Affinity involves spiritualism of the sort many prominent Victorians got suckered into believing, and is spooky and my favorite;

Fingersmith involves intricate plots and is a wild ride, although it gets implausible toward the end;

Tipping the Velvet is a picaresque about a young woman's sentimental education from the oyster bar to the theatre to being a kept woman to... well, that would be telling.

City of Djinns. Extremely fun and informative nonfiction, about how Dalrymple moves to New Delhi and begins to explore the history of the city.

They're all worth reading, but avoid Cobra Trap: it was written as the final book.

The first is Modesty Blaise, but the order doesn't really matter.

I particularly like The Impossible Virgin, which I think is the one where she fights a gorilla and performs emergency abdominal surgery.

Hot Money: A family mystery with a large and fascinating cast of characters. An eccentric millionaire with five ex-wives and lots of adult children suspects that a member of his family murdered his latest wife.

Proof: A grieving widower and liquor store owner gets involved in a mystery involving the liquor business.

Odds Against: Some dated elements but probably my favorite. A jockey who's disabled after a fall begins working half-heartedly as a PI; after he gets shot, he begins to take an interest in life while tracking down the man who shot him. Really intense.

Flying Finish. More of a straight thriller than some of his, the whole last third is one long bite-your-nails suspense sequence.

Other good books by Dick Francis, just not my absolute favorites: Blood Sport, Banker, Break In, The Edge, Bonecrack, For Kicks, Risk, Bolt. I would avoid the ones set outside of England, or anything written in the 90s.

This Alien Shore? Reasonably thick far-future SF book with angst, fear, running away on spaceships and space stations, and fun with a teenage lab experiment (see note: angst and fear).

Dreamships: lesbian pilot dealing with social issues! artificial intelligence rights versus immigrant laborer rights, with prettypretty gay-redheaded-boy supporting character that hates talking!

Five-Twelfths of Heaven: another pilot! angst! pirates! oppressive patriarchy! far future! spacefaring! ...WTF, alchemy?

The Lions of Al-Rassan.

Tamsin (totally wonderful!)

The Innkeeper's Song.

He also recently came out with a short story collection that I'm greatly enjoying.

Alien Taste is bad in ways that are extremely hilarious. It's about a private eye who was raised by wolves, and has special wolf powers, and is hot. An investigation into a bizarre murder inadvertently sends him off onto an oddly pleasant, noncommittal quest to find himself - it turns out he's [minor spoiler there].

Fire Logic, on the other hand, is very good, and it talks a lot about the nature of war and stuff, so it ought to be really dark and heavy - but the characters are very sane and have a sense of humor, so it doesn't feel that way. It's medieval-type-fantasy whose plot can be unfairly summarized as "lesbians save the world." There's also a sequel, Earth Logic.

Goblin Moon and The Queen's Necklace (vaguely 17th-century fantasy)

His story with the most element of fantasy in it is "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," but my favorite by him is "Kafka by the Shore," which is a modern version of the story of Oedipus, plus an old man who talks to cats and has the cats answer him. It's a pretty hefty size, and pretty interesting. There are two translations; I tend to like the British guy's translations better, but it's good no matter what.

Shibumi. (Pure entertaining novel, not a literature masterpiece, mind you, but very entertaining. Action book about an assassin).

Mysteries. They are nice and thick, and I can't put them down. Her detective lives in an Armenian neighborhood with lots of quirky characters, but in recent years she's included less of that part of the story and focused more on good puzzle mysteries with very well developed characters.

I also really liked Wishful Sinful and I notice she has a new book out.

Amelia Peabody books. They are some of my favorite vacation reads. My favorite is the Last Camel Died At Noon. Decent length and quite funny.

Best known for the Dortmunder comic caper novels, shelved in mystery. Try _What's the Worst that Could Happen?_ (which was never a movie) or pretty much anything but _The Road to Ruin_.