I like murder mysteries. Not so much page turning trope-y bestsellers (though they can be fun too). But well-written, character driven stories. Tana French is my current favorite.
But my true literary love is fantasy and scifi. Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman (sigh), Octavia Butler, Patrick Rothfuss, Stephen King are the venn diagram of my favorites and most well known.
Are there any good mystery/murder mystery novels set in fantasy or scifi worlds?
by lionbaby917
8 Comments
The City & the City, by China Mieville
I don’t know if it’s really sci-fi but The Last Policeman is about a policeman investigating a murder against the backdrop of an impending meteor strike. If you like it, there are two follow-ups.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Is fantasy murder mystery
The Night Raven by Sarah Painter. It’s more paranormal to be honest. It’s about a lady who’s a private investigator, and she lives in the modern world where people have magic and there are ghosts, etc.
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
*Gnomon* by Nick Harkaway
*The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida* by Shehan Karunatilaka (despite the real-life context of the Sri Lankan civil war, I think it still fits as fantasyish as the protagonist is solving his own murder from the very fantastical afterlife)
Not fantasy/sci-fi but alternate history with amazing world-building: *Cahokia Jazz* by Francis Spufford
I actually have a finished manuscript that is completely in this lane. And yes, I am biased, but I also know what I wrote.
AI tries to eliminate randomness from a city… and humans break the system just by hesitating.
The book starts with a train crash where two witnesses remember completely different realities — one where the crash happened and one where it didn’t.
I haven’t published yet unfortunately, I’m playing the long game with agents/editors, but I’m impatient and tempted to just self-publish
Differently Morphus and Existentially Challenged by Yahtzee Croshaw. Governmental agency involved in the regulation of magic and extra dimensional beings. In Differently Morphus they are investigating the fluidic killer and in Existentially Challenged someone sucking the life out of people.