Hi everyone!
I am currently writing a story in which the main character is OBSESSED with murder mysteries (to the point they believe they are a murderer themselves).
They spent most of their childhood and adulthood reading murder mysteries and some thrillers. I want to leave references and symbols from murder mysteries but I know very few.
I myself am a big reader but moreso stick to horror and historical fiction. I'd like recommendations to check out and read so I can write them more faithfully.
In the last two years I've read (in the murder mystery genre)
– the girl with the dragon tattoo (first two books and I LOVED them), the silent patient (I liked it a lot!), and murder on the orient express.
Right now I have a small collection of murder mysteries but it's mainly Agatha Christie.
by KrashOutKody
5 Comments
Nevada Barr – she has a bunch if you like em
Ragnar Jónasson
Arnaldur Indrioasan
These are authors I’ve enjoyed and have read most or all of their titles
A criticism/reference book like Murder Ink or Murderess Ink will both highlight major tropes and point you at favorites. There is probably a more recently published equivalent to look for, too.
Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series is a classic.
The main authors you should look at are the Golden Age of Mystery writers: Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and John Dickson Carr.
From them I’d specifically recommend 4:50 from Paddington by Christie for a great technical investigation, The Hollow Man by Carr for a closed room mystery, and A Man Lay Dead by Marsh for a classic old manor house party murder. Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey series is best read in order and all are fantastic although my favorite is The Five Red Herrings, a great example of (obviously) red herrings.
The founding fathers of detective fiction are usually held to be Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I admire several classic Commonwealth-country women whose writing is in the Christie vein including Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, and P.D. James –Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) too though she’s a writer of detective fiction in an historic setting. G.K. Chesterton has the gentlest clerical detective stories of England’s golden age. The most significant American noir mystery authors are Raymond Chandler (_The Big Sleep_ and other Philip Marlowe novels) and Dashiell Hammet (_The Maltese Falcon_ and other Sam Spade novels). They’re probably responsible for the most classic femme fatale, chase-the-macgufffin kinds of tropes that any mystery fan might recognize. I think Georges Simenon is probably the most venerable French mystery writer.
Dick Francis
Nero Wolfe
There’s a lot of cozy mystery series, featuring all kinds of interests, so you can probably find a couple you would enjoy.