If you said I could only read one genre of books for the rest of my life, I’d tell you mysteries was the genre. I’ve always loved mystery novels, whether wrapped in a romance, superhero, or fantasy novel. It shouldn’t be a surprise then to find out mystery books inspired my writing, or that I have a mystery in my upcoming WIP, or that I had one in my disastrous first attempt of a novel as well.
What I love about mysteries are the cast of characters, the red herrings, and then the reveal at the end. In the infamous Agatha Christy books, the variety of characters she adds to each story makes finding the killer like a needle in a haystack, even though we aren’t that connected to the sleuth doing it.
Confession #1: I suck at figuring out the perpetrator. Agatha Christy gives you all the clues you need to solve the puzzle and yet I always missed them (except the last Poirot….that was obvious).
Confession #2: I dislike the Miss Marple books. They’re great mysteries, yes, but the main character just doesn’t do it for me. I’ve read some lovely older lady sleuths – Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Polifax is delightful – but Miss Marple is not on par with them.
I’ve read a lot of mysteries during my lifetime, but one of the books on this list I discovered in the past 3 years while checking out books from my tiny town library. And it just proves there can never be too many books and you’re never too old to find new authors.
The four books I share in this post are the series or singular titles that impacted me and my writing the most, especially the focus of the narrative. The mystery in my book focuses more on the characters than the crime, similar to the ones listed below. And that’s what I love about them all – richly drawn, flawed characters that are thrown into a mystery they need to solve or end up solving.
Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
This book has it all. Amelia Peabody is an intelligent, strong female character who, even in 1884, was independent and forward-thinking. Her family’s fortune probably didn’t help. Add in a lovely helpless female friend, Evelyn Forbes, she picks up as a companion and the two Egyptologist brothers they meet while exploring Egypt – Radcliffe and Walter Emerson – and you have a complete cast for mystery, murder, quite a bit of archaeology and a double romance.
This is one of my favorite childhood books. With the exception of Harold & the Purple Crayon and the ones I hated reading, I don’t remember any other books before this one. It grabbed my attention and showed me you could write an interesting adventure and murder while also teaching the reader something in the process. I’ve read all of the books Elizabeth Peters and her other pseudonym, Barbara Michaels, wrote. I also at one point owned all of them, but recently donated them to the library in a clutter purge. I kept those that I’ve read a million times.
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
This book was introduced to me in an online mystery writing course I attended through Gotham Writers Workshop in the early 2000s. At that point in my life, I hadn’t really explored much mystery outside of the writers I knew and this was my first taste of the Golden Age of Crime. Funnily enough, it would be over 10 years later when I explored it in more depth.
While Gaudy Night is touted as a Lord Peter Whimsey mystery, and he does appear near the end and solves it as well, the book is told from Harriet Vane’s perspective as she visits and then writes and works at her old college at Oxford University. What I love about this book is the way it is written, the environment carefully crafted to enhance the mood, the large cast of diverse female characters, and yes, the University setting. I am a sucker for college-set mysteries (Amanda Cross is another great one to explore here).
Gaudy Night is a massive 501 pages, which makes the mystery a slow burn of ever increasing pranks until the big reveal at the end of the novel. It also includes the end to the cat and mouse game Harriet and Peter were playing up until this point. It is truly worth reading.
The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves
I was first introduced to Ann Cleeves through the TV series, Shetland, which was created out of another of her series of mystery books set in, you guessed it, the isle of Shetland. The Crow Trap is another of her series featuring Vera Stanhope, a detective in Northumberland.
What I love about these books is that you see the situation from multiple people’s perspective. You get as far into the heads of the characters as the author will let you, including Vera’s, until the big reveal. Vera is, as is sort of typical, a hold her cards to her chest type until the very end when you see who it is and how her thinking got her there. She’s also incredibly intelligent, had an interesting (to say the least) childhood with an absent-minded dad, and is not by any stretch of the imagination attractive. It’s one of the things many of the other characters mention – she’s fat, ugly, takes up a lot of space, and barks a lot. It is a tool she uses against her suspects to disarm them or make them uncomfortable; she’s extremely effective at it.
But she’s flawed, lonely, and a bit reckless. The mysteries are not easy to solve, the setting is as bleak as the lives the book explores, and each book builds upon the last in creating a family for Vera to rely on. I loved this series – I plowed through the books and the BBC TV series in a two month time period. I definitely recommend you either watch, read it, or do both.
Gentleman & Players by Joanne Harris
I could’ve put so many other books on this list, but this one still stands out as an amazingly well-written story. It is not a mystery in the true sense, but more a psychological thriller. Murder happens, but the body is never discovered.
No, the book is a chess match between a new person at a boys’ school in England, who is looking to destroy it, and an old teacher who taught there for 30 years, Roy Straightley. The only problem – Roy doesn’t know he’s playing. The book has two POVs, switching back and forth between the player and Roy. There is a rich amount of backstory woven into the narrative in a way that adds to the mystery. What does that sad moment in time have to do with the plot against the school? Why is it relevant except to show how much Roy cares for his boys? And in the end, it’s all relevant.
The destruction of the school is done subtly – scandals, missing mugs, an odd word here or there to cause strife. Roy is the amateur detective trying to figure out who is out to destroy the school, but he doesn’t see the larger picture and the danger to himself until the end.
I can’t say who else is involved, because spoilers!, but I will say, if you haven’t read this book, you should.
And that’s it..my carefully chosen top four, but I could’ve put 20 on this list. If you need recommendations besides these 4, hit me up. I have a spreadsheet of over 200 books that I loved and could definitely give you a few ideas.