April 2026
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    Whenever I've read a mystery novel I've found myself getting majorly disappointed. So far I've only gone for popular and generally appraised ones.

    There is always the same pattern, a victim, a detective, it always follows the same beats throughout the plot: throwing obvious red herrings, hiding elements for no other reason other than to stop you from figuring it out. It's like the author is playing a game to keep you guessing and deceiving you so in the end there has to be a twist and you have to be surprised as if that's the whole point of the book. The 'unpredictability' by itself has become predictable. And these are the better novels, in the worse ones this all can get laughably ridiculous and just make zero sense. I'm anxious to try a new mystery novel, to me they always fall into the same traps.

    That all would be not that bad if the writing style had some merit, but so far I've always found it just boring and low quality.

    You might ask why am I then looking for a book like that. It is because I love reading books and I like the mystery/puzzles concept and I want to connect the two. But it feels like the average mystery reader audience is giving all the praises to books that I find just bad. I've never rated such a book above 5/10. So my question is more to find the exception or maybe I've missed some classic.

    Here are a few mystery novels from recent memory that I've tried but have failed on me:

    Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None

    China Mieville – The City and The City (this one was shockingly bad, strong 1/10)

    Raymond Chandler – The Big Sleep

    Yukito Ayatsuji – Decagon House Murders

    Seishi Yokomizo – The Honjin Murders

    And these are currently my favorite authors for more context: Paul Auster, Franz Kafka, Yukio Mishima, Somerset Maugham

    by stef_lp

    3 Comments

    1. lady-earendil on

      This is actually a children’s book, but The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin is one of my favorite mysteries of all time because it just doesn’t feel like any other mystery I’ve read.

    2. You have listed some of the better books in the genre as ones that “failed on you.” Perhaps if you gave some examples of books in the genre that succeeded on you it would help us give you some recommendations.

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