5 Most Influencial American Men Mystery Writers

Again, this category is enormous! There are so many influential writers, who knows who to choose. These are my choices:

1) Edgar Allan Poe - Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. Poe's early detective fiction tales starring the fictitious C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars".


2) Rex Stout - An American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 (Fer-de-Lance) to 1975 (A Family Affair). The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world's largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

John Dickson Carr - An American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn. Many of his novels had English settings, his best-known detective characters were English, and he is sometimes loosely grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries, complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. Carr was a master of the locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. The Dr. Fell mystery The Hollow Man (1935), usually considered Carr's masterpiece, was selected in 1981 as the best locked-room mystery of all time by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers.

3) Raymond Chandler - An Anglo-American novelist and screenwriter who had an immense stylistic influence upon the modern private detective story, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered synonymous with "private detective", both being played on screen by Humphrey Bogart. Some of his best works: “Blackmailers Don't Shoot”, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity (1944), The Blue Dahlia (1946), Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) - a story he thought implausible - based on Patricia Highsmith's novel.


Dashiell Hammett - An American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), and the Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse). In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on film, Hammett "is now widely regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time" and was called, in his obituary in The New York Times, "the dean of the... 'hard-boiled' school of detective fiction". Time magazine included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on a list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

4) Michael Connelly - An American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. His books, which have been translated into 35 languages, have garnered him every major award in his genre.
Tony Hillerman - An award-winning American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels. Some of his works were made into big-screen and television movies.


5) Jonathan Kellerman - An American psychologist, and Edgar Award winning author of numerous bestselling suspense novels. His writings on psychology (and specifically psychopathology) include Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. Most of his fictional stories feature the character of Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the police.

Also, Rachel at Rachel Writes is having a blog crusade. What is a blog crusade you ask?
Rachel writes: "There are so many of us out there. Aspiring writers, beginner bloggers, industry peeps, even published authors, all who want to build their online platforms. We write insightful posts and articles, actively blog within the blogosphere, take part in challenges, competitions, and contests galore.
We have the passion and the drive to make it, but…we could do with a few more followers.
So, I started thinking. What if we link all these people together. What if we create a way to meet people in a similar position, people who genuinely want to help build our online platform while at the same time building theirs. People who want to pay it forward in the spirit of writerly writerness and blogging beautificity (and see it come back to them in turn)!!!
And here it is…
I’m kicking off the Rach Writes… Inaugural Writers’ Platform-Building Crusade.
I’ll publish a list of all the Crusaders on Rach Writes..., and I’ll update the list as people join in on future Crusades.
And there it is. You’ll have a list of bloggers in the same position as you, who genuinely want to help you succeed. You can visit their sites, follow along with their blogs, leave comments galore, and share your highs and lows as you journey through the blogosphere and build your online platform. And they'll be doing the same for you.
Beats poaching any day!!!
I’ve got some Crusade Challenges and Blogfests planned, so let’s see how many people we can get onboard and make this an ongoing thing...
Jump on board the Writers' Platform-Building Crusade. Spread the word. Pay it forward. And have fun with your blogging!!!"