Hi Eliza.
I used to like him very much, but he's turned to the dark side by having his novels ghost written by others. Have you wondered why he writes so fast or why he has a co-author for almost every book? Well that's why. I grew older, and his detective fiction is not up to my high standards anymore.
Now you bring up an interesting point, I like to try to solve the cases in crime novels too. It's a lot of fun to see if I have the solution right before I finish the book and find out for sure. It's a real rush for me. If you want to read some real crime novels that are written by actual authors who take the time to write great well-plotted crime novels, then I can give you a lot of good recommendations. For starters you might want to check out William kent Krueger's cork O'Connor series which starts with iron lake, and michael Connelly's harry bosch novels which can be read in any order but it starts with the black echo. And if you want a crime novel with a supernatural twist try John Connolly's Charlie parker series which starts with every dead thing. The Charlie parker series needs to be read in order because there is in ongoing story in the series that makes more sense when you read them in the right order.