Top 5 Mysteries

Welcome to my unapologetically casual top-5 series. Follow the tag ‘Top 5 2023’ for more. There are no stars and no metrics. The only criteria is how much I enjoyed the book, and how well its strengths place it primarily in a given category. Yes, books can appear on more than one list if they deserve it.

Mystery:

As this is the inaggural post in this series, I want to take a minute to discuss a soapbox near and dear to my heart: bookshelf genre vs structural genre. Shout-out to the Writing Excuses podcast for introducing me to this concept. Bookshelf Genre or Commercial Genre is all about the aesthetic or the wrapping around the core plot. Are there ghosts? It’s horror. Dragons? Fantasy. Robots? Science fiction. However, as every reader knows, there are very different types of stories you can explore within those flavors. The most devoted reader of any genre will find authors they love, and some who don’t hit the mark. The true, structural (‘elemental’) genre is all about the core emotional experience a book evokes.

Mysteries tickle our curiosity. They keep the pages turning by enticing us with unanswered questions and challenging us to test our own intellectual meddle by solving the puzzle before the characters. More than any other genre, the proverbial ‘surprising-but-inevitable’ twist is key to the mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these books, and I hope you will too.

Top 5:

5. Marked Territory – The detective is literally a maine coon cat in this hard-boiled noir mystery. Leo hits the mean streets and solves the mystery of a pack of stray dog’s sudden violent interest in a seemingly innocuous abandoned church. 

4. Ghost Talkers – This horror/fantasy mystery features a corp of mediums in world war I. A dedicated spiritualist defies the enemy and her chain of command to leave her safe position behind the front lines to solve the mystery of her fiance’s death. 

3. Blacktop Wasteland – This crime novel is a full-throated, raw look at the inner life of a man torn between two worlds: his loving family, and the thrill of the criminal life that gets his blood racing and promises permanent solutions to his most dogged problems. 

2. Girl on the Train – This first-person psychological thriller accomplishes an impressive feat considering the format: it makes the reader doubt their own senses. From a fleeting crime witnessed through a speeding train window, the narrator slowly unravels the mystery of the murder of an intriguing stranger. 

1. Master of Djinn – This alchemy-punk mystery set in fantasy Cairo has heart, guts, and enough twists to keep the pages turning. Clark tells this tale with a deft touch and sharp insight, expertly playing with the reader’s expectations. 

Honorable Mention: David Mogo: Godhunter – This urban fantasy thriller about demigods warring for influence over a west african metropolis is a high-energy tale with a gritty, if not entirely unexpected, mystery.