get up and go to work--that's the hardest part.

Thanks for the recommendations so far, jonmc and mygoth! Please keep them coming!

Do they sell true crime stuff, too? If so I recommend Serpico by Peter Maas, and Shot In The heart by Mikal Gilmore.

interrobang, I don't have much to add, besides OMG yes to Christie! Agatha Christie writes the Hercule Poirot mysteries, which are some of my alltime faves!

Sherlock Holmes, but you knew that.

I am a complete and utter dork for all the Dick Francis horse racing mystery novels, but they're pretty light fare. His stuff covers the era of late 1960s-current day and it's pretty well researched for fluff novels.

Just for our elucidation are you more interested in 'mysteries' or 'crime novels?' The books LFR recommended are the former I think, where the point of reading is the plotting, the figuring out of the puzzle. The stuff I mentioned in my first comment is more the latter, wherein the milliuex of criminality and/or law enforcement is used as a way to explore human nature and society.. Ther are also many books which have elements of both, but they are not the same thing.

Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer series is very good. I'll second James Ellroy, though I think of him more as a Novelist than a mystery writer. Of course, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler if you haven't read them already.

Congradulations! I'm jealous, I'd love to work in a bookstore.

Sorry, no recommendations; mystery/crime novels are not my cup of tea.

Donna Leon writes a series set in Venice that are really fantastically good. She gets the city right (which is hard), the characters are all interesting and complex, and the plots are pretty good.

Donna Leon and Agatha Christie are really the only two mystery authors I read regularly (and at this point it's really more "rereading" than "reading"...)

Despite attempts to turn him into an Important American Author Chronicling The Working Class Experience Dennis Lehane is primarily a damn good writer of fun and smart detective novels. His best books are a chronological series that starts with A Drink Before the War. It's not absolutely necessary to read them in order though, and Sacred is the one I'd most recommend.

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!

I love, love, LOVE the Sue Grafton alphabet series with her feisty private eye, Kinsey Milhone. Start with 'A' is for Alibi, 'B' is for Burglar, etc. and read them in order. I just finished the latest one, 'T' is for Trespass, which I think is one of the best so far.

I'm getting so many great recommendations from this thread. Y'all will keep me busy here for a while!

I'll add a couple of my own not mentioned above. I love the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin. It's not the best writing I've ever seen, but it's more than passable and I enjoy the plots. The best thing about his books is the way he portrays Edinburgh and Scotland. It's been said that the city is the main character in his books, and I tend to agree. And they seemed to be very mainstream in the UK (well, at least in Scotland), so it might be helpful to know them (besides the fact that they are very fun to read).

My other is Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time. It's an historical mystery. I remember it as being one of the best books I've ever read, mystery or no.

I love Christie (she was my gateway drug to the genre). My favorites of hers are the spy novels: The Man in the Brown Suit and They Came to Baghdad. They are set in Iraq and based on personal experience from traveling in the region. Fascinating and incredibly well written. My other two favorites of hers are Endless Night and Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Some to add:

I've greatly liked reading Minette Walters' novels lately - engrossing, dark, bloody and psychopathological (note I haven't said enjoyed - these aren't enjoyable stories). Social justice is also a strong theme in her books.

And I recommend the modern grandes dame of English crime fiction, PD James and Ruth Rendell - PD James writes bureaucratic procedurals (with the poet detective Adam Dalgleish) and Ruth Rendell does both the psychological thrillers and procedurals (the Inspector Wexford series).

Recently I've read and highly recommend two of Sarah Waters' books - Affinity and Fingersmith - which aren't murder mysteries but still have a mystery to solve, set in Victorian England with sexuality as a major theme. Excellent, both.

Thank you very much, everyone! This list should last me for weeks!

I woke up this morning thinking of another one, probably the most frustrating mystery novel I've ever read and one I highly recommend - Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Have fun interrobang!