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Posted on Dec 02, 2020

How to Write a Mystery: The 6 Secret Steps Revealed

A great mystery novel will draw in readers with compelling characters, tricky twists, and a clever trail of clues. Of course, the secret to writing a hit like Gone Girl isn’t going to fall into your lap. But in this post we’ll help you strap on your deerstalker, grab your magnifying glass, and crack the code of great mystery architecture!

1. Investigate the subgenres of mystery

You may already know what sort of mystery you want to write. However, it still pays to read plenty of mystery books to get a good grasp on the genre before you start! When it comes to mystery and murder mystery subgenres, here are the usual suspects:

Cozy mysteries

Cozy mysteries often take place in small towns, frequently featuring charming bakeries and handsome mayors. Though the crime is normally murder, there’s no gore, no severed heads in boxes, and no lotion in the basket. As a result, there are rarely any traumatized witnesses or family members in these murder mysteries — making cozies perfect for a gentle fireside read.  Example : the Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie.

Recommended reads

• A Guide to Cozy Mysteries [blog post]
• And Then There Were None: The 10 Best Agatha Christie Books [blog post]

Police procedurals

Police procedurals commonly center on a police investigation (betcha didn’t see that one coming). They feature realistic law enforcement work, such as witness interrogation and forensic science, and require a great deal of research to convince seasoned readers of their authenticity.  Example : Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.

Noir detective novels

Most associate “noir” with black-and-white films of cynical gumshoes and femme fatales — but did you know that dark, gritty noir novels came first? Their flawed characters and complex plots are renowned for leaving readers in the grey. ( Did the investigator do the right thing? Was the culprit really evil?) The crime may be solved by the end, but the mystery itself is rarely so open-and-shut.  Example : The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.

Prefer your detectives a little more clean-cut? Check out our guide to reading the Sherlock Holmes books !

A suspense mystery is all about high stakes and unexpected twists — elements that make it nearly impossible to stop reading. The mystery builds throughout the narrative, clues are painstakingly planted to divulge just the right amount of information, and things are constantly edging towards a dramatic, often shocking climax.  Example : Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl .

• The 50 Best Suspense Books of All Time [blog post]

Which genre (or subgenre) am I writing?

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2. Commit to a crime before you write

While some authors like to write without an outline, improvisation doesn’t lend itself well to the mystery genre. To build suspense effectively and keep your readers engaged, you’ll need to drip feed information bit by bit — which means you’ll need to know your crime and its culprit inside out before you put pen to paper.

Consider not only who committed the crime, but how they pulled it off, and why. Is there anything unusual about their methods, or any specific details you can include that will add texture to your story — say, the lingering smell left behind by a specific real-world poison, or the unusual wounds created by an unconventional weapon? Would anyone else have witnessed the crime — or thought they witnessed it — and if so, how might your criminal keep them silent?

By mapping out and researching your crime, you can think about telltale clues that may have been left behind, and when best to reveal these clues to your readers to keep them hooked. Just make sure you clear your browser history afterwards.

3. Research and pick your setting with purpose

Setting is the backbone of mystery; it fosters the right atmosphere and typically plays a significant role in the plot. But according to crime fiction editor Allister Thompson , far too many mysteries are set in the same old places. “The world doesn’t need another crime novel set in New York,” he says, “or in London if you're British, or in Toronto if you’re from Canada.”

Instead of an overused urban setting, why not set your murder mystery someplace unique? “Not only does it give you more interesting material, it also gives you a really good marketing angle,” Allister says. “The distinct cultural mix and geography of Albuquerque, for example, was a huge part of Breaking Bad’ s hook.”

For more tips from Allister, check out this Reedsy Live on mystery writing mistakes and how to avoid them.

This all requires research to execute well. Local news sites should give you an idea of what matters to an area’s residents, the problems they face, and what’s interesting about their community. You’ll come to understand what might actually unfold in a setting like this one, adding depth and authenticity to your mystery.

4. Carve out an intriguing cast of characters

Mysteries are largely about human intrigue, and to pull that off, you’ll need to assemble an interesting cast of characters . Dedicate time to fleshing out your victim, perpetrator, suspects, and sleuth, and you’ll have a much easier time getting readers invested in cracking the case. 

To ensure you know your characters inside out, try filling out a character profile — check out our free one below. 

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Reedsy’s Character Profile Template

A story is only as strong as its characters. Fill this out to develop yours.

Create a memorable sleuth

Your sleuth, whether they’re a nosy neighbor or a chief inspector, serves as the eyes and ears of your novel — so it’s important that the reader cares about them from the start! 

To do this, establish some baseline stakes by determining your sleuth’s motive. What’s stopping them from saying “I guess we’ll never know” and walking away? Would an innocent person be jailed? Will the killer strike again? Or is your sleuth’s motive less selfless, maybe a promotion or a cash reward?

Your sleuth doesn’t have to be a quirky mega-genius a la Sherlock Holmes, but even your “everyman” amateur detective should still be a well-rounded and unique character. Give them idiosyncrasies, interests, and a life outside of the crime, including perhaps a history or connection to the victim that makes them especially invested — “ this time, it’s personal… ”

Profile your perp

To write a killer culprit, you’ll first need to get their motive right. Your entire plot hinges on this character and their reason for committing a crime, so it has to be thoroughly believable! 

Unless you’re dealing with a serial killer (in which case their motive might be more nebulous and unhinged), figuring out your culprit’s motive should always involve the question: What does the killer stand to gain or lose ? More often than not, the answer will involve money, passion, or both — or perhaps the oft-pilfered title of “best village baker”, if you’re writing a cozy. 

Explore the dynamics between the victim and suspects

For there to even be a mystery, your culprit can’t be the only possible criminal. To keep readers hunting for the truth, try to show your other suspects having any two of the following:

• means (did they have access to a weapon?), 
• motive (how would they have benefited from the crime?), 
• and opportunity (were they close to the crime scene?). 

It’s then the job of the sleuth (and the reader in tandem) to dig out whether they have all three — and even if so, whether they actually did it. 

To muddy the waters, explore your victim’s relationship to all the suspects, not just the culprit. A morally grey victim, with a messy past and complex relationships, will allow for more intrigue in your murder mystery. Readers are presented with multiple possibilities, and will have to rule them out in turn as new information comes to light, just like a real detective.

If you want to develop amazing characters to populate your mystery, why not check out our free 10-day course on the subject?

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5. Build tension throughout the story

The central pillar of any good mystery is the push-and-pull between question and answer. As the author, it’s your job to draw the reader’s attention to the right things at precisely the right moment. 

The best way to ensure this is to nail your story structure ! By expertly planning your novel’s shift from the unknown to the known, you’ll produce the gripping rise in action that all great mystery novels possess. Here’s how to do just that.

Looking for inspiration for your next mystery story? Look no further than our mystery plot generator !

Hit 'em with a hook

Every story should start with a great first line, but mysteries are particularly fertile ground for first-rate hooks. Many authors open with the crime. The opening line of Darker than Amber , for example, is brief, unexpected, and action-focused:

“We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.” — John D. MacDonald, Darker than Amber

There’s no one “right way” to open your mystery novel. But to make sure it’ll capture readers' attention, try to write an opening that a) jolts readers into paying attention, b) leads them to ask further questions, and c) introduces some stakes (conflict, danger, etc.).

Pull out the red string and connect your clues

You’ve successfully enticed readers with your hook! Now, to keep them engaged, you’ll need to structure your plot around the clues to your mystery’s solution. 

This moment takes place when the pivotal clue turns up, or when your sleuth realizes the significance of a forgotten lead. What happens at that point leads to your novel's ending.

Give your sleuth time to think

While you may want to make your story as action-packed as possible, it's also important to slow down at times.  As well as including those action-oriented info-finding scenes (think: examining the crime scene for physical clues, talking to suspects to glean their alibis), you'll want to include more cerebral scenes that show them thinking or talking through their theory of the case, says Reedsy mystery editor Anne Brewer .

"These types of scenes give you an opportunity to sign post to the reader where the investigation is going (you can even employ misdirection here by having the sleuth make mistakes and get things wrong sometimes), as well as show off their special skills that make them a good investigator."

Consider red herrings

Because they lead the reader down the garden path and away from the truth, you might think red herrings would cause frustration. But when done well, they’re part of the fun, and that’s why they’re a tried-and-true trope of murder mystery. 

By upping the tension and escalating the pace, even if it’s towards a dead end, red herrings conjure the signature push-and-pull of the mystery genre. (Not to mention, they keep readers from guessing the answers too soon!)

For a classic mystery bait-and-switch, you might consider:

• a character who appears complicit, but isn’t;
• an object that seems more important than it is ( cleverly subverting Chekhov’s Gun !); or
• a misleading clue that was planted by the culprit.

Finally, remember that when it comes to the ending of your mystery, it’s important to play fair. Don’t suddenly introduce an evil twin as the final twist without setting it up earlier! The ultimate conclusion should be both unexpected  and  earned if you want to satisfy readers, says Reedsy editor Alyssa Matesic . "You don't want to hint too obviously at the twist (such as who the killer is), because then the reader might put the pieces together prematurely and the reveal scene will feel lackluster and anticlimactic. At the same time, you don't want the twist to feel like it comes out of left field, because then you'll lose the reader's trust. You need to leave just enough breadcrumbs throughout the story so the reader feels like the twist has been right under their nose the whole time."

6. Revise your mystery (with the help of experts)

Once you’ve finished your first draft , you should absolutely celebrate with party poppers and champagne… but then it’s time to transform it into a truly standout mystery! After taking the time to perform a thorough self-edit , summon the courage to send your manuscript out into the world — the world of beta readers , that is. 

Beta readers

Beta readers are the invaluable people who read your draft and provide honest, third-party feedback. They can tell you which characters they connected with and which they didn’t, identify plot holes, and point out any other issues you’ve become blind to during your revisions.

As well as asking for general feedback on your story, ask your beta readers to record their working theories as they read. This way you can see whether readers will pick up on clues at the right moment, and whether they’re misled just the right amount by your red herrings.

Professional editor

An experienced mystery editor who eats, sleeps and breathes these books can offer suggestions that even the most talented beta readers will struggle to express. 

In the first stages of editing, a developmental editor will provide you with a holistic, in-depth review of your manuscript, helping you examine characterization and redistribute your clues to build to a stunning conclusion. 

After producing a second draft, Thompson recommends working with a copy editor : “It’s too competitive out there not to put your best work forward [...] without errors, bad grammar, or spelling mistakes.” So polish up that manuscript like a magnifying glass if you want it to stand a chance of success!

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So, there you have it! If you follow these six steps, you should be well on your way to giving mystery readers what they crave — a thrilling tale of bad guys, cliffhangers, and diligent sleuths. But if you want to test out your new knowledge on a smaller scale first, head over to Reedsy Prompts and investigate our archive of mysterious short story starters to kick things off.

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Home / Book Writing / How to Write a Mystery (from the author of 16 books!)

How to Write a Mystery (from the author of 16 books!)

If you’ve ever tried your hand at crafting a mystery, you’ll know it’s not the easiest thing to do. It’s not rocket science, of course, but it still takes effort, planning, and understanding what needs to happen and when. That’s probably why the mystery genre is considered a difficult one to write in.

Consider this article your crash course on how to write a mystery. After all, it would take more than one post to perfect the art of writing mysteries–by the way, point me to the person who’s done that apart from Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But, there are simple things you must get right  if you want to provide a satisfying read for mystery lovers.

In this article, you will learn:

• How to pick an antagonist.
• Why motivations are important in mysteries.
• What red herrings are and how to use them.
• How to intertwine your main plot with your side plot.
• What not to do in a mystery.

Table of contents

• Your protagonist must have:
• The steps for crafting your cast of suspicious characters:
• Actionable steps:
• The basic idea is to note down the following:
• Here are a few mystery don’ts to bear in mind when writing your story.
• Conclusion: How to Write a Mystery

Disclaimer: I’m primarily a cozy mystery author, so I’ll be framing this around that genre, but the basic techniques provided here will work for other sub-genres too.

Step 1: Craft Suspicious Characters

The basics of crafting an interesting character in any story is just about the same. In learning how to write a mystery, the difference is you get to make them suspicious. And that’s fun. Mystery and suspense are based on the unknown and on potential. The kind of potential that the friendly old lady down the street has to murder her next door neighbor… and all over a recipe.

Never underestimate the ability of a human being to do the worst to get what they want. That sounds negative, sure, but that’s the type of attitude you’ll use when crafting your characters . In your mystery, you want all of your characters to have a hint of mystery and suspicion. (i.e. you want to give them traits that make them seem suspicious to the reader.)

After all, if your antagonist, the murderer, is the only suspicious-seeming character or even the only innocent-seeming character, your reader will figure out whodunit, right away. The best emails and reviews I get from readers are always ones that say something along the lines of, “I didn’t figure it out until the end!”

The only character who won’t be suspicious is your main character. And you should follow the same steps you would for character creation for any other protagonist.

• A conflict and stakes. Jessica is recently divorced and doesn’t want to trust anyone–she’s focusing on her little bakery in the new small town she’s moved to. But when one of her customers drops dead after eating a donut in her store, Jessica’s bakery might be in trouble. If Jessica doesn’t open up, she’ll never solve the murder and saved her bakery.
• A goal. Jessica now wants to overcome her internal conflict of keeping to herself as she uncovers the truth about the mystery by liaising with the other people of the town.
• A growth arc. Jessica overcomes her conflict by the end of the book. She’s starting to fit into the town. She’s also solved the murder mystery with lots of hiccups along the way.

The fun part comes next. You get to craft the cast of suspicious characters, all of whom might just have killed the victim. Or they may have had a reason to do so to get back at our protagonist, Jessica.

• Write a list of characters you want to include. Make it varied and interesting. From the granny down the street to the enemy baker across the road who’s just opened up shop.
• Give each of them a minor goal. Granny’s goal is to get the secret donut recipe from Jessica. She wants it because she’s planning on opening a shop of her own.
• Give each of them a flaw. Her flaw is she’s duplicitous. She’s a lovely woman, but she’s got a sordid history–including a rap sheet for theft. She’s lived a hard life and wants to follow her true passion for baking.
• Give each of them an enemy. Granny’s enemy is the new baker in town who wants the recipe too.

As you do this for each character, you’ll start crafting motivations for murder. It could be that Granny is the murderer, or that it’s the new baker across the street. Or it could be someone else. Don’t be shy about creating a subplot that runs alongside the main plot. Maybe, Granny’s not involved in the murder at all. But she sure seems suspicious, and she’s definitely been snooping around the bakery.

Step 2: Decide on Who’s Dying, Why and How

Probably one of the most important steps in learning how to write a mystery is deciding who’s going to kick the bucket. Or have their bucket kicked.

In cozy mysteries, the victim is usually someone who is hated by all in the small town. This serves to complicate things for your sleuth–they’ll have loads of people to suspect and investigate during the course of the unraveling mystery.

But you don’t have to stick to that. You can pick anyone in your list of characters to become the victim. You just have to have a clear idea as to why. What part of their conflict or goal makes them the perfect target?

This is where you connect your characters and their motivations. You can make the victim innocent of misdeeds or hateful and mean. Perhaps, they’ve been stalking their ex-wife or husband? The ex-wife’s new partner takes offense to this and murders them. Naturally, you’ll write down all of this information, but you won’t divulge it all upfront.

How the victim is murdered is important too. You can use the murder weapon as a clue for solving the mystery, whether it’s a gun, a poison, a knife or a blunt option. However, make sure to do your research on your chosen weapon. Readers are sticklers for certain things in mystery–you’ll get away with a sleuth who interferes in police work, but you won’t with a poison that doesn’t have the correct side-effects.

In short, you must have a reason for why the victim is killed and how they’re killed, when and where. Kind of like writing Clue. You note all of this down, and intertwine the information into your story by dropping clues to your protagonist.

• Pick your victim.
• Note down why they were killed, and connect them with several suspicious characters with reasons why those characters may have wanted to kill the victim.
• Select a murder weapon and research it.
• Give certain characters access to the murder weapon. (i.e. A chemist has access to certain medicines, but so does his assistant or the receptionist who may have broken into his private store.)

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Step 3: Pick an External Conflict

This is kind of an optional step. It depends on how long your mystery is going to be. In cozy mystery, books usually range from 20,000 words to 70,000. If you’re writing a longer story, you’ll need more intrigue, more conflict, and more plot.

This is why I’ll generally pick out an extra external conflict to include in the story. Say we use Jessica’s bakery as an external conflict–she’s being stolen from and things have been going missing in her apartment above the store. What could it mean?

The theft and the murder can be unrelated, or they can be part of the same motivation for the death of the victim. That’s up to you to decide. You can include several sub-plots for characters who Jessica is friends with too.

Perhaps, her new friend is being stalked, or has recently come into money and some of it has gone missing. Or she’s just broken up with an ex-boyfriend, who keeps threatening revenge on the bakery. All of these subplots add up to equal little clues.

The trick is to make the clues of one subplot connect with the main murder mystery. For example, Jessica is suspicious of the theft in her store, and when someone breaks in and steals her journal, she’s not sure if it’s the thief or the murderer.

Important to note: you don’t have to tie off every subplot with a neat ending as you close the book. You can leave some of them open for further exploration in the series. But, you should always give the murder mystery a satisfying conclusion, and your protagonist resolution of their current conflict or goal. Jessica has saved her bakery, she throws a party with her friends afterward to celebrate.

• Write up a list of external conflicts you want to use in your story and how they connect to each character.
• Pare the list down to one or two subplots.

Step 4: Write up a List of Clues

Another fun step!

Here, you get to write down all the clues that pertain both to your subplot and your main plot. You’ll do this by identifying the crime scene and the clues that are already present there. Since you have the inside edge–you know why your victim was killed and by whom–you can plant evidence over the course of the story that will redirect your protagonist.

You can also plant false evidence, or clues that make it seem like someone else commited the murder. These are called ‘red herrings’ — and they must be believable. All your clues and red herrings have to make sense, after all.

Motivations and clues tie in with each other. Granny wants to get into Jessica’s bakery, so it would make sense that Jessica would walk in on Granny rummaging through her things. Granny can make an excuse, but Jessica will have her suspicions–is Granny the murderer? We know Granny isn’t, but Jessica doesn’t–that’s a red herring that makes sense.

And now, because Jessica believes that Granny might have something to do with the murder, she’ll start following her and unraveling more of the mystery that is Granny’s motivation. Ultimately, she’ll hit a brick wall when she realizes that Granny can’t possibly have commited the murder… until Granny gives her another clue that leads Jessica onto the next suspect.

• Write down a list of clues that connect the characters to the crime scene or make them suspicious.
• Organize the clues in the order you want them to happen. (i.e. Jessica finding Granny in the bakery after hours. Jessica follows Granny and finds her meeting with Jessica’s enemy etc.)
• The list doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but it must make sense and tie into your murder and sub-plots.

Step 5: Outline Your Story

I’m not going to go into the outlining process in full here because that would take another article’s worth (and more) of information. However, if you’ve followed the steps above, you’re halfway there. You just need to organize your clues into an events list, and then have your protagonist take action throughout the story.

Let’s look at our example of Jessica and her bakery.

• Jessica’s conflict and goal.
• Her external conflict.
• An events list of what happens.
• A short scene or chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

We already have Jessica’s conflict and goal, as well as her external conflict. Now, we need an events list that ties in with all of the above. An events list is a short breakdown of what happens over the course of the three-act story. The events are important plot points that drive the mystery forward.

• The inciting event. This is what starts off your entire mystery. Jessica’s customer drops dead after tasting her cupcake.
• The first act climax. Here, Jessica believes she’s closer than ever to solving the mystery–thus casting her back into her comfy ‘not trusting anyone zone.’ Jessica finds a clue that leads her to believe Granny is the murderer.
• The midpoint reversal. At this point, your character’s goal is flipped. Where Jessica didn’t want to trust anyone before, now she has to. Jessica snoops in a suspect’s house and gets caught. She’s arrested and has to rely on her friend to bail her out.
• The second act climax. Things get even worse. Jessica is completely stumped. She’s been reprimanded and her bakery is no longer popular because of the suspicion that she’s murdered the victim. At the end of this period of sadness, Jessica will discover or connect two clues together that she hadn’t before. Now, she really knows who did it.
• Climax. Here comes the building action and climax of the plot as Jessica faces off against the real murderer.

There’s a denouement–a resolution–as well, where Jessica and her friends celebrate their victory. Jessica will have resolved her conflict. She now loves the town and its people, and trusts her friend. Her bakery is also doing fine again.

After deciding on your events, you’ll pepper them with your clues and find unique ways to solve the mystery and tie the subplots into it.

Bonus Step 6: Mystery Don'ts

Don’t fall into the trap of relying on easy fixes in mystery stories. The readers in this genre are voracious, and they enjoy being challenged. They want you to keep them guessing until the end.

• Don’t make it too obvious. Readers don’t want to figure out who did it in the first few chapters. They’ll stop reading the book.
• Don’t bore your reader. Don’t use too many unnecessary details or backstory elements that don’t matter. Intrigue is the key. Less is more.
• Don’t provide too much information. You want to pepper in those clues, not have two per chapter — otherwise you’ll overwhelm your reader with information, some of which doesn’t pertain to the murder mystery.
• Don’t provide too little information. You don’t want your reader to feel cheated. Give them enough clues to try to work out the mystery by themselves, but be clever about it. You don’t actually want them to solve it before you do.
• Don’t murder someone too late. Murder mysteries need to have a dead body somewhere near the beginning of the story. It doesn’t have to be in the first chapter, but you’ll need it somewhere close to the front of the book. Foreshadowing is your friend.

Follow these steps, and you’re on your way to crafting a mystery that will keep readers turning pages. Ultimately, you’ll need to read mysteries to write them–there are loads of books out there in your genre that will give you an idea of how to go about crafting the mystery element of the story. Have fun!

Rosie A. Point

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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How to write mystery: 6 ways to create suspense

Learning how to write mystery is easy when you understand the ingredients of mystery and suspense. Every good story has unknowns readers want answered, yet a good mystery makes us need to know. Here are 6 ways to create suspense and build mystery:

• Post author By Jordan
• 7 Comments on How to write mystery: 6 ways to create suspense

Learning how to write mystery is easy when you understand the ingredients of mystery and suspense. Every good story has unknowns readers want answered, yet a good mystery makes us need to know. Here are 6 ways to create suspense and build mystery:

First, what are mystery and suspense?

‘Mystery’ itself has many meanings. As a literary genre, a mystery is ‘A novel, play, or film dealing with a puzzling crime, especially a murder’ ( Oxford English Dictionary ).

Mystery, more generally, means ‘secrecy or obscurity’ and ‘A person or thing whose identity or nature is puzzling or unknown’ ( OED ).

Thus while a classic murder mystery like an Agatha Christie novel involves the puzzling nature of solving crimes, any book may have elements of the puzzling and unknown.

In a fantasy novel, for example, a villain’s real identity (or the scope of their power) may be a mystery at first. In a romance novel, the identity of a mysterious, desirable stranger may be the central mystery to begin.

These unknowns, and how a story circles around these mysteries , create suspense . Suspense is ‘a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen’. This is an integral part of all storytelling. Suspense gives the question we ask most often as readers: What will happen next?

To create mysterious suspense, you may:

1. Conceal a character’s true identity

Fiction (and not only the mystery genre) is full of characters whose true identities are unknown.

The unknown, criminal perpetrator is one of the most obvious types of concealed identity. Yet concealment isn’t only reserved for criminals. In Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations , for example, a mystery benefactor leaves Pip, the protagonist, a small fortune, changing his life completely.

Dickens sets us up to believe that the benefactor is the wealthy Miss Havisham, but we later discover the real benefactor was another, more unsavoury character.

In this case, Dickens conceals the doer of a non-criminal deed, and the revelation makes us reconsider everything we (and Pip) assume about why  he was given his fortune.

Another classic example of suspenseful concealed identity involves gender identity. In Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night , the protagonist Viola is separated from her twin brother Sebastian in a shipwreck on the coast of Illyria. She disguises herself as a man named ‘Cesario’ in order to serve a local Duke while seeking her brother.

This concealment creates suspense , as the audience wonders when Viola’s actual sex will be found out and her gender performance unmasked. A love triangle between the character, the Duke (whom Viola/Cesario falls in love with) and the woman the Duke himself loves (Olivia) complicates this narrative tension further.

Here, suspense is created by the audience knowing something about a character other characters don’t. 

To create suspense by concealing identity you can thus:

• Hide the identity behind an act: Whether a murderer or a generous giver (as in the Dickens’ example)
• Have a character don a disguise or role to achieve their goals: The gap between the reader’s knowledge of the truth and other characters’ awareness of it creates suspense

[ Brainstorm characters and plot events using the step-by-step prompts in the Now Novel dashboard.]

2. Create chains of small revelations

Learning how to write mystery means learning to ‘drip out’ suspense. Drop small revelations like a trail of crumbs for readers. The murderer leaves a footprint and we know their shoe size, the pattern of their treads.

These small ‘giveaways’ are useful because you can milk them for further suspense and mystery. For example, perhaps the pattern of treads in a footprint suggest the wearer has unusually small feet for a male.

This could lead the detective to be distracted all the time by the size of suspects’ feet. Prior revelations load further action and encounters with meaning and possible significance.

This approach to creating plot points – planting information like puzzle pieces – is key to creating suspense. As you create incidents that reveal just a little, ask ‘why?’ Why is this revelation useful or important?

When your mystery is a character’s identity, revelations may include:

• Physical remainders: What careless personal effects or trail (footprints, fingerprints, paperwork) does the character leave behind?
• Giveaway behavioural patterns: For example, a killer who is a scout leader might tie elaborate knots and leave other signs of specialist knowledge
• Tip-offs and rumours: In mystery, there’s always a character who knows more than they’re letting on. Even in books like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, we find out characters have more knowledge than we assumed, later in the story

Think of chains of revelation and how they stack up. To take the footprint example above, a sequence could be:

• Detective notices size of the print: Narrows down possible suspects
• They notice details of the tread: Maybe it reveals a specific brand or style of shoe, giving something to look for
• Errors behind assumptions: For example, perhaps the tread belongs to a witness who fled the scene

3. Sidetrack your sleuths

No discussion of how to write mystery is complete without the ‘red herring’ . A ‘red herring’ is an item of information that leads a character (and the reader) to false conclusions. It’s an object or action that we might perceive to have major significance initially. Yet later it turns out to have led us to false assumptions or suspicions. Solving a mystery depends on following signs and associations, and signs can point your reader down dead ends.

For example, a suspect may have a particular item in their possession belonging to a murder victim. This makes them appear more suspicious by association. Yet there could be an innocent reason why they possess said object.

You can sidetrack your sleuth (investigators and readers) and create suspense by:

• Giving events misleading significance: A flashlight blinking on and off in a window at the same time every night might seem ominous at first. Yet we discover it’s two teens way to signal to each other to get on a Skype call to discuss a friend’s disappearance
• Showing false assumptions: In a mystery romance, for example, a romantic lead could mistake a would-be lover’s close friend for a romantic rival. The reader wonders how this false assumption will play out
• Creating sidetracking subplots : While investigating a crime, a detective may be roped into dealing with townspeople’s other personal problems. These may indirectly furnish further details helpful to solving the case, while also sidetracking and distracting

Once you have established the main unknown (e.g. a character’s disappearance), each little event or action may be loaded with meaning. From flashlights at night to sightings of strangers acting suspiciously near the scene of a crime, anything may provoke further uncertainty.

4. Show intriguing actions without immediate explanation

‘Show, don’t tell’ is often abused advice . Explanatory exposition is sometimes necessary and effective. Yet in mystery showing is vital.

When you show unusual or odd actions without explaining their significance to the reader immediately, you make your reader wonder why. Why this specific scene/action? What does it tell me?

Take, for example, the reboot of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult murder mystery TV show, Twin Peaks .

Near the start of the season, the viewer sees the local therapist Dr Lawrence Jacoby spray-painting shovels gold. The action is a little creepy and we wonder what this gesture means . In the context of a murder mystery, we might associate shovels themselves with suspicious activity (such as digging a hiding place or grave).

It turns out Jacoby is a conspiracy theorist who drums up fear about government and pharmaceutical companies on his regular podcast. He also sells his golden shovels to his followers, via an infomercial where he stands in mud holding one, telling viewers to buy a golden shovel so they can ‘dig’ themselves ‘out of the shit’. The build-up of the strange ritual of spray-painting shovels turns out to lead to absurd humour poking fun at hokey advertising.

Even though strange actions don’t lead to a revelation relevant to the show’s biggest mysteries, the writers milk a simple, strange action for great narrative suspense.

The example above shows the power of delaying explanation, sometimes. Remember to trust in your reader’s patience and imaginative ability to supply their own interpretation of events until you reveal the ‘real’ meaning.

5. Build suspense through sentence and scene construction

We could discuss how to write mystery purely in terms of genre and literary terms and devices. Yet how we use language itself is also key to creating suspense .

For example, putting the ‘a-ha’ moment of a sentence in the final clause makes the sentence build to this revelation. For example:

‘It was unusual (though there were one or two brands that used a similar design), and if it were not for the manufacturer’s logo (the letters barely legible) imprinted in the hardening mud just outside a back window, the detective may have had no idea what shoe type had left the footprint. But she knew exactly the type (gumboots, Another Day brand), and even the location of the supplier’s factory outlet – just a mile out of town. She could get there before closing if she hurried.’

If we read over the sentence and examine its structure, we see how it piles on questions before answering some. Each clause creates questions: A) What was unusual? B) There were several brands of what ? C) Why is the manufacturer’s logo important? Only by the time we get to ‘this particular print’ is it clear a character is trying to find further leads from a footprint.

A caveat to using suspenseful sentence construction

Delaying revelation in sentence construction and scenes is a simple yet effective way to keep your reader guessing. Yet balance building sentences like the one above with shorter, simpler ones. If we make every sentence long and climactic, the effect starts to tire. Keep this technique for moments of high intrigue (such as a detective caught in complex pondering, in piecing together evidence).

Similarly, when developing a mysterious scene, delay major revelations for final paragraphs and sentences, so your reader has every reason to turn the page.

6. Use mysterious, suspenseful dialogue

Dialogue is a great device for creating implications , mysteries and inferences.

For example take this scene: A detective visits a local dive bar. The owner inclines their head slightly towards a man sitting drinking alone in the corner, saying, “You want to keep an eye on that one.”

This brief exchange creates immediate suspense and curiosity. Why is the lone drinker a person of interest? Are they mixed up in dubious dealings? Or are they simply a troublemaker who might interfere in investigations?

Keep characters’ motives in mind when writing dialogue to create suspense. Perhaps, for example, the proprietor of the bar has personal grievances to the lone man. Great mysteries show how difficult it is to find the truth. Because everyone has a view, an agenda, a public life, a private one.

Cryptic words or phrases also help make dialogue mysterious or suspenseful. Yet don’t overdo it by making every sentence so obscure that your reader is totally lost.

In Lynch and Frost’s reboot of Twin Peaks , for example, we see a drug addict sitting at a table shouting ‘ONE ONE NINE!’ hysterically over and over. Although this isn’t explained and given any context, observant viewers noticed this is the North American emergency number ‘911’ backwards. Speaking backwards, in the world of Twin Peaks, is associated with paranormal portal-like locations called ‘lodges’ through which destructive spirits can enter our world. Thus these simple but mysterious shouts could indicate paranormal activity, or simply the character’s drug-induced ravings. Giving dialogue ‘double’ and elusive meaning at times makes it suspenseful and open to interpretation.

Need help developing suspense and mystery in your story? Join Now Novel for constructive feedback from the community or your own writing coach.

Related Posts:

• Writing a cozy mystery: 10 feel-good suspense tips
• Suspense in books: 6 ways to grow anticipation
• How to write suspense like The Hunger Games

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

7 replies on “How to write mystery: 6 ways to create suspense”

Excellent tips for most genre. I think mystery is the root of most stories and this is an excellent primmer for the everything from big-world-building science fiction to regency romance. Thanks for sharing.

It’s a pleasure, Elias, I’m glad you enjoyed reading this. You’re right – mystery is a key story ingredient in many genres besides mystery ‘proper’. Thanks for reading.

The writing style is amazing. I get great pleasure when I read and agree with what I read. I think mystery is the basis for most works. A huge number of people read books for this-they like mystery and mystery. Thanks for the great content.

Thank you for reading and for the kind feedback, Writer 🙂

Another amazing blog from Jordan. All you have shared in this article are useful that I can’t wait to apply these in real life.

Hi Patricia, thank you for reading our blog and for the feedback! I’m afraid I had to remove the blog link you shared as it said the target site was not secure.

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All good novels contain some elements of tension, mystery, and surprise, but a good mystery novel follows a few unspoken rules, and you break them at your peril.

So what are the rules of the mystery genre?

If you understand these three principles, you will go far with them:

It’s a game of wits between the reader and the author

While a reader will always be drawn in by a story, and the author will keep them wanting to know what’s going to happen next, mystery novels take that to the next level.

A good mystery story is not just passive entertainment – it’s a game. The reader is actively trying to work out the solution – which is almost always who the perpetrator is.

So as a mystery writer, it’s your job to create a situation where the reader can do that guessing and to lay out just enough clues that in hindsight the answer is obvious, but not so many that the reader actually guesses it before the reveal.

It is a delicate tightrope that takes great skill to master.

The reader wins if they lose

A key thing to understand about this dynamic is that it isn’t a game where one person wins and one person loses.

If you do your job right, then you both win.

That is because while the reader may feel smug and satisfied if they do guess the perp in advance of you telling them, they will actually feel more delighted if they don’t get it more than a few moments before the reveal, but can see that it was right under their noses all the time.

If the reader guesses who the perpetrator is too early, then yes, technically they’ve won, but all suspense and thrills drain away. And this is disappointing for everyone.

The perpetrator must be under the reader’s nose

As mentioned above, a key factor of a good mystery is that the perpetrator (or other answer to the mystery) must be under the reader’s nose. Ideally, it will turn out to be a main character, but it can also be a major supporting character.

If you introduce, heaven forbid, a brand new character as the baddie at the last minute, then your reader is going to be left feeling cheated, as they never had a fair chance at guessing.

Similarly, if it’s a very minor character, then while you might be able to get away with it, it will be far less satisfying than if the character was much more prominent and still went under the radar.

Methods of achieving this often involve making the perpetrator a character so timid/weak/hopeless that it seems impossible they could ever carry out such dastardly deeds.

However, as thriller readers become more and more skilled and experienced, they will be on the lookout for this sort of trick, so mystery writers need to become ever more resourceful.

Be on the lookout for ways to make people seem harmless when secretly they are dangerous psychopaths. Techniques including:

• Having them not be who they say they are – they have changed their identity
• Having them appear physically weak – which may or may not be genuine
• Having them appear mentally simple – when actually that is a clever ruse and they are actually a genius

6 Tips for creating suspense and intrigue

1. questions.

The heart of all suspense is questions.

What’s going to happen next? Who did it? Will they escape with their lives? What is that person hiding?

Ideally, your reader will be constantly asking questions like those above, as well as ones much more specific to your story.

In a mystery or thriller, you need to keep a constant ball of questions rolling, raising new ones and answering others.

There should be some high-level questions, including the main story question, which will hang over the reader for most of the book. But there will also be smaller questions that may only be up in the air for a chapter or two.

The key is to make sure the reader always has some questions in their mind that they are hungry to know the answers to, while not being overwhelmed by too many questions. And while also continually being given some answers, in order to feel a sense of progress and satisfaction.

This is not easy, but it can be done if you’re willing to put in the effort. Here’s a technique to help with keeping track of it all.

Question analysis technique:

This technique was described by thriller writer Erin Kelly, and even (especially) if you think you’ve got your questions and answer threads woven in nicely, completing this exercise can be extremely enlightening.

Take a large piece of paper and draw a vertical line down the left-hand side from top to bottom.

Mark a dot on the line at roughly where in your story the first question is raised (so near the top of the line if it’s near the beginning, at the middle of the line if it’s near the middle, etc. This is only a rough guide, don’t worry about being exact).

Mark another dot on the line where that question is answered, then join the two lines together with a curving arc. Note next to the line what the question is.

Repeat the last two steps for all of your story questions.

When you finish, ideally you will have a lot of dots and lines evenly spaced out.

What you’re more likely to have are a bunch of dots near the beginning, a bunch of dots near the end, and a thickish curve connecting the two clusters.

Don’t believe me? Try it and see…

2. Everybody has a secret / Trust no one

A good way to keep your readers guessing is to establish the fact that nobody can be trusted and make sure everybody acts suspiciously.

Some books are fairly bullish about this and just have characters say outright that no one can be trusted. But it’s also possible to do this through more subtle means of inference and atmosphere.

When it comes to making everybody act suspiciously, if you don’t want it to come across as inauthentic then make it authentic. They should be acting suspiciously because they genuinely have something to hide. The trick is that only one of them is hiding the thing you are looking for. The others all have secrets, yes, but they turn out to be unrelated to the crime or central mystery.

Of course, you can have someone look suspicious when they are in fact completely innocent, but do this too much and it starts to feel false.

3. Master the cliffhanger

If you’re going to be a mystery writer, then you need to master the cliffhanger.

A cliffhanger is usually when something unexpected happens (a knock at the door) or a character is left in a position of peril (like, uh, hanging off the edge of a cliff).

Most people have heard of a cliffhanger, and know roughly what it means, but if you’re going to write a good one, you need to understand that every time you use a cliffhanger, you have to deliver a suitable resolution.

To borrow from Brandon Sanderson in his excellent series on writing fantasy , he puts it roughly like this:

Imagine you have a scene, where everyone is sitting around the lounge when the doorbell rings. The scene ends there, so the cliffhanger is: Who’s at the door?

You turn the page to find out.

A bad cliffhanger resolution is: it’s the pizza guy. They get the pizza and pay him and he leaves.

A good cliffhanger ending is: it was Bob’s long lost father, who he thought was dead, and he needs money. Lots of it.

Do you see the difference?

In the good cliffhanger resolution, the question is answered with something exciting which brings up more dramatic possibilities and potential for conflict.

In the bad cliffhanger resolution, the question is answered with a complete non-event. This is failing to deliver on what you promised and will leave the reader feeling disappointed.

One final thing – don’t end your novel on a cliffhanger. The contract with the reader is that you will deliver a beginning, a middle and an end. If you are writing a series or a trilogy, then it’s fine to leave some questions unanswered if they are part of the larger story arc, but you must answer the main story questions raised in a particular book. If you don’t, you haven’t delivered what you promised, and readers will not trust you enough to read future books.

Trust that readers will come back because they enjoyed your writing, don’t try to manipulate them into having to pay more just to be given the end of the story.

4. Mislead your audience

In the mystery game of cat and mouse, the author must deliberately mislead the reader, without ever actually lying.

It is normal to have an ‘obvious’ suspect, someone who is mean, cruel, and nasty. But any mystery reader worth their salt will know this person is far too obvious. However, if you’re clever, you can persuade your readers that someone else is the perfect suspect, and the reader will think they were very clever for working this out – but it turns out they were a red herring too, to distract them from the actual real perpetrator.

Likewise, there might be an object, event, or piece of information which leads to a particular conclusion – but not the right one.

Misleading your audience isn’t only about red herrings. You can also use little hints and conventions to make readers jump to conclusions which are incorrect. For example, one scene might end with a character looking at the moon, and the next scene begins with a different character also looking at the moon. From this, the reader will infer that it’s the same night without you ever actually saying so, but in fact they could be two nights ten years apart.

5. Use the ticking time bomb

Having to catch a killer is exciting.

Having to catch a killer within the next three hours before they kill their next victim… is more exciting.

Putting a ticking clock on the action is a good way to raise the tension and heighten the emotion of a mystery.

Like with your story questions, you can use a ticking time bomb on a large and on a small scale. So there may be a deadline by which the protagonist has to solve the mystery, or something terrible will happen, and you can also have much closer-in time pressures, which the main character has to deal with before the end of the chapter, or even page.

6. Foreshadow everything

It’s not that difficult to win the game of cat and mouse if you just withhold all of the important information. But that’s not really playing by the rules.

To master the game and really delight your readers, the more elements you can foreshadow, the better. The reader should be able to look back on what they’ve read and see that all the signs were there, even from the very first page.

But you must conceal these signs.

Here are a few methods for doing that:

• Distraction (something else exciting is happening at the same time)
• Sleight of hand (a false explanation for this piece of information is presented)
• By embedding key information among a lot of unimportant information, the reader thinks that’s also unimportant.

So, in summary, if you’re writing a mystery or thriller, you are playing a game with the reader, and you need to play by the rules – and make sure both you and the reader win!

Make sure you hide your perpetrator in plain sight but don’t make them obvious. Use all your skills to create suspense and tension, to keep them turning pages from the edge of their seat.

Homework Tasks

Read three of your favourite mystery or thriller novels and try to identify the techniques the author uses to create suspense and mislead you as a reader.

Further reading:

https://www.thenovelry.com/blog/suspense-writing-tips

https://www.novel-software.com/how-to-write-a-thriller/

https://www.novel-software.com/novel-outline-template/#templates (scroll down for a mystery/crime thriller plot template)

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How to Write a Mystery Story

Last Updated: July 7, 2023 References

This article was co-authored by Lucy V. Hay . Lucy V. Hay is a Professional Writer based in London, England. With over 20 years of industry experience, Lucy is an author, script editor, and award-winning blogger who helps other writers through writing workshops, courses, and her blog Bang2Write. Lucy is the producer of two British thrillers, and Bang2Write has appeared in the Top 100 round-ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life and is a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK. She received a B.A. in Scriptwriting for Film & Television from Bournemouth University. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 567,265 times.

A good mystery story will have fascinating characters, exciting suspense, and a puzzle that keeps you turning the pages. But it can be difficult to write an engaging mystery story, especially if you have never tried to before. With the right preparation, brainstorming, and outlining, you can create a page-turning mystery of your own.

Preparing to Write

• When it comes to mystery, one of the key elements is tension and making the story compelling from the very beginning. [1] X Research source
• In mystery stories, your reader does not know who committed the murder until the end of the novel. Mysteries are centered on the intellectual exercise of trying to figure out the motivations behind the crime, or the puzzle.
• Mysteries tend to be written in the first person, while thrillers are often written in the third person and from multiple points of view. In mystery stories, there is usually a slower pace as the hero/detective/main character tries to solve the crime. There are also limited action sequences in mysteries than in thrillers.
• Because mysteries are often slower paced, the characters are usually more in-depth and well rounded in a mystery story than in a thriller.

• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. The 19th-century mystery novel was originally written in serial form, so the story moves forward in measured steps. Much of what became standard in crime fiction was done by Collins in this novel, so it is an engaging and instructive introduction to the genre.
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Chandler is one of the genre’s greatest writers, creating engaging stories about the trials and tribulations of private detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is a tough, cynical, but honest P.I. who becomes entangled in a plot with a General, his daughter, and a blackmailing photographer. Chandler’s work is known for its sharp dialogue, great pacing, and riveting hero, Marlowe. [3] X Research source
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. One of the genre’s most famous detectives, along with his equally famous sleuthing partner Watson, solves a series of mysteries and crimes in this collection of stories. Holmes and Watson inject their unique character traits into the stories along the way. [4] X Research source
• NANCY DREW by Carolyn Keene. The whole series is situated in the United States.Nancy Drew is a detective. Her close friends Helen Corning, Bess Marvin and George Fayne appear in some mysteries. Nancy is Carson Drew's daughter. Carson Drew is the most famous lawyer in River Heights, where they live.
• "Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon.This is similar to Nancy Drew.It is about two brothers: Frank and Joe Hardy, who are talented detectives.They are the sons of a very famous detective, and they sometimes help in his cases.
• A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne. This recent mystery novel is set in 1970s suburban Washington. It centers on the “crime” in the neighborhood, the murder of a young boy. Berne intersperses a coming of age story with the mystery of the death of the young boy in bland, boring suburbia, but manages to make the story anything but bland or boring. [5] X Research source

• For example, in The Big Sleep , Chandler’s first-person narrator describes himself through his clothing on the first page: “I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with the dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be."
• With these opening sentences, Chandler makes the narrator distinct through his way of describing himself, his outfit, and his job (private detective).

• For example, in the second paragraph of the first page of The Big Sleep , Marlowe places the reader in the time and setting: “The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high.”
• The reader now knows Marlowe is in front of the home of the Sternwoods and it is a larger home, possibly wealthy.

• In The Big Sleep , Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to “take care” of a photographer who has been blackmailing the General with scandalous pictures of the General’s daughter.

• In The Big Sleep , Chandler complicates Marlowe’s pursuit of the photographer by having the photographer killed in the early chapters, followed by the suspicious suicide of the General’s chauffeur. So Chandler sets up the story with two crimes that Marlowe has to solve.

• The resolution of the mystery should feel surprising to your reader, without confusing them. One of the benefits of a mystery is that you can pace the story so the solution unfolds gradually, rather than in a rushed or hurried manner.

Developing Your Main Character and Outlining the Story

• Body size and shape, hair and eye color, and any other physical characteristics. For example, you may have a short female main character with dark hair, glasses, and green eyes. Or you may want a more typical detective character: tall with slicked-back hair and a five o’clock shadow.
• Clothing and dress. Your character’s clothing will not only create a more detailed image for your reader, it can also indicate what time period your story is set in. For example, if your main character wears heavy armor and a helmet with a crest, your reader will realize your story is set in medieval times. If your character wears a hoodie, jeans, and a backpack, this will tip off your readers that the story is likely set in modern times.
• What makes your main character unique. It’s important to create a main character who stands out to your reader and feels engaging enough to sustain many pages in a story or novel. Consider what your character likes and dislikes. Maybe your female sleuth is shy and awkward at parties, and has a secret love of reptiles. Or perhaps your detective is a complete klutz and doesn’t consider himself a strong or smart person. Focus on details that will help to create a unique main character and don’t be afraid to draw on details from your own life or your own preferences and tastes. [7] X Research source
• What matters most is that your main character has a burning question or burning need to solve the mystery.

• If you decide to set your story in a time period or location you are unfamiliar with, conduct research on the time period or location through your local library, online sources, or interviews with experts in a certain time period or location. Be specific with your research and during your interviews to ensure you get all the details of a setting or time period right.

• An item is stolen from your main character or someone close to the main character.
• A person close to the main character disappears.
• The main character receives threatening or disturbing notes.
• The main character witnesses a crime.
• The main character is asked to help solve a crime.
• The main character stumbles upon a mystery.
• You can also combine several of these scenarios to create a more layered mystery. For example, an item may be stolen from your main character, a person close to the main character disappears, and then the main character witnesses a crime she is later asked to help solve.

• Create a list of possible suspects your main character may encounter throughout the story. You can use several suspects to point the detective and/or the reader in the wrong direction to build suspense and surprise. [8] X Research source
• Write a list of clues. Red herrings are clues that are false or misleading. Your story will be stronger if you include several red herring clues in the story. For example, your main character may find a clue that points to one suspect, but it is later revealed the clue is actually tied to a different suspect. Or your detective may find a clue without realizing it is the key to unlocking the entire mystery. [9] X Research source
• Red herrings are all about saying "follow this thread" when the "thread" in question is completely wrong. A good writer can put something in the way that stops readers from realizing what's going on.

• The main character is investigating a possible lead alone and encounters the murderer or killer.
• The main character begins to doubt his/her abilities and lets his/her guard down, allowing the murderer to kill again.
• No one believes the main character and he/she ends up trying to solve the crime alone,and he/she ends up getting kidnapped.
• The main character is injured and trapped in a dangerous place.
• The main character is going to lose an important clue if he/she can’t get out of a certain location or situation.

• The main character saves someone close to them, or an innocent person wrapped up in the mystery.
• The main character saves himself/herself and is changed by his/her courage or smarts.
• The main character exposes a bad character or organization.
• The main character exposes the murderer or person responsible for the crime.

• Introduction of main character and setting.
• The inciting incident, or the crime.
• The call to adventure: The main character gets involved in solving the crime.
• Tests and trials: The main character finds clues, encounters potential suspects, and tries to stay alive as he/she pursues the truth. Close ones might be kidnapped as a threat
• Ordeal: The main character thinks he/she has found a key clue or suspect and believes he/she has solved the crime. This is a false resolution, and is a good way to surprise your reader when it turns out the main character got it wrong.
• Major setback: All seems lost for the main character. He/She found the wrong suspect or clue, someone else is killed or harmed, and all his/her allies have abandoned him/her. A major setback will amp up the tension in the story and keep the reader guessing.
• The reveal: The main character gathers all interested parties together, lays out the clues, explains the false leads, and reveals who the murderer or guilty person is.

Writing the Story

• Think what your main character might see in a certain setting. For example, if your character lives in a home much like yours in a small town, you may describe his/her bedroom or his/her walk to school. If you are using a specific historical setting, like 70s California, you may describe your character standing on a street corner and looking at the unique architecture or the cars that drive by.
• Consider what your main character might hear in a certain setting. Your sleuth may listen to the birds chirping and the sprinklers on the lawns on the way to school. Or your detective may hear the roaring of cars or the crashing of ocean waves.
• Describe what your main character might smell in a certain setting. Your main character might wake up to the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen by his/her parents. Or your detective may be hit with the smell of the city: rotting garbage and body odor.
• Describe what your character might feel. This could be a light breeze, a sharp pain, a sudden jolt, or a shiver down his/her spine. Focus on how your character’s body might react to a feeling.
• Think about what your character might taste. Your main character may still taste the cereal she had for breakfast in his/her mouth, or the drink from the night before.

• Think about being concise with your language and description. Most readers continue reading a good mystery because they are invested in the main character and want to see his/her succeed. Be brief but specific when describing the main character and his/her perspective on the world.
• For example, Chandler’s The Big Sleep starts by situating the reader in a setting and gives the reader a sense of the main character’s perspective on the world. “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
• With this beginning, the story starts in action, with a specific time, date, and description of the setting. It then presents the main character’s physical description and job title. The section ends with the main character’s motivation: four million dollars. In three lines, Chandler has covered many of the essential details of the character, the setting, and the story.

• Think about how you would react in a situation if you were angry or scared. Have your character react in ways that communicate angry or scared, without telling the reader about the character’s emotions. For example, rather than “Stephanie was angry,” you could write: “Stephanie slammed his/her water glass down on the table so hard his/her dinner plate rattled. She glared at him, and started ripping the thin, white napkin into shreds with his/her fingers.”
• Showing, rather than telling also works well for descriptions of setting. For example, in The Big Sleep , rather than tell the reader the Sternwoods were wealthy, Chandler describes the luxurious details of the estate: “There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills.”

• Plot. Ensure your story sticks to the outline and has a clear beginning, middle, and an ending. You should also confirm your main character shifts or changes at the end of the story.
• Characters. Are your characters, including your main character, distinct and unique? Do all the characters sound and act the same or are they different from each other? Do your characters feel original and engaging?
• Pacing. Pacing is how fast or how slow the action moves in the story. Good pacing will feel invisible to the reader. If the story feels like it is moving too fast, make the scenes longer to draw out the emotions of the characters. If it feels like the story gets bogged down or confusing, shorten the scenes to only include essential information. A good rule of thumb is to always end a scene earlier than you might think or want. This will keep the tension from scene to scene from dropping and keep the pace of the story moving.
• The twist. The twist can either make or break a good mystery story. This is completely optional, but many of the best stories have a twist at the end. Make sure that a twist is not too "cheesy". The more unique a twist is, the easier it is to write. When writing an overused twist, such as "then they woke up", you'll need to be a very good writer to make it sound good. A good twist not only fools the audience, but fools the character(s) too. Consider hinting towards the twist during action scenes, so that when the reader looks back on the story, they'll wonder how they missed it. Try not to make the twist evident too early on.

Mystery Story Help

Community Q&A

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pen and/or a computer with a word processor (like Word)
• Mystery books/stories
• An idea/plot for the story

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-tips-writing-great-mystery-suspense-novels
• ↑ http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/59582-the-10-best-mystery-books.html
• ↑ http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bigsleep/summary.html
• ↑ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/970720.20careyt.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-mystery.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/how-to-write-murderously-good-mystery.html
• ↑ http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-fiction.html
• ↑ http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2013/10/how-to-write-murder-mystery-part-two.html

About This Article

Before you write your mystery story you’ll want to create some characters and outline the plot. You might make your main character a detective or just a curious citizen who witnessed a crime. Once you have characters, choose a setting and a mystery such as a murder or a robbery of a precious artwork. If you want to make your story dramatic, add in cliffhangers and red herrings, or clues that lead to dead ends. When you’re ready to write your story, scroll down for tips from our Creative Writing reviewer on creating a well-paced and exciting narrative. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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50 Intriguing Mystery Story Ideas!

Mystery story ideas often follow a similar pattern. Early on, a dead body turns up, a valuable item goes missing, or a puzzle begs to be solved. The reader knows that by the end of the book, questions will have been answered, which is a comforting element in even the most gruesome murder mysteries.

This simple structure allows for endless creative and original variations. And ten different writers could take the same writing prompt here and write ten vastly different stories! I’ve been reading a lot of mystery novels lately — mostly cozy mysteries, not gritty crime novels, although I might enjoy those, too. That inspired me to write this list of prompts for mystery story ideas.

You can also use this list as an idea generator for free-writing.  Whether you stumble across a story idea you love in the process, or you just get your creative writing juices flowing again, it’s so worth it.

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Although I had mystery novels in mind, some of these could become a subplot in a different fiction genre, from fantasy and romance (especially romantic suspense), to historical fiction and thrillers. (And you might also be interested in my list of 50 thriller plot ideas !)

Be sure to save the post for future reference (or pin it on Pinterest!)

Mystery Story Ideas

1. A woman asks a writer to write the story of her life. Then she goes missing.

2. Murder victims are found buried with some of their wordly goods, Viking style.

3. Three people close to the murder victim have confessed. Each of them swears they acted alone.

4. Notes and gifts from her “Secret Santa” at work take a strange turn.

5. It’s going to be a beautiful wedding at a beautiful destination, but two people in the wedding party have been murdered.

6. The creator of a high-tech prototype that will change an industry has gone missing.

7. Her parents believe her to be their biological child, but they all learn otherwise.

8. The dead woman’s wedding ring is found in a ditch forty miles away.

9. A museum conservator is restoring an old painting, and an X-ray reveals something shocking or mysterious painted or written in the layer beneath.

10. A sorority sister who bullied prospective pledges is found dead.

11. As a man researches his genealogy, he finds that ancestors from a few different generations and a few different countries made visits to the same remote place.

12. Someone replaced the woman’s contact lens solution with a damaging liquid. (This mystery story idea brought to you courtesy of a phobia of mine!)

13. He’s always been a faithful husband, but someone has planted false evidence of his having an affair.

14. A detective is hired for a high price to find a thief who stole something that doesn’t appear to have any real value.

15. Every unmarried lady at the ball wanted to dance with the duke, so it’s too bad he was found stabbed in the garden.

16. In the middle of a wilderness, someone finds an abandoned bunker with security cameras, powered by a generator.

17. The graves of historic figures are being robbed.

18. Clues to the mystery come to him in dreams, but nobody believes him.

19. Serial murders in cities in two different countries are very similar.

20. A man she didn’t know left her a valuable and unusual item in his will.

21. A writer researching his biography of a Golden Age movie star comes across something that makes him suspect that contrary to the official story, she was a murder victim.

22. The accidental death of this investigative reporter seems a little too convenient.

23. The murders all relate to common fears, such as public speaking, flying, and heights.

24. A woman wakes up with a headache and goes into work, only to learn that she’s been missing for a month.

25. Writers are being murdered at the mystery writers’ convention.

26. The painting must have been stolen from the museum in broad daylight, but the security cameras malfunctioned and no witnesses have come forward.

27. Three different guests at the Air BnB died later under mysterious circumstances.

28. A practicing witch or voodoo priestess is accused of murder.

29. The murders are re-enactments of famous murders in novels or movies.

30. He claims to be the rich man who was lost at sea two decades ago.

31. The inspector’s friend is murdered while he is talking on the phone to the inspector.

32. A dead body is found in an unclaimed piece of luggage at the airport.

33. He was murdered on his honeymoon on a cruise ship, and his new, much-younger bride was the only one on board who even knew him.

34. A woman who didn’t know she was adopted meets her twin sister, who gives her a dire warning.

35. One of the pies submitted to the state fair contest was poisoned.

36. The report of a celebrity’s death is false, but he dies soon after.

37. The murder victims all have the same tailor.

38. Who would kill the guest of honor at their 100 th birthday party?

39. The victim was found drowned in a whiskey barrel at the distillery.

40. A wife arranges a romantic “scavenger hunt” for her husband, but someone else changes a few of the clues.

41. The thief who steals rare books always leaves a sonnet behind. (As someone who’s written a few sonnets, I’m particularly fond of this mystery story idea, but you can think of all kinds of creative “calling cards” for criminals!)

42. The wrong body is in the casket at the visitation. No one knows who it is, or where the other body is.

43. The murders were definitely committed by a human, but resemble the attacks of wild animals.

44. After the woman returned the lost wallet, someone began stalking her.

45. The book she’s reading seems to be telling the story of her own life, though she doesn’t think she’s ever met the author.

46. A man who faked his own death must be found in time.

47. Someone in a villain costume and mask attempts to kill an actor at a fan convention. The actor is saved by a fan dressed as a superhero.

48. An Egyptian mummy, or what appears to be one, is found in an unlikely place.

49. A man is found murdered following a heated argument with several people on social media.

50. A body is found in the organic vegetable garden at a hippie commune.

Do you have some thoughts on mystery story ideas?

If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 

And if you want more inspiration, please check out my book 5,000 Writing Prompts !  It has 100 more mystery writing prompts in addition to the ones on this list, plus hundreds of other master plots by genre, dialogue and character prompts, and much more.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy writing!

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62 thoughts on “ 50 intriguing mystery story ideas ”.

• Pingback: 50 Mystery Plot Ideas and Writing Prompts! – All About Writing and more

I love cozy mysteries and I love these prompts. A couple of them have spoken to me already and I’ve never written a mystery before.

Thanks, KC! And yeah… cozy mysteries are a whole new world for me, and I love them. 🙂

And I thought I could come up with some off the wall stuff…Thanks Bryn! You’ve offered up several gems.

Haha, thank you Anne!

Your writing prompts should get the writing juices flowing. Thanks for sharing.

Hey, thanks for reading! And for commenting!

Thanks for the mystery prompts, Bryn! I’ve queued up a link to share tonight for Write it Wednesday on my blog.

Oh, thank you. It’s always an honor!

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Is 46 a transvestite mystery then?

It’s either a typo, transvestite, cross dresser, a man who was dressed as a woman as part of his job, or dressed as a woman as a way of hiding from the trouble he’s in. Your choice 🙂

Ha! It’s a typo. I corrected it. 🙂 Thank you!

PS I do that ALL THE TIME in my writing! I always have to correct a few pronouns when I edit a story.

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Number 2 is brilliant and I would binge watch an entire Scandi-noir series based on it.

Hahaha! Thanks, Maggie!

You helped me a LOT, thanks! I wrote stories on #9 and #11. I liked several others, but couldn’t think of ways to put them into stories. I tweaked #9 quite a bit. You have awesome ideas! ??

Hi Bryn, just to say your “Master List for Writers” rocks – love it!

Thanks a lot Bryn… the ideas were nice… can work as a kick starter…!!

this was very helpful thank you so much (they were also in a very understanable english, im only 13 and from denmark)

These ideas are genius! Please write more for mystery and other types of books. (if you have time.) I LOVED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR IDEAS.

Hello, Bryn! Thank you so much for making this! it’s really inspire me:))

these are useless

just kidding there good

is it okay to use these prompts for movie ideas?

• Pingback: 4 Places to Find Plot Ideas for Your Mystery Novel | | Silviya's Writing Nook

Its really good to have these prompts…..they speaka lot for the forwarding story

so glad to have found you! Love it! Story Ideas for a whole Lifetime!!

Hi there! I’m so glad it’s helpful! Thanks for the nice comment; I really appreciate it!

Yayyyyy I wanna be a author can I know how to become a AUTHOR BTW I’m 11 yrs old and I love reading and writing stories Love it!

thank you i am 11 with my friend we are writing a book

Saul, that’s awesome! I wish you and your friend good luck on your book. Have fun!

Hello, I just found this, and thanks so much! I really wanted to write a mystery novel but I couldn’t come up with anything. Thanks a lot for the effort u put into these ideas and I’m so glad that people like you exist…. ❤

im 12 and im writing a mystery series! so helpful !

Good luck on your mystery series!

Thanks for the prompts!

What a lovely collection of mystery ideas!

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A lot of good ideas here Bryn. Thanks for the inspiration!

I think 99% of content that could lead to a mystery story, comes from people. In solving the mystery, usually it’s a question of finding out what happened, right? I think it’s just as important to know WHY someone did something. The human factor, not just the event, is like, so important, right?

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Nice, and helpful. Let me see if I can connect two or more together and come up with a good plot.

thank u so much! i am 11 yrs old and I’ve been writing short and simple stories since 7 or 8 years old. i came up with the idea to write a mystery novel/murder mystery when i remembered the “Sweet Valley High” series that i read most of by Francine Pascal and how much murder and drama got developed after the 94th one. Anyway, my mind was blank and the ideas i did came up with weren’t exactly genius. i was searching and stumbled against your ideas. they are sooo helpful!! i can literally imagine one of those ideas that u wrote into a movie (for example, your 1st one where everyone is searching for the woman and find nothing. then her adopted brother who had a bond discovered where she was and knew that he should tell no one. he talked to her through lights and letters written on the wall(i got that from STRANGER THINGS) and rescued her from the people who were holding her hostage) i stretched that but i can really imagine this in my mind right now. well, i am so grateful for your ideas. i hope more people can find your ideas helpful worldwide. thank again 🙂

i think that that is really cool. i used to start stories like that around 8 and 9 and i am also 11 looking for more stories

i will also be really happy if u reply 😉

hiya im also 11 i was wondering if you could help me on a 100 word unsolved writting challenge?

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Be careful kids. You do not know that the people contacting you are not adults pretending. Never give out your details to strangers. Keep safe. Keep writing.

will do, thanks 🙂

Number 41 is awesome!! I might use it, but in my story the thief leaves behind haikus. Thanks for the prompts!!!

Hi can you please help me out on a private dective story

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I have been reading posts regarding this topic and this post is one of the most interesting and informative one I have read. Thank you for this!

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A cult believes the victim is not human/heretic.

My problem right now isn’t finding an idea. It’s how to bring it to fruition. Any advice on that would be helpful

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How to Write an Amazing Detective in a Mystery

Meticulous and mustachioed Hercule Poirot. Grounded and brilliant Isaiah Quintabe. Warm and clever Jessica Fletcher.

A thrilling puzzle may be the key to hooking mystery readers, but an intriguing detective is what reels them in for an entire series. And crafting appealing characters like Poirot and Quintabe isn’t as easy as it might seem.

The most successful literary sleuths have more going on than the crime they’re trying to solve. They have complex inner lives, strong opinions, and distinctive quirks. To complicate matters further, they manage to fulfill genre expectations while putting a new twist on familiar tropes.

If you’re hoping to create a detective character your audience will love, keep reading. You’ll learn:

• How to craft a sleuth that fits your subgenre
• Character development tips
• How to simultaneously embrace and subvert detective tropes
• How to use the mystery to bring out your sleuth’s character (and vice versa)
• The key relationships in detective fiction
• What your mystery protagonist’s arc should look like

Let’s start—as one always should—with knowing your genre.

What Readers Look for in a Fictional Detective

When you set out to write a mystery novel , the first thing you want to do is research your subgenre. Read the current bestsellers. Scan Amazon reviews. Haunt a few forums. 

This will reveal a lot about reader expectations. Each mystery subgenre embraces a handful of tropes that inform the sleuth’s personality. 

That doesn’t mean you have to write a cookie-cutter detective. We’ll talk about how you can bring a splash of creativity to familiar characters in a bit. But before you can subvert the norms, you have to understand them.

Classic Mysteries

Classic mysteries love the Great Detective trope . This person has exceptional deductive reasoning skills, champions facts over feelings, and is often a private detective or amateur sleuth.

Cozy Mysteries

The cozy mystery subgenre is famous for featuring female detectives of a certain age. They’re typically amateur sleuths who love baking, knitting, or brewing tea. But these are not hard-and-fast rules.

What matters most is that a cozy protagonist is good-natured, has no major vices (though flaws are essential), and gives off strong Common Person vibes (aside from the crime-solving thing).

Police Procedurals/Crime Fiction

This is where you get your Hardboiled Detective —the persistent and cynical sleuth who has little faith in humanity but still wants to see justice served. They’re almost definitely haunted (and motivated) by a cold case or a crime that affected them personally.

Serious vices are optional. Flaws are mandatory.

The protagonist of a noir novel is similar to a crime fiction detective, only darker, more cynical, and more self-destructive. These main characters rarely evolve enough to save themselves, though they will take huge risks to get one more criminal off the streets.

Balancing the Expected With the Unexpected

So, how far can you stray from those beloved detective archetypes without upsetting readers? 

As you research your subgenre, you’ll start to understand why those tropes are so well-loved. Crime fiction readers appreciate the grit and complexity of a cynical detective who’s always on the edge of burnout. A light-hearted sleuth keeps cozy mystery fans focused on the puzzle rather than pondering humanity’s capacity for evil.

Understand what the most beloved gumshoes in detective fiction provide for their readers. Then see if you can put a twist on tradition without compromising that core benefit.

Here are some examples. 

The Sure and Steady Detective

The average fictional detective is clear-headed, even-tempered, and cool in a crisis. This establishes the sleuth’s crime-solving credibility and makes them instantly impressive to the reader.

You can toy with this trope by allowing your detective to be anxious or distractible in very specific ways that either don’t affect the investigation or ultimately help them solve the crime after a few blunders.

Adrian Monk ( Monk ) is a Great Detective with unparalleled powers of observation because he’s extremely attentive to details due to OCD and a long list of phobias.

The Haunted Detective

If you’ve read a few mystery novels, you’ve likely encountered a fictional detective who’s haunted by a past crime—a cold case or criminal act that affected them personally—or a broken relationship, like a child they can’t connect with or a romance they were too damaged to maintain.

To put a twist on this one, consider tormenting your sleuth with something completely unexpected. Maybe they once put an innocent person behind bars and now they’re obsessed with getting their facts right. Or perhaps what ails them is something heartbreakingly relatable.

In the Thursday Murder Club series, Elizabeth is haunted not by the bodies she left in her wake as an MI5 spy but by her beloved husband’s advancing dementia.

Sharp Edges

There’s nothing wrong with writing a brooding detective who’s battling their own demons. But if you want to get creative, you can create a little complexity for your protagonist by finding a balance of dark and light within them.

The titular character of the Chief Inspector Gamache series is known as humble, kind, and—get this— looks for the good in people . But that doesn’t make this a cozy mystery series (at least not according to Louise Penny ). Gamache is still forced to confront the harrowing business of murder and the psychological darkness behind it.

Detective Character Development

Now that you know how to adapt your gumshoe to fit the mystery genre, what about basic character development? What should you be thinking about as you create your fictional detective?

Find Their Strengths

You always want to know what your main character is excellent at no matter what type of fiction you write. But in a mystery novel, your sleuth’s unique skill set is a big part of the fun.

What makes this character different not just from other investigators in your story, but from other detectives in the wide world of fiction? Can they always spot a lie ? Are they an unsentimental observer ? Do they have a Super Sniffer ?

Find Their Weakness and Flaws

On the flip side, what shortcoming threatens to trip up your detective? Do they take each case too personally? Do they pass out at the sight of blood? Are they over-confident? Irresponsible? Do they shut people out, either in their personal life or the investigation?

How might your sleuth’s weakness place them in greater danger? How does their biggest flaw almost ruin the investigation?

Give Them Meaningful Motivation

Just like any other character in any other novel, your detective needs a solid reason for putting their sanity and safety on the line to solve this crime. So what is it?

Quick tip: motivation is almost always in the character’s backstory . Whether they endured trauma or idolized a detective parent as a child, there’s an emotionally compelling history pushing them to pursue this goal.

Set Them Apart With Quirks

Quirks are the small details that endear your detective to your readers.

Harry Bosch (Harry Bosch series) listens to jazz while reviewing clues. Joyce Meadowcroft (Thursday Murder Club series) leaps at any chance to include celebrities, shopping, or her daughter in an investigation. Darby Hart ( A Murder at the End of the World ) feels dead people compelling her to seek justice on their behalf. You know, quirky stuff.

Flesh Them Out Fully

Of course, as you likely guessed, this stuff is only the beginning. This person is the hero(ine) of your detective story, which means you’ll need a complete picture of who they are. For help on that, I recommend:

• Character Development Worksheet
• Character Interview Questions
• 14 Character Archetypes
• The Best Character Template Ever

Embedding the Detective Into the Mystery

As you create your sleuth, keep in mind how they’ll fit into your larger mystery story. The most engaging detectives don’t just solve a puzzle. They’re consumed by a riddle that occupies their every thought and disrupts their entire life.

Ask yourself:

• What is at stake for the detective in this story?
• What are the consequences of pursuing this case? What do they risk or sacrifice?
• What would they risk by not solving the crime?
• When, why, and how does the case become personal for them?
• How does their involvement make the investigation smoother? More complicated?

Key Relationships in a Detective Story

This article is all about the main character of your detective story. For tips on how to write an entire cast of mystery characters, click here . In the meantime, we’ll briefly explore how your side characters relate to your sleuth.

The detective/suspect relationship is always fun because it’s built on a rickety foundation of mutual distrust. Everybody’s side-eyeing everybody. Suspects often have secrets even if they didn’t commit the crime. Detectives have to be careful about how and when they reveal what they know. 

It’s a super tense relationship and I am here for it.

The sleuth/ villain relationship is also fun because it can be anything.

Will the perpetrator turn out to be the detective’s childhood friend? The suspect they wrote off on page 47? When your hero(ine) realizes the killer’s identity, will they feel betrayed? Vindicated? Stupid?

It’s all up to you. You’re the writer. 

The one thing you (probably) don’t want to do is create palpable loathing between these two characters for the entire story. Too on-the-nose.

Colleagues or Sidekicks

Most fictional detectives have a little help , whether it’s a good friend to bounce ideas off of or their partner on the force. These characters can offer support or create friction. It’s up to you what the story needs.

Personal Relationships

Even in crime fiction when the investigation is everything, readers expect a glimpse of your detective’s personal life. As long as they’re peeking, you might as well give them a little conflict , too.

Who does your sleuth love most in the world? Where is there disconnect? How does their crime-solving obsession impact the people closest to them?

Antagonists

Not to be confused with a villain (which is a type of antagonist), an antagonist is anyone who gets in the protagonist’s way. This includes the chief who kicks your detective off the force, the hotel manager who tries to keep your sleuth away from the crime scene, and even the spouse who threatens to leave if your main character won’t give up the case.

How does the detective respond to these types of antagonism? Which antagonists have the power to make them feel small and which are just inconvenient obstacles?

Your Detective’s Arc

Finally, we need to talk about your detective’s character arc . This is the journey of growth a character goes through over the course of a story. Your sleuth might have:

• A positive arc - They change for the better.
• A negative arc - They change for the worse.
• A flat arc - They don’t change at all.

A big positive or negative arc will always work best in a standalone detective story. If you plan to write a full mystery series, you don’t probably want your main character to transform drastically over the course of a single novel. Readers tend to get attached to series detectives just as they are, flaws and all.

That doesn’t mean they’re never interested in watching the protagonist grow. You might think in terms of a series-long character arc in which your gumshoe makes tiny steps forward (as well as the occasional step back) in each book.

Or go the Sherlock Holmes route and opt for a flat arc.

For help writing a compelling character arc, check out this article .

One Last Tip as You Craft an Intriguing Investigator…

Let Dabble help! This all-in-one novel writing tool allows you to create customized character profiles complete with property lists, images, notes, and more. 

You can also use the famous Plot Grid to track your detective’s arc in a standalone novel or plan and write several books within a single project so you can stay on top of their series-long transformation.

To learn more about writing detective fiction with Dabble, check out this article and template .

Or just dive in and start exploring! You can snag a 14-day free trial by clicking this link . The trial gives you access to every one of Dabble’s features, and you don’t have to enter a credit card to get started.

Whether you write your detective story with this tool or opt for a different path, remember that Dabble is always here with free articles and a community of fellow writers. So don’t be afraid to start piecing together that mystery writing career. We’re with you as you step out into the puzzling unknown.

Abi Wurdeman is the author of Cross-Section of a Human Heart: A Memoir of Early Adulthood, as well as the novella, Holiday Gifts for Insufferable People. She also writes for film and television with her brother and writing partner, Phil Wurdeman. On occasion, Abi pretends to be a poet. One of her poems is (legally) stamped into a sidewalk in Santa Clarita, California. When she’s not writing, Abi is most likely hiking, reading, or texting her mother pictures of her houseplants to ask why they look like that.

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15 Fantasy Mystery Books for Readers Craving a Magical Whodunit

CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com

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Fantasy mystery is the ultimate escapist sub-genre and an absolute delight. What could beat a whodunnit where the killer could easily be “an actual vampire” or “a wizard gone mad?” If you ask me, it doesn’t get better than that.

If you’re looking for your next fantasy mystery read, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re interested in cozies or noir, YA or adult fiction, you’re sure to find a magical mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

9 Fantasy Mystery Books

Murder in G Major (Gethsemane Brown #1) by Alexia Gordon

If you love cozy mysteries, the Gethsemane Brown series is an excellent choice.  After accepting a music teaching position at an Irish boarding school, violinist Gethsemane moves into a supposedly haunted cottage. But when she finds herself pursued by a dangerous murderer, her only hope of surviving and bringing the killer to justice may be teaming up with the cottage’s ghostly inhabitants.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

In an alternate Great Britain, futuristic technologies like cloning and time travel are everyday commodities. When the conniving Acheron Hades seeks to erase Jane Eyre (yes, the Jane Eyre) from history, detective Thursday Next is assigned to the case. As she dodges time-space-sucking black holes and reckons with all sorts of anachronistic nightmares, Thursday is the literary world’s only hope of bringing justice to Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte’s poor manuscript.

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The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall

Imagine Sherlock Holmes but queer and with a healthy dose of cosmic horror, and you’ve got the delightful and witty Affair of the Mysterious Letter . Captain John Wyndham needs a place to live, and 221B Martyrs Walk is as good as any — even with his temperamental new flatmate, the consulting sorceress Ms. Shaharazad Haas. But when John gets involved in Ms. Haas’s latest case, he is pulled into a world that is so much stranger than he could have imagined.

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) by Charlaine Harris

This quirky paranormal mystery is best known as the inspiration behind the True Blood TV series, and it has been one of my favorite quarantine reads. Waitress Sookie Stackhouse is fascinated by vampires — even more so when one becomes her boyfriend. But a rash of murders that could only have been committed by the undead arises in her town, and Sookie finds herself sucked into the world of Southern vampire crimes.

The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen #1) by Aliette de Bodard

In the rubble of a Paris torn apart by the Great Houses War, its citizens struggle to return to normalcy. The founder of House Silverspires disappeared long ago, and in his wake a frightening figure haunts the ruins. If the house and its inhabitants are to survive, three reluctant figures must seek to redeem it in a society of mystery and political secrets. If not, they will mark the beginning of its destruction.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

Unlike her sister — the renowned magic professor Tabitha Gamble – private investigator Ivy longs for as mundane of a life as possible. But when a horrific murder at Tabitha’s academy for young mages occurs, Ivy loses herself in a world she meant to leave behind as she races to find the culprit.

Storm Front (The Dresden Files #1) by Jim Butcher

It would be tough to discuss the fantasy mystery genre without at least mentioning The Dresden Files . Harry Dresden is Chicago’s consulting wizard. When a murder seems to have magical origins, he’s on the case. But when a gruesome double murder is committed using black magic, Harry cannot put his guard down for a second while he searches for the killer — lest he become this mysterious black mage’s next victim.

Anonymous Rex by Eric Garcia

In a world where dinosaurs walk among us in disguise, Vincent Rubio is a private investigator — and an undercover velociraptor. When his partner dies under strange circumstances, Vincent must bring his murderer to justice while attempting to deal with his complicated love life.

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss

Compelled to find the truth about her father’s mysterious death, young Mary Jekyll searches for the infamous Mr. Hyde — who some say is still alive. Aided on her quest by Hyde’s daughter Diana and England’s most famous consulting detective, Mary delves deep into an underbelly of mad scientists and so-called monsters who are ready to seek revenge.

6 YA Fantasy Mystery Books

Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Young wizards Cecelia and Kate never expected to find themselves targets of a murder plot but to them, it’s delightfully exciting. As they get to the bottom of these strange goings-on, the two must rely on each other through written correspondence for moral support and a healthy dose of humor.

Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist

Lexi possesses a dangerous gift: she can see how a person will die just by touching them. After she foresees the horrific death of a young woman named Jane, Lexi is later confronted by Jane’s ghost to help her track down the murderer. But as the two work together to avenge Jane’s death, Lexi can’t help but grow closer to her — and all the while reckon with the guilt of having been unable to save Jane from her fate.

These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

In 19th century England, reluctant socialite Evelyn travels to London to find her missing sister. There Evelyn encounters the supposedly insane Sebastian Braddock, who claims both sisters possess healing magic. But when Evelyn discovers that there’s more to his claims than meets the eye, she must hurry to save her sister from certain danger.

Yu Yu Hakusho, Vol 1 by Yoshihiro Togashi

When delinquent Yusuke Urameshi dies saving a child from being hit by a car, the Underworld brings him back to life as a reward for his good deed. But this time, he has a mission: to investigate supernatural and sometimes demonic mysteries using his martial arts skills.

Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

One year after graduating from Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley is drawn back to Wincroft among old friends — a seaside estate that she hopes holds answers to her boyfriend Jim’s sudden death. But a knock at the door reveals a mysterious figure who informs then that time has stopped. The only way to move forward is to make an impossible choice — one which may, however, lead to answers about what really happened to Jim.

Jackaby by William Ritter

In search of a job, Abigail Rook finds herself at the doorstep of supernatural investigator R.F. Jackaby. Abigail’s eye for detail complements Jackaby’s ability to see otherworldly figures well, and together they pursue a horrific creature responsible for a string of murders in 19th century New England.

Looking for more speculative mysteries with plenty of twists? Check out these paranormal cozies that are sure to cast a spell on you .

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67 Thrilling And Chilling Mystery Writing Prompts

You’re a huge fan of riveting mystery plots.

You’ve read some of the best mystery fiction ever written (some well-known, some not), and you just know you could create a mystery that would keep your readers enthralled to the shocking end. 

Think how gratifying it’ll feel to hear readers raving that you kept them guessing until the final reveal! 

All you need right now are some high-quality murder mystery ideas like the ones in this post. Read on to find the seed of your new bestseller .

May it lead to many others. 

67 Mystery Writing Prompts 

Look through the following mystery story ideas and make a note of those that get your mind working in strange and vaguely uncomfortable ways. You know better than anyone the prompts that speak to you louder than others. 

If you get a chill as you’re developing the idea, chances are good, your reader will, too. 

1. You’re a memoir writer with a complicated love life. An estranged cousin calls asking if you’ll help her write a “tell-all” memoir . Then she disappears.

2. You’re a private investigator looking into the murder of a philanthropist’s reclusive wife. Two people confess, each swearing they acted alone. You suspect another.

3. You’re the assistant to the creator of the first empathic AI, who disappears just as the first psychopath AI blows away the competition at a global tech convention. 

4. Your candle shop wins a prestigious award. Last year’s winner is angry and slanders you and your products. You find their body behind your store, covered in wax. 

5. You research your genealogy and find that several people from different branches all died in the same mysterious location — of unknown causes.

6. A well-known motivational speaker is about to give a TED talk when they take a drink from a fresh water bottle and collapse. Their assistant disappears.

7. She’s always been faithful to her husband. So, who’s been trying to frame her for adultery? And what does her husband’s dead lawyer have to do with it?

8. You’re lost in the woods, no thanks to a poorly-planned nature hike, when you find the hatch to an underground bunker. A picture on the wall stops you cold.

9. Someone is stealing items from the graves of historical figures buried in the New Orleans cemeteries near your home. What does your latest Etsy purchase have to do with that?

10. Every eligible woman was eager to claim his attention at the ball, but only one would add his name to her dance card — and something else to her collection. 

11. A grandfather you never met has left you an unusual item in his will with a warning: “Don’t underestimate this gift. It’s always been meant for you.” 

12. You’re a witness to the opening of an Egyptian sarcophagus that’s only just been discovered in a buried tomb. Resting on the mummy’s chest is an old camera.

13. A few minutes after you buy a friend’s older smartphone from them (for a bargain), you get a phone call from someone who’s tracking your every move. 

14. Your business computer has just been hacked by a pro, who happens to be a resident in the local nursing home — and the father of last night’s date. 

15. You’re on a solitary walk through the woods near your new home, and you find a set of fresh footprints leading deeper in, possibly toward the lake. You follow them. 

16. You’re on your way home from a vacation when an airport official tells you your passport must be a fake. Your country of origin doesn’t exist. 

17. You take a short walk out in the snow and come back to find a fresh, icy handprint on the glass by your door. There are no footprints leading to it. 

18. You visit a tea shop, and a woman pulls you aside and convinces you to buy a special blend she’s created, warning you to only drink one cup a day — and only at night. 

19. While looking for the cabin retreat you signed up for, you get lost and end up at a cabin that resembles what you expected. They welcome you. 

20. Every night, a new house of worship in your town is ransacked. Each time, the thieves steal a hidden sacred object but leave more expensive things untouched.

21. A rogue doctor overseas has created a life-saving vaccine for a deadly pandemic but disappears before he can share it. 

22. You’re a seasoned detective looking over a murder scene at your ex-wife’s residence. So far, her dog is the prime suspect. 

23. The winner of the beauty pageant is the last person everyone expected. Then she wins the lottery jackpot and wakes up with a dead guy in her closet. 

24. You’ve agreed to deliver a package to a recluse living in a neglected manor in exchange for $100,000,000. They never told you he’d want you to stay. 

25. The night before you head home from college, someone calls you from the home phone and leaves a disturbing message. Now, no one’s answering the phone. 

26. You think you know the identity of your “Secret Santa” until you see the most recent gift: a gem your suspect could not have afforded (and wouldn’t have given). 

27. After the “prophecy,” he changed her name and never expected her to spell out the name “Petra” with her wooden blocks. The near-drowning was not an accident.

28. At night, she sleeps with a different stone beneath her pillow. This morning, she woke to feel as if she’d spent the night running. She wasn’t wrong. 

29. The murder victims all had admitted to the same phobia. And all of them died just as they’d overcome it. Now, the hypnotist who’d helped them was missing. 

More Related Articles:

66 Horror Writing Prompts That Are Freaky As Hell

61 Fantasy Writing Prompts To Stoke Your Creativity

55 Of The Best Young Adult Creative Writing Prompts

30. You arrived early for a job interview and have noticed two candidates walking into a room but not leaving it. The secretary who calls you in is visibly shaking.

31. You visit a practicing witch who happens to be the prime suspect in a murder. Only she wasn’t even in town when it happened. And she’s your sister. 

32. The winning pie was the murder weapon. And the pie plate looked identical to your mother’s favorite — the one that had disappeared after she died. 

33. A woman claiming to be your sister warns you not to get in touch with your birth parents. She leaves a duffel bag with you and, within a day, disappears.

34. A marriage counselor arranges a scavenger hunt for a struggling couple, based on their history. Someone changes the clues, though, and one of them ends up dead.

35. You go to a friend’s wake and see a different body in the casket. Hers is nowhere to be found. And there’s a note under the corpse’s right hand — addressed to you. 

36. A woman returns a lost wallet and becomes the target of a stalker. An item from the wallet (one she’d considered keeping) ends up in her mailbox. 

37. Members of a notorious fraternity are found dead and partially “dismembered.” Their leader has the most reason to fear and goes to you for help and protection.

38. You’re reading a book given to you by a quiet but friendly classmate who lives down the hall when you realize it’s about you. And you die in the end.

39. You subscribe to a candle of the month club recommended by a new colleague, and your first candle reveals a ring that once belonged to a local murder victim. 

40. A desperate housewife fakes her own death, then ends up in the trunk of her husband’s car, wearing a dress that cost twice as much. 

41. A talented musician who performs at a local coffeehouse is found wiped of his memory when his faithful dog leads a police officer to him. 

42. A group of carefully selected teens returns home from a conference to find their parents have all disappeared, leaving identical typewritten notes. 

43. An orphanage with a reputation for finding good families for every child in their charge finds itself under a microscope when one teen returns with a horrific tale.

44. A stranger uses magic to hide his true intentions as he grooms a new target — the young daughter of a rising politician — to do the unthinkable. 

45. You return home and notice strange behavior among the townspeople and an even stranger weekly ritual. You investigate and make an enemy.

46. Bored with your small-town life, you happily accept an offer of a month-long internship at a London bookshop. You get there and find the owner dead. 

47. You run a cafe and have just hired a troubled teen. Unfortunately, her reputation raises the ire of some locals, who point the finger when a customer ends up dead.

48. You take a job at a local bakeshop run by identical twin sisters, one of whom wants to start a business of her own. One of them dies, leaving you a note.

49. Every member of this community took vows of non-violence and silence, so when one is found dead in the herb garden, you and your deaf partner investigate.

50. Random objects in your home go missing, replaced by strange, typewritten poems . You wake up to find one of these poems resting on your pillow.. 

51. A bouquet of flowers arrives each week from an unknown admirer. Each flower means something, and those meanings have taken a dark turn. 

52. Whenever you order from your favorite Chinese restaurant, the fortune cookie’s message sounds eerily personal and prescient. There’s a reason. 

53. When you’re feeling low, your new best friend knows just what tea to brew to make you feel better. It turns out she can also help you remember things long forgotten. 

54. You could swear you’re being followed, but when you turn, no one’s there. Once you’re home with your doors and windows locked, they’re closer to you than ever. 

55. You’re a cop investigating the murderer of a homeless person, but your new partner, who grew up here, seems determined to trip you up at every turn. 

56. When a local bartender is found dead, his curious neighbor finds a secret door propped open by his corpse. The door leads to an underground world of trouble. 

57. You overhear a murder confession and hide where you can see the penitent when the door opens. You recognize the face and barely manage to keep quiet. 

58. You’re looking through a deceased relative’s possessions and planning to donate most of it until you find a note she left you — about stolen evidence. 

59. You wake up to the sound of a blizzard, and you’re dressed in someone else’s winter clothes, wondering how you got there — and what happened to your date?

60. You turn a corner in your new neighborhood, and someone stops in front of you, looks you up and down, presses a key into your hand, and says, “I’ll be back for this.”

61. You didn’t know you had a doppelganger until you came face to face with her at the new coffee shop on the corner. She’s not nearly as surprised as you are.

62. You’re stress-shopping early Black Friday sales when you notice the cameras seem to be following your every move. The manager nervously invites you into his office. 

63. Five fellow college students have been murdered in the same week. Each had stolen something on a dare. One of them mailed their stolen item to you. 

64. You’re decorating for Christmas, and you find a book that belonged to your ex. A note falls out of it addressed to someone who died shortly before he left. 

65. Self-care hasn’t been a priority for you lately, but you accept an invitation to a weekend spa retreat. You didn’t expect your host to be the boss who fired you. 

66. You’re a photographer looking over wedding pictures when you notice a figure with a blurry face that appears in every shot. His face is turned toward the groom.

67. You’re telling your children a story about a babysitting job that went terribly wrong. But you’re not telling them everything. And there will be consequences. 

How will you use these mystery writing prompts?

When it comes to storytelling, only a small share of the magic is in the gift of an inspiring prompt. The rest of it lies in you. 

Begin by choosing one of these prompts and freewriting for a few minutes — or for as long as you like. Paint a picture for yourself, and describe everything your senses tell you. 

Whether you lean toward horror or romantic suspense story ideas, you’ll find a way to make each chosen story prompt your own. 

May each adventure teach you something new.  

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How to Write the Perfect Mystery

Writing advice from the greats of crime fiction.

Writing a good crime novel is difficult, soulful work. These books we love take on some of humanity’s darkest moments, looking for answers, meaning, or just the catharsis of a full recording. Yes, there are pillars of the form—the disappearance, the sleuth, the colorful side characters and suspects, the insistent search for truth. But there’s no magic formula, no instruction guide that can take you chapter by chapter through writing a successful mystery. There is, however, the wisdom of the greats. From Christie to Chandler to the modern-day masters, many of our favorite authors have turned their attention to the craft of the mystery novel. Scouring the books, interviews, letters, and articles of these icons, we’ve assembled a handy guide to writing a great crime/mystery novel. Some of the advice is easier said than followed; other times the ideas are downright contradictory. Take the wisdom in doses, chew it all over and use what works for you. Above all, keep on writing mysteries and we’ll promise to keep on reading them.

GETTING STARTED

Don’t fret about outlines. Don’t over-plan.

“The plans for a detective novel in the making are less like blueprints than like travel notes set down as you once revisited a city. The city had changed since you saw it last. It keeps changing around you. Some of the people you knew there have changed their names. Some of them wear disguises.”

–Ross Macdonald, On Crime Writing (1973)

“At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.”

–Elmore Leonard, “ Making It Up As I Go Along, ” AARP Magazine, (2009)

Remember, you’re never too old to start, although you may be too young.

“A lot of novelists start late—Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you’re young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can’t be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative-writing courses! The academics don’t know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.”

–James M. Cain, “ The Art of Fiction No. 69 ,” The Paris Review (1978)

Arrange your surroundings. Prepare for contingencies. 

“In my hotel room in Paris I only needed cigarettes, a bottle of scotch, and occasionally a good dish of meat and vegetables cooking on the burner behind me. Writing’s always whetted my appetite.”

–Chester Himes, Interview with Michel Fabre (1983)

FINDING A STORY

Look for a story that would keep a child entertained on a rainy day.

“The writer is like a person trying to entertain a listless child on a rainy afternoon. You set up a card table, and you lay out pieces of cardboard, construction paper, scissors, paste, crayons. You draw a rectangle and you construct a very colorful little fowl and stick it in the foreground, and you say, ‘This is a chicken.’ You cut out a red square and put it in the background and say, ‘This is a barn.’ You construct a bright yellow truck and put it in the background on the other side of the frame and say, ‘This is a speeding truck. Is the chicken going to get out of the way in time? Now you finish the picture.'”

–John D. MacDonald, The Writer (1974)

Collision is good, and retribution is even better.

“The cat sat on the mat is not a story; the cat sat on the dog’s mat is the beginning of an exciting story, and out of that collision, perhaps, there comes a sense of retribution. Now you may call that God, or you may call it the presence of fatalistic forces in society, or you may call it man’s inhumanity to man. But, in the immortal words of P.G. Wodehouse, what it boils down to is that if your character does something wrong, sooner or later if he walks down a dark street, fate will slip out with a stuffed eel-skin and get him.”

–John Le Carré, “ The Writer Who Came in from the Cold ,” BBC/Michael Dean (1974)  

THE CHARACTERS  

Make your characters worth saving, whether you save them or not.

“The more passionately alive the victim, the more glorious indignation I have on his behalf, and am full of delighted triumph when I have delivered a near-victim out of the valley of the shadow of death.”

–Agatha Christie, An Autobiography (1977, posthumous)

Give every character a dose of humanity.

“A man once asked me … how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends?…I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.”

–Dorothy L. Sayers,  Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

THE SETTING

A good setting may be the spark your story needs

“Something always sparks off a novel, of course. With me, it’s always the setting. I think I have a strong response to what I think of as the ‘spirit of a place.’ I remember I was looking for an idea in East Anglia and standing on a very lonely stretch of beach. I shut my eyes and listened to the sound of the waves breaking over the pebble shore. Then I opened them and turned from looking at the dangerous and cold North Sea to look up and there, overshadowing this lonely stretch of beach was the great, empty, huge white outline of Sizewell nuclear power station. In that moment I knew I had a novel.”

–PD James, “ PD James’ 10 Tips for Writing Novels ,” BBC (2013)  

Hold onto the mood with as little as possible.

“To say little and convey much, to break the mood of the scene with some completely irrelevant wisecrack without entirely losing the mood—these small things for me stand in lieu of accomplishment. My theory of fiction writing … is that the objective method has hardly been scratched, that if you know how to use it you can tell more in a paragraph than the probing writers can tell in a chapter.”

–Raymond Chandler, June 1949 letter to his UK publisher, Hamish Hamilton

Forget set pieces and focus on dialogue and concrete description.

“I may satisfy myself with Richard II or a crime novel and tell all the fancy boys to go to hell, all the subtle-subtle ones that they did us a service by exposing the truth that subtlety is only a technique, and a weak technique at that…all the editorial novelists that they should go back to school and stay there until they can make a story come alive with nothing but dialogue and concrete description: oh, we’ll allow them one chapter of set-piece writing per book, even two, but no more; and finally all the clever-clever darlings with the fluty voices that cleverness, like perhaps strawberries, is a perishable commodity…The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.”

–Raymond Chandler, September 1947 letter to his agent, Helga Greene

Forget about good taste and focus on what the world is really like.

“Many times I’ve been told by people I respect, ‘There’s too much emphasis on race in this book,’ or ‘The government and the police aren’t really like that.’ I am asked not to stand down but to stand back—behind the line of good taste. ‘Books are entertainments,’ I am told. ‘No one wants to hear your ideas about how the world works or what’s wrong with America.’ Of course they don’t. The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.”

–Walter Mosley, “ The Writing Life ,” Washington Post (2005)

REVISION AND EDITING

Cut everything you possibly can, then cut four pages more.

“For all your cutting, there is usually more to come. Cutting becomes more and more painful, more and more difficult. At last you don’t see a single sentence anywhere that can be cut, and then you must say, “Four more whole pages have got to come out of this thing,” and begin again on page one with perhaps a different colored pencil or crayon in hand to make the recounting easier, and be as ruthless as if you were throwing excess baggage, even fuel, out of an overloaded airplane.”

–Patricia Highsmith, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966)

Identify your favorite sentences and then cut them.

“Just one piece of general advice from a writer has been very useful to me. It was from Colette. I was writing short stories for Le Matin , and Colette was literary editor at that time. I remember I gave her two short stories and she returned them and I tried again and tried again. Finally she said, ‘Look, it is too literary, always too literary.’ So I followed her advice. It’s what I do when I write, the main job when I rewrite…Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut.”

–Georges Simenon, “ The Art of Fiction No. 9 ,” The Paris Review (1955)

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

–Elmore Leonard, “ Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle ,” New York Times (2001)

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8 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Our fiction recommendations this week include a “gleeful romp” of a series mystery, along with three novels by some heavy-hitting young writers: Téa Obreht, Helen Oyeyemi and Tommy Orange. (How heavy-hitting, and how young? Consider that Obreht was included in The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” issue in 2010 — and she’s still under 40 today. So is Oyeyemi, who was one of Granta’s “Best Young British Novelists” in 2013, while Orange, at 42, has won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize and the American Book Award. The future is in good hands.)

In nonfiction, we recommend a painter’s memoir, a group biography of three jazz giants, a posthumous essay collection by the great critic Joan Acocella and a journalist’s look at American citizens trying to come to terms with a divided country. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

THE MORNINGSIDE Téa Obreht

After being displaced from their homeland, Silvia and her mother move into the Morningside, a weather-beaten luxury apartment building in “Island City,” a sinking version of New York in the middle of all-out climate collapse. Silvia learns about her heritage through the folk tales her aunt Ena tells her, and becomes fascinated with the mysterious woman who lives in the penthouse apartment.

“I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht’s prose. … Even in the face of catastrophe, there’s solace to be found in art.”

From Jessamine Chan’s review

Random House | $29

A GRAVE ROBBERY Deanna Raybourn

In their ninth crime-solving tale, the Victorian-era adventuress and butterfly hunter Veronica Speedwell and her partner discover that a wax mannequin is actually a dead young woman, expertly preserved.

“Throw in an assortment of delightful side characters and an engaging tamarin monkey, and what you have is the very definition of a gleeful romp.”

From Sarah Weinman’s crime column

Berkley | $28

THE BLOODIED NIGHTGOWN: And Other Essays Joan Acocella

Acocella, who died in January, may have been best known as one of our finest dance critics. But as this posthumous collection shows, she brought the same rigor, passion and insight to all the art she consumed. Whether her subject is genre fiction, “Beowulf” or Marilynne Robinson, Acocella’s knowledge and enthusiasm are hard to match. We will not see her like again.

"Some critics are haters, but Acocella began writing criticism because she loved — first dance, and then much of the best of Western culture. She let life bring her closer to art."

From Joanna Biggs’s review

Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $35

WANDERING STARS Tommy Orange

This follow-up to Orange’s debut, “There There,” is part prequel and part sequel; it trails the young survivor of a 19th-century massacre of Native Americans, chronicling not just his harsh fate but those of his descendants. In its second half, the novel enters 21st-century Oakland, following the family in the aftermath of a shooting.

“Orange’s ability to highlight the contradictory forces that coexist within friendships, familial relationships and the characters themselves ... makes ‘Wandering Stars’ a towering achievement.”

From Jonathan Escoffery’s review

Knopf | $29

PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE Helen Oyeyemi

In Oyeyemi’s latest magical realist adventure, our hero is a woman named Hero, and she is hurtling through the city of Prague, with a shape-shifting book about Prague, during a bachelorette weekend. But Hero doesn’t seem to be directing the novel’s action; the story itself seems to be calling the shots.

“Her stock-in-trade has always been tales at their least domesticated. … In this novel, they have all the autonomy, charisma and messiness of living beings — and demand the same respect.”

From Chelsea Leu’s review

Riverhead | $28

3 SHADES OF BLUE: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool James Kaplan

On one memorable occasion in 1959, three outstanding musicians came together for what may be the greatest jazz record ever, Davis’s “Kind of Blue.” Kaplan, the author of a Frank Sinatra biography, traces the lives of his protagonists in compelling fashion; he may not be a jazz expert but he knows how to tell a good story.

“Kaplan has framed '3 Shades of Blue' as both a chronicle of a golden age and a lament for its decline and fall. One doesn’t have to accept the decline-and-fall part to acknowledge that he has done a lovely job of evoking the golden age.”

From Peter Keepnews’s review

Penguin Press | $35

WITH DARKNESS CAME STARS: A Memoir Audrey Flack

From her early days as an Abstract Expressionist who hung out with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning at the Cedar Bar to her later success as a pioneering photorealist, Flack worked and lived at the center of New York’s art world over her long career; here she chronicles the triumphs, the slights, the sexism and the gossip, all with equal relish.

“Flack is a natural, unfiltered storyteller. … The person who emerges from her pages is someone who never doubts she has somewhere to go.”

From Prudence Peiffer’s review

Penn State University Press | $37.50

AN AMERICAN DREAMER: Life in a Divided Country David Finkel

Agile and bracing, Finkel’s book trails a small network of people struggling in the tumultuous period between the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections. At the center is Brent Cummings, a white Iraq war veteran who is trying to cope with a country he no longer recognizes.

“Adroitly assembles these stories into a poignant account of the social and political mood in the United States. … A timely and compelling argument for tolerance and moral character in times of extreme antagonism.”

From John Knight’s review

Random House | $32

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3 best mystery books to read this spring

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Explore the mysteries of fictional and real worlds with four Los Angeles writers who pay homage to giants of the genre while creating stories that are irresistible in their own right.

The Murder of Mr. Ma By S.J. Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee Soho Crime: 312 pages, $26

“The Murder of Mr. Ma” combines first-time author John Shen Yen Nee’s experience in comics and digital storytelling with the mystery-writing chops of veteran S.J. Rozan. The novel reimagines two Chinese historical figures — magistrate Di Renjie, popularized in Judge Dee mysteries and numerous film adaptations, and novelist Lao She — and drops them into 1924 London, a period rich in Sino-British intrigue. Twentysomething Lao She is a lecturer attempting to teach Chinese to “people whose need to learn it far outstripped their interest in doing so” and looking for an idea for a novel when he’s asked by Bertrand Russell to help the renowned Judge Dee escape from jail, where he’s been rounded up with a group of Chinese agitators. Though their plan goes sideways, Lao She and Judge Dee form a bond that carries them into the murder investigation of Ma Ze Ren, a Chinese national and shop owner who served with the Chinese Labour Corps in France during WWI.

Drawing inspiration from the Holmes/Watson dynamic and the long tradition of gong’an crime fiction in China, the intrepid duo’s investigation draws readers into the Chinese presence in WWI and postwar London. Along the way, they reveal the intersection of real-life figures like Russell and Ezra Pound in Sino-British relations, the early British film industry’s lucrative “yellow peril films” and much more. Also engrossing are the rich details of Chinese culture and traditions familiar to readers of Rozan’s Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mysteries, while the vivid action scenes feel as visceral as a Chow Yun-fat circular kick with double forearm strike.

A sparkling and thought-provoking debut of a fresh dynamic duo whose adventures I’ll be eager to follow.

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Although you have independently had success in different creative fields, yours is a first-time collaboration. What did each of you bring to the pairing?

S.J. Rozan : John brought more historical knowledge and understanding than anyone I’d ever met. He also brought the outline, which was a great gift. I’m not an outliner; I can’t create a character until I see her act. The process of writing my own books is filled with angst. John had a complete story.

John Shen Yen Nee : Which S.J. operated on, surgically removing parts and Frankensteining other things in. And then she gave the characters three full dimensions, gave the settings atmosphere and gave the story rhythm.

How do you reimagine the historical Di Renjie? And why pair him with Lao She?

Rozan : The relationship between the real Judge Dee and the stories translated by, and the new ones written by, Robert van Gulik is a bit like that between the real Robin Hood and the stories about him. There was such a man, but the legend outgrew him. So we felt allowed to add to the legend.

Nee : The historical Judge Dee was known for solving all his cases, and for exacting demanding justice. He wasn’t a physical hero, a martial artist. We added that. Lao She, a writer revered in China, then banned, then “rehabilitated” and once again revered, seemed like the perfect soft-spoken, smart, brave but slightly behind narrator to tell Dee’s stories.

Who is your favorite Golden Age mystery writer and why?

Nee : Hands down, it’s Agatha Christie. I really liked the way that she used Captain Hastings as a narrator with Hercule Poirot. I’m a giant fan of Poirot, and I thought it would be fun to create a Chinese detective that wasn’t a caricature of the “Insidious Chinaman” (Fu Manchu) or someone like Charlie Chan.

Rozan : Christie for me too. She’s admired for her plots, but I don’t think she gets enough credit for her understanding of people, of motive. Motive is what has always interested me.

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The Stars Turned Inside Out By Nova Jacobs Atria Books: 320 pages, $28

In 2018’s Edgar-nominated debut, “The Last Equation of Isaac Severy,” Nova Jacobs incorporated STEM into a mystery that was approachable and highly engaging. She’s at it again with “The Stars Turned Inside Out,” set among physicists working at the CERN laboratory’s Large Hadron Collider outside of Geneva. A CERN engineer discovers the body of recent hire Howard Anderby in an LHC tunnel shut down for repairs, presumably killed by radiation exposure. Yet the collider had not been turned on nor do videos of the tunnel show anyone present.

The CERN director calls in Sabine Leroux, a “consulting detective” and friend, to secretly investigate. Chapters from the point of view of Leroux — an outsider who employs Poirot-inspired investigative methods — contrast with those centered on Eve Marsh, a young postdoctoral physicist and colleague crushing on the handsome Anderby while harboring her own secrets and professional worries.

While the novel exposes the professional rivalries and hidden desires of a sensitively drawn group of Anderby’s colleagues and frenemies, it’s also a touching story about love and friendship, born of sorrow and guilt. Then the novel takes a metaphysical turn that is wholly unexpected. Who knew particle physics could be so bewitching?

What inspired you to combine physics and a locked-room mystery?

I didn’t initially think of my book as a locked-room mystery, though I very much set out to write a classic whodunit in a physics setting. It was the CERN laboratory’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that first captivated my imagination, not just as an intensely complex machine but also as very much its own place unlike any on Earth. I saw a 2013 documentary about CERN, which features a shot of an engineer bicycling through the LHC tunnel during a collider shutdown. The contrast between this sophisticated machine and the very low-tech manner in which engineers travel along the pipe really delighted me.

Why did you write two such different but engaging central characters?

I didn’t want every single character to be a scientist, which seemed a recipe for a static story. I was interested in creating some kind of tension between science and not-science . So in switching between a woman who has devoted her life to particle physics yet is questioning her own choices (Eve) and a detective who’s rejected a strictly scientific path (Sabine), I was able to create that necessary push and pull in the novel between the sciences and the lay world.

Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers are inescapable early loves and ongoing favorites. But G.K. Chesterton is up there for me simply for “The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare,” which is one of the most inventive mysteries I’ve ever encountered. It also reads as a kind of spy thriller, with a speculative depth lurking beneath its multiple switchbacks in plot. It remains one of the most buoyant, mischievous and surprisingly metaphysical pieces of fiction I’ve ever read.

Why Don Winslow’s ‘City in Ruins’ will be his last novel

Don Winslow reveals why his latest novel, ‘City in Ruins,’ the final installment in the Danny Ryan series, will be his last.

A Better World By Sarah Langan Atria Books: 368 pages, $29

In “A Better World,” Sarah Langan paints a disturbing picture of a late 21st century world not that far removed from our own. In the United Colonies and around the world, it’s the “Era of the Great Unwinding,” a time when “the institutions, laws and even the bridges and roads that people had come to depend upon were falling apart.” Those with the means and connections are fleeing to company towns. One such town is Plymouth Valley, or PV as it’s called by insiders, in South Dakota. Owned by BetterWorld, makers of Omnium, a biodegradable polymer made from recycled plastic, PV is the seat of operations for the multinational conglomerate and home to its top executives and scientists.

It’s also the last chance for the Farmer-Bowens family, Brooklynites drowning in debt, rising waters and crime. Linda Farmer’s job as part-time pediatrician at a free clinic doesn’t cover the bills. Her husband, Russell Bowens, has been laid off from his job as a science advisor in the EPA’s regulatory department. Then the family is thrown a lifeline — a job for Russell at BetterWorld, plus all living and education expenses paid. The job also comes with the ultimate perk — a golden ticket to live in PV forever, earned for the family once Russell satisfactorily completes 25 years of service. Bottom line, the recruiter tells them: “Your children will be set for life.” It’s a sacrifice any parent would make, right? What could be wrong with that?

Turns out plenty, much of it revolving around a set of customs called Hollow, a genetically engineered carnivorous bird called a caladrius and the increasingly bizarre behavior of the cosmetically perfect locals. As the family tries to fit in, Linda begins investigating what an unhinged mother swears is the kidnapping of her two children, both of whom are fighting a rare form of cancer. A potent cocktail of horror, suspense and thriller, “A Better World” is a cautionary tale of a family’s sacrifice gone wrong and a high-water mark in the career of a novelist who’s already won three Bram Stoker Awards. My only warning: Don’t start this book on a school night. Beware the sacrifice!

To put it mildly, Plymouth Valley is a company town on steroids. What inspired it?

About 10 years ago, a friend gave me a tour of the Google offices in Manhattan. They’re fantastic. They have everything; you never need to leave. Plus, everyone there is hard-working and pleasant — the kinds of people you’d love to spend time with and learn from. I can see the appeal. Who wouldn’t take that job?

In my fictional town, the have-nots are all outside PV’s high walls and therefore invisible. But the kinds of people who can tolerate that cognitive dissonance — their work scaffolds their privilege but also hurts the world — tend to become erratic and prone to magical thinking. They’ll believe any story, submit to any absurdity, so long as they don’t have to admit they’re the villains.

For all of the thriller and horror tropes in “A Better World,” I was intrigued by the intimate portrait of the Farmer-Bowens family. Can you share a bit about why families in distress are so central to your story?

Families fascinate me. We all come from family; we’re all seeking chosen families. The good and the bad that we learned from our birth families, we project onto our new families. Through our children, we understand our parents. Or we understand them a lot less than we thought.

What both this novel and my last, “Good Neighbors,” have in common is this question: How much would you sacrifice for your children? How much of your own morality would you violate to keep them safe? And the question that comes after that: Should you sacrifice that much? Is it good for you? For them? For the world?

I felt like there were a lot of classic genre echoes in “A Better World” — Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” Ira Levin’s “The Stepford Wives” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” even Aldous Huxley’s “1984.” Were there classic genre writers on your mind as you were writing the book?

I had those works on my mind, as well as “The Handmaid’s Tale” for its theocratic world-building. And Alice Munro’s “The Beggar Maid” never leaves my thoughts. A book I’d also like to shout out, because not enough people have read it, is Kate Wilhelm’s “Where Late the Sweet Birds Sing.” In preparation for writing “A Better World,” I also watched “Chinatown.” I was inspired by the great conspiracy at the center of the story, and [John] Huston’s villain. I mean , that’s a villain!

A member of the National Book Critics Circle, Woods is the editor of several anthologies and four novels in the “Charlotte Justice” mystery series.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > What are genre tropes?

What are genre tropes?

When you’re reading a gripping story, you’re likely to come across familiar elements or themes. Whether you’re reading a high fantasy novel, a cowboy story in the Wild West, a classic whodunit, or a scintillating romance, you’ll come across character types and plot elements that feel familiar and can transcend different titles or series. Learn about some of the most common genre tropes and see if you’ve spotted them before!

What is a trope?

A trope is a recurring theme, motif, or plot device that writers use to convey specific ideas or evoke certain emotions. These might seem cliché, but they’re fundamental to getting the plot of a story across—and they can even serve as a jumping off point for fresh ideas.

Good storytelling often involves tropes as the baseline for a narrative. If you’re writing within a popular genre, you’ll likely be familiar with the existing tropes that have been both reinforced and dissected over the decades: the damsel in distress, the man with no name, etc. By knowing that these exist, this gives you room to be creative and add some subversion into your fundamental story.

Common tropes in your favorite literary genres

No matter what your favorite genre is, you’ll notice familiar elements and patterns that define and distinguish these genres. Here are some of the most common tropes:

• The Lone Wolf: The man with no name who walks into town and solves its problems before dealing with the bad guy.
• Train robberies: This traditional heist sees robbers jumping onto a train from horseback, or making themselves known in a crowded train carriage, before taking everyone’s money.
• Bar brawl: Once a hot-headed patron sees a losing hand in poker, or sees the protagonist as an enemy, there’s bound to be a fight that breaks out.

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• The haunted house: A group of strangers band together, or are brought together by unusual circumstances, to explore a mysterious location that could be a house, a hospital, or a post-apocalyptic landscape.
• Anyone can die: This trope reinforces the idea that nobody is safe in a horror story, no matter how commonly featured one character is. Even main characters can be killed off, a tactic that is meant to shock the reader.
• Nightmares turn real: A character might think that they’re asleep, but it turns out that while they were sleeping, a horrible deed they committed or were beset upon actually happened.
• Red herrings: In a murder mystery, there will be clues that will lead both the detective character and the reader astray, whether it’s framing another character or proving to be a dead end.
• The incompetent police: Regular police officers (or the police chief) will interfere with the case and dismiss any hunches that the detective has. They might even take the detective off the case, forcing them to solve the case on their own.
• Who you least suspect: A seemingly kind character holds a secret grudge that compelled them to commit the crime, or someone who was assumed to have nothing to do with the case is in fact the murderer. This twist is among the most common in mystery stories.
• The damsel in distress: Whether it’s from a dragon or an evil sorcerer, there’s always a princess or a love interest who needs to be saved. This trope is not only a tale as old as time, but it is also the one most subverted in popular movies and fantasy books.
• The chosen one: An unassuming character is summoned on a quest. But no matter how reluctant he is, he’s born from a noble lineage, or possesses rare and hidden powers that can save the world.
• Larger-than-life threat: There’s a threat to the kingdom or the realm, whether it’s the doings of a sinister wizard or a magical object that could bring doom. Only one hero can rise to avert catastrophe.
• The love triangle: Two characters love the same person, or someone new is introduced to a couple’s life—the chance for drama and emotions can run high in these scenarios.
• Enemies to lovers: Whether they’re rivals or vying for the same hand, two people hate each other at the beginning of the story realize that they’re meant for each other.
• F orbidden love: Made most famous by Shakespeare, this trope relies on the feud between rival families, or differences in class standings.

With these tropes in mind, you’re free to explore how to write stories that follow them so that you can stay within the genre. Or, once you familiarize yourself with these tropes, you can craft creative angles to subvert them and bring an exciting new twist to your readers. Brush up on creative writing tips such as exploring different voices or how to use tenses .

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Don Winslow says farewell to fiction writing in high style

With ‘city in ruins,’ winslow wraps up a spectacular crime fiction trilogy, a sweeping story that morphs and expands over time.

And so, we come to the end. The end of an exemplary crime fiction trilogy and the self-chosen end of a popular author’s writing career. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

With “ City on Fire ” (2022), “ City of Dreams ” (2023) and now “ City in Ruins ,” Don Winslow has written a near-perfect saga: He’s created great characters who grow and develop while remaining true to their essence, and a sweeping story that morphs and expands over time, with the stakes escalating until they reach nosebleed heights at the end. Winslow says he has given up writing novels to devote his time to political activism: “I wanted in the fight. I didn’t want to be writing a fiction obituary of America losing democracy,” he told the Los Angeles Times . With “City in Ruins,” he is saying farewell in high style.

Winslow modeled this trilogy on Virgil’s Roman tragedy “The Aeneid,” an intention made obvious by the epigrams in all three novels. However, you needn’t be a Roman or Greek scholar to enjoy these books (and though it is best to read them in order, it’s not vital). These novels wear their inspiration lightly. The epic poems do not bleed into Winslow’s story but linger like ghosts in the background.

At the center of the three “City” books is Danny Ryan, a Rhode Island version of “a Springsteen kind of guy,” a onetime Providence waterfront worker from a scrappy Irish American family. Over the course of the series, he has gotten mixed up with the mob, fought epic (yet doomed) battles and resurrected himself in Hollywood. After marrying into the family of the king of the Irish mob in Providence, he ends up their reluctant leader in a fatalistic war with the Italians, runs to the West Coast with his family and crew to lie low when it all blows up, manages to claw back his life, gets involved with a movie that’s being made about the Rhode Island mob, and falls in love with a celebrity superstar.

In the final moments of “City of Dreams,” Ryan is in a bad place: in the desert, facing off against a Mexican gang lord who wants to end him. The woman he loves is dead, and he blames himself. Ryan’s life has turned around in the opening of “City in Ruins.” He now owns a casino on the Las Vegas Strip; he’s being a good dad to his son, Ian, with whom he escaped from Rhode Island six years earlier; and he has a psychotherapist girlfriend who’s very different from his previous love interests — in other words, good for him.

But then Ryan decides to indulge his ambition by building a billion-dollar resort casino complex — Il Sogno, which sounds like Las Vegas’s latest wonder, the Sphere , expanded into a full-blown resort. Winslow shows us step by step what it takes to do something this grandiose in Vegas, where everything is supersize, especially the egos.

The project puts Ryan on a crash course with one of his hitherto friendly rivals. Vegas being Vegas, everyone has some connection to the mob, even if it’s distant, and before long Ryan — who thought he had successfully left his gangster past behind — finds himself up to his eyebrows in trouble as old vendettas are resurrected.

Peter Moretti Jr., son of one of Ryan’s former rivals, returns to the States after serving a tour in Iraq only to find out that his mother and her lover are responsible for his father’s death. In a scene involving the clan godfather, Winslow shows how an innocent like Peter Jr. is manipulated into carrying the water for his late father’s crime gang. The rest of this thread is devoted to the courtroom battle between the good district attorney who wants to see Peter Jr. pay for his crimes and the sharpshooting defense attorney who uses every trick at his disposal to get the young man freed.

There’s also Chris Palumbo, the late Peter Sr.’s second-in-command, who took to the wind after a partnership with a crooked FBI agent went south. We see him holed up in Nebraska with a hippie-ish woman (a la Odysseus and Circe in “The Odyssey”) until he comes to realize that he must return to his wife and children back East. He knows he must face the music for his misdeeds and confront the Providence crime gang that wants him dead.

Winslow immerses readers in the hidden world of organized crime, highlighting its inner workings. Whether it’s jousting between lawyers, etiquette among wiseguys or the history of the mob in Las Vegas, Winslow knows how to make the reader feel like one of the cognoscenti. For instance, he shows how he toed the line through the first two books so that Ryan can be in the casino business in Book 3: “Danny’s lawyers argued his cause. ‘There isn’t a single fact linking Mr. Ryan to organized crime,’ the lead attorney said. ‘Not an arrest, not an indictment, never mind a conviction. All you have are rumors and a few articles in the tabloids.’ … The appeal was an effort to keep Danny out of the [Nevada Gaming Control Board’s] dreaded Black Book, which would have prevented him from even entering a casino.”

You can read “City in Ruins” as a meditation on honor, revenge and justice, but the book also challenges readers to examine beliefs about morality. In “City in Ruins,” whether you’re in the world of gangsters or law enforcement or the casino industry, Winslow shows us that morality rides a sliding scale. Ryan is the closest thing the novel has to a hero, trying to inflict the least amount of pain and suffering while saving his family and friends, and willing to sacrifice his dreams as payment for his past sins. In absolutist terms, however, he’s no hero — yet the reader continues to root for him. Even the villains in “City in Ruins” question whether the gods are protecting Danny Ryan or if he will ever get his comeuppance. For the answer, you’re going to have to read the book.

Alma Katsu is the author of eight books, including the Taker trilogy, “The Hunger,” “The Deep” and “The Fervor.” Her latest is “Red London.”

City in Ruins

By Don Winslow

William Morrow. 400 pp. $32

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