Sandy beaches. Bright sun. Iced tea. Baseball. Dining alfresco. Bikinis. Fourth of July fireworks. Ice cream cones. There is a lot to be said for summer, and most of it is really good. None of it is much better, however, than the superb mystery fiction written by the masters of the genre who were born in the month of July — a veritable Hall of Fame of crime writers.

It seems only fair to start with arguably the greatest mystery writer of the 20th century, perhaps of all time, Raymond Chandler, who was born July 23, 1888. The master of the American idiom and the quintessential voice of the private eye story, oddly enough, though born in Chicago, grew up in Britain and didn’t return to America until 1912.

The major portion of his young adult life was spent as a bookkeeper and executive, largely in the oil business, not becoming a full-time writer until the age of 45. Because of the late start and, no less importantly,his dedication to alcohol, Chandler produced only seven novels in his career, beginning with “The Big Sleep” in 1939. Six subsequent novels featured his modern knight, Philip Marlowe. “Farewell, My Lovely” (1940), “The High Window” (1942), “The Lady in the Lake” (1943), “The Little Sister” (1949), and “The Long Goodbye” (1953) were filmed; the dismal “Playback” (1958), mercifully, was not.

The literary flair and stylistic genius he brought to his books influenced virtually all hard-boiled writers who followed Chandler, who learned to plot by taking a story by the stupendously successful Erle Stanley Gardner, breaking it down to outline form, and rewriting it in his own style.

Gardner, still the best-selling writer in the history of American fiction, was also born this month (July 17, 1889). His primary claim to fame and fortune was Perry Mason, the lawyer whose exploits in books, motion pictures, radio, comics, and, for a full decade, in a television series starring Raymond Burr, made him a household name.

While stylistic nuance and originality never raised their eager little heads in anything written by Gardner, his plots — the ultimate exercise in formula fiction — never failed to capture a large and enthusiastic readership. He cared entirely about the three esses: speed, situation, and suspense.

It is impossible to think about Gardner without becoming impressed with numbers. While he still worked fulltime, he came home and wrote 16 pages (4,000 words) every day, producing well over a million words a year for many years, mostly for the pulps at a penny or two a word.

When he became a full-time writer, he sped up, employing six secretaries to whom he would dictate his novels, stories, and private correspondence. It is estimated that his books have sold more than 300 million copies.

Not all the distinguished authors of mystery fiction born in July need to be written about in the past tense. The iconic Donald E. Westlake (born July 12, 1933) remains, after a career spanning 46 years, the standard against which all other writers of humorous crime stories are measured.

After five dark and violent novels, he wrote a book that, he once said, “kept coming out funny. “The Fugitive Pigeon” (1965) redirected a career that has produced more than a hundred books, more than 20 films (either based on his work or with his screenplays, notably “The Grifters,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar), three Edgar Allan Poe awards and, by actual count, in the Tri-State area alone, 51,377,804 laughs.

Astonishingly, Mr. Westlake is also the author of two dozen books about a stone-cold criminal, Parker, written in a style that accurately reflects the pseudonym under which they are written, Richard Stark. The 1967 film version of the first adventure, “The Hunter,” has become a classic cult noir masterpiece, retitled “Point Blank,” with Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. The remake of a decade ago, now titled “Payback,” starred Mel Gibson and was a greater financial success than an artistic one.

The Stark novels are so stark that they could have been written by the first great noir author who trimmed his prose to the absolute minimum, the thong of the crime writing wardrobe, James M. Cain (born July 1, 1892). Enormously successful in his early career with such cornerstone works in the noir netherworld as “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1934), “Mildred Pierce” (1941), and “Double Indemnity” (1944), he had so many successful imitators that his work seemed to lose its originality. He lived in bitter isolation in his later years. His printed stationery provided his address and telephone number, with the notation: “Call station-to-station. I’m the only one here.”

Only the blackest of films noirs could rival Cain for his depiction of the helplessness of men caught in the webs of evil women who used their sexuality to achieve their goals. You have seen at least a couple of the movies so you know that Cain’s women were punished just as severely as his non-too-bright male protagonists.

It would be difficult to think of a mystery writer less like Cain than Dorothy L. Sayers, (born July 13, 1893), the much-loved doyenne of the Golden Age of British detective stories. If Cain was Hemingway — prose so terse you would think it had bitten into a lemon — Sayers was Henry James, filling pages with lush, rococo descriptions and narration clearly designed to fill long winter evenings.

Lord Peter Wimsey, the central character of 11 novels and many short stories,had the grace,charm,wealth,pedigree, and visage that caused any number of ladies to fall in love with him, not least Sayers herself, who has been accused of creating Harriet Vane in her own likeness so that she could appear in books with her hero and eventually marry him.

In case you want to send belated birthday greetings or extravagant gifts, my birthday was July 8. Yes, I am aware that makes me a crab.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.