The Official TV Tropes Mystery Thread

Because there's not enough mystery being discussed on this site, and it worries me.

Let's start with something simple. Your favorite mystery author and your favorite work from said author. Don't be shy about bringing out some old ones! Carr, Christie, Queen... We'll get every era before long.

Still very fond of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.

Right now I'm reading The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries.

Love, love mysteries, especially Golden Age and fair play whodunnits. Favorites include Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and The Moving Finger, Dorothy L Sayers Gaudy Night. As for more modern stuff I've really enjoyed the few translated Japanese mystery novels I've read, especially the works of Keigo Higashino.

If you're interested in more anthologies, Mike Ashley has compiled The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries, and Mammoth Book of Locked Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes.

edited 28th Nov '14 7:37:33 PM by whimsyful

Just checked that one out too actually. Also got Iles' Malice Aforethought and Before the Fact (had already read the first, but don't really remember it).

I tend to be more of a historical mystery reader. I recently read the first two books in this series by Gary Corby about a (fictional) older brother of Socrates. The history is interesting, but there's a weird Mood Whiplash to them. In some ways they feel like YA given that the protagonist is 18-19 and there's a lot of humor and use of It Will Never Catch On. On the other hand, there's disturbing depictions of executions and torture. Also part of the whiplash, but something I like, is that while the protagonist is this sort of bumbling Arthur Dent sort, he ends up solving political conspiracies by cold-bloodedly plotting murders.

edited 30th Nov '14 2:59:36 PM by Hodor

I have the Black Lizard one on my list. How is it?

Ah, fair play. So hard to find. I know that I've read one of those anthologies, but I don't overly care for anthologies as a whole. The quality jumps around too much for me. Also, have you read The Tokyo Zodiac Murders?

You might like Paul Doherty. He's written a little over a hundred historical mysteries. Lots of locked rooms too.

I might as well give my favorites. The Devotion of Suspect X is currently my favorite novel. Well-written, nice feels, great twist...well done, except for one thing near the end.

Author-wise, Edward D. Hoch. The guy wrote over 950 short stories and almost every one that I've read has been excellent.

Yup, I've read and really enjoyed The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Found the solution to the locked room murder kinda boring, but the solution to the zodiac murders were jaw-dropping. Probably the most brilliantly gruesome solution to a mystery I've ever read.

I also really enjoyed Higashino's Devotion of Suspect X, but I actually liked his Salvation of a Saint just a smidgeon more. The solution was incredibly audacious, but also perfectly in character. And completely , utterly fair.

Yeah, fair play mysteries are comparatively quite hard to find. Classics like Carr, Hoch, Christie are a given, of course. Some lesser known ones include:

• Sarah Caudwell's tragically short Hilary Tamar series. The prose isn't for everyone (think very stylized, Wodehouse-esque British wit), but they are very funny mysteries and comedy of manners.
• James Anderson's Burford Family mysteries, which are also homages/pastiches of Golden Age mystery novels. The first one isn't quite fair play, but they're all pretty enjoyable.

Ah. More recommendations for Higashino. Malice is also out, though it's not the pure locked room that the description says.

As for The Tokyo Zodiac Murders...is wasn't as good as I thought, for some reason. Maybe it was because I managed to semi-spoil myself on the main trick, or maybe I thought it the best part was the locked room (yep, disappointing...)or maybe I just didn't like the narration. It always seemed off. But eh.

And I've never heard of those books. I'll keep an eye out for them.

edited 1st Dec '14 12:27:36 PM by Halter7W

Re: Higashino I'm just waiting for them to translate the rest of the Galileo series. I know they're in talks to translate A Midsummer's Equation.

Yeah, the main draw of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is the main trick by far, so if you've been spoiled on that I can understand not liking it that much. Aside from the solution of the mystery, I really liked how it took the "serial killer slaughtering nubile young woman" setup (which I usually hate) and went somewhere very different with it.

Ah. I read a review of that once.

And yeah. Might be that for Shimada... It didn't help that I thought the killer's motivation was too petty for me. But eh. Too bad that there's not more Japanese mysteries about. I've read about some of them and ahhh... For example, the world's longest locked room mystery.

I really like Shirley R Murphy's Joe Grey Mysteries, which are about a cat who witnesses a murder and discovers he can now speak english.(that's book one, the rest of the books are he and his lady cat friend solving crime while his human says "joe, stop. no, joe, please stop.") ful of humor, great characters, CATS acting like cats (Joe is such a little shit, always eating his human's breakfast and being a snarky git)

The Black Lizard book was very enjoyable, and I review it here: http://www.skjam.com/2014/12/15/book-review-the-black-lizard-big-book-of-locked-room-mysteries/

I've also reviewed one of the Joe Grey mysteries: http://www.skjam.com/2014/07/09/book-review-cat-breaking-free/ (note: may contain spoilers for earlier books in the series.)

Finally got Higashino's Malice from the library. Only two chapters in, but I'm already really enjoying it. The cat-and-mouse game between the killer and the detective is reminding me a lot of Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

edited 22nd Dec '14 4:37:51 PM by whimsyful

Merry Christmas everyone!

Finished Malice. Very, very enjoyable, and I think this is the first mystery I've read that's a whydunnit instead of a whodunnit or howdunnit. I usually find the motive to be the least important part of a murder mystery (usually used to make the murderer sympathetic), but here the entire crime hinges on the motive.

I come with the spoils of war.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler

Nothing is Impossible by Edward D. Hoch. The third collection of Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories that I've been waiting years for. Dang it Crippen and Landru...

The Derek Smith Omnibus. Contains Whistle Up the Devil, Come to Paddington Fair, and Model for Murder. And a short story, but meh.

The Picture from the Past by Paul Halter

Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino.

And more to come, once I get around to spending money.

Nice haul!

Wait, they reprinted Hoch's Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories? *runs to Amazon*

Some of them. About...three books worth. There were huge gaps between releases though. (Japan, of course, has them all.)

I know that there were quite a few e-books with Hoch's stories. Crippen and Landru also have quite a few books with his stories. I can hammer out a list if needed.

EDIT: On a completely irrelevant side note, I have some Agatha Christie's from my aunt here. Might as well see which are good.

Appointment with Death

They Came to Bagdad

So Many Steps To Death

The Under Dog and Other Stories

Dead Man's Mirror

Any notes on the good/bad/atrocious/middling?

edited 26th Dec '14 5:00:41 PM by Halter7W

Generally Christie's entries into the thriller/espionage genre aren't nearly as strong as her mysteries. I found So Many Steps to Death middling.

I find that her short stories vary from weak to absolutely amazing, again with the qualifier that if it's a mystery or suspense it tends to be good (Philomel Cottage is a favorite of mine).

Appointment with Death I read a long time ago and I didn't find too memorable, so probably decent? I do remember it wasn't really fair play though.

Bit of a necro, but I have a few things of interest:

First, for all our Edward D. Hoch fans out there, The Future Is Ours, coming mid-July, collects all of his sci-fi/fantasy things. May not fully be relevant, but hey! Bound to be some mysteries there.

Next, April first has brought us the newest release by Locked Rom International, The House That Kills. Written by "the French John Dickson Carr" and with three locked rooms!

Also, there will be a translation of Yukito Ayatsuji's (I spelled that name wrong, I promise) The Decagon House Murders. Ayatusji's pretty well known for his mysteries that take place in creepy and mysterious houses, (this is apparently it's own sub-genre or something) and hopefully this means that more Japanese mysteries are coming soon! (Like The Terror Of Werewolf Castle. Please?)

And finally, The Golden Age of Murder, detailing the history of The Detection Club, has also been released, courtesy of Martin Edwards, who's written a bunch of books that I haven't read.

=============

On a personal note, I finally got enough time to read some of my backlog, and I've gotten through The Under Dog and Other Stories, and Appointment with Death, and am mostly through Dead Man's Mirror. Might review em here, if anyone wants me too.

Also, got my hands on The Witness For the Prosecution and Other Stories, still by Agatha Christie, as well as The Best Dr. Thorndyke Detective Stories by R. Austin Freeman. Oh, and some juvenile mystery thing (Mystery of the Hidden Hand), but I might not read it. It won an award though, so eh. (Both of those were in a attic, for some reason.)

edited 16th May '15 8:53:22 PM by Halter7W

I'm still slowly working my way through The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries. The thing is a monster.

I saw the new's about The Decagon House Murders! Any idea when it'll be out?

Chesterton's Father Brown stories for me, hands down. Brief, elegant, and often chilling.

edited 18th May '15 8:26:04 AM by Jhimmibhob

Gah. I want to say in July, but I can't recall if that was this year or next. I know who the translator is though, so I can check his blog a little later.

On an unrelated note, I actually found Appointment with Death to be more fair than expected. The book still had problems, but I can't fully fault it on this. Oddly enough, I felt that it was more hassle just to clear the innocent, but eh.

To my shame, I have only read two of those Need to get a collection.

For some reason most of the mystery authors I really like are women. Probably my most favorite is Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series closely followed by Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy Shultz series and pretty much anything by Charlaine Harris.

Are cross genre works acceptable for here because I love science fiction, historical and fantasy mysteries.

Forgive my ignorance but what are fair play mysteries/

edited 23rd May '15 1:08:41 PM by tricksterson

It's Ho-Ling's blog right? That's where I first heard about it. http://ho-lingnojikenbo.blogspot.ca/2015/05/decagon-house-murders.html

I really like well done cross genre works as well! One thing I love about the mystery genre is that it plays/mixes well with pretty much any other genre; historical, romance, you name it.

Fair play mysteries are described in Fair-Play Whodunnit, but basically, there are enough clues provided for the discerning reader to work out the true solution before the reveal.

Technically, it was a comment he made on another blog, but yes. I like his place, while cursing it. Constantly reminding myself of all those great mysteries...

Anyway, got started on Nothing is Impossible. Decent, though the mysteries seem easier. Might just me being familiar with Hoch's style though.

I know! Almost every time he posts I gain a fervent wish to be fluent in Japanese.

Still very slowly slugging through The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries. I'm at that point where I'm seriously tempted to start another mystery, but I don't want to because that would make my progress through this one even slower.