Getting Started with Mystery

If you’re new to mystery generally, or perhaps you’re looking to explore a different sub-genre, this episode is for you. Brook and Sarah discuss where they recommend someone start exploring.

Discussed

The Red House Mystery (1922) A.A. Milne

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009) Alan Bradley

Jack Reacher series (1997 to 2024) Lee Child and Andrew Child

Three Pines series (2005 to 2024) Louise Penny

Lady Julia Grey series (2006-2014) Deanna Raybourn

Veronica Speedwell series (2015-2024) Deanna Raybourn

Death in Paradise (2011-2024) BBC

Zero Days (2023) Ruth Ware

The It Girl (2022) Ruth Ware

A Murder at the End of the World (2024) Disney+/Hulu

Nothing More to Tell (2022) Karen M. McManus

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (2019) Holly Jackson

Albert Campion series (1929-2022) Margery Allingham, Phillip Youngman Carter, and Mike Ripley

And Then There Were None (1939) Agatha Christie

Matthew Shardlake Series (2003-2018) C.J. Sansom

Elizabeth Peters

Kate Quinn

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but sometimes errors slip through.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi, Sarah. Have you ever had a friend who wanted to get started reading mystery but wanted your advice on where to start?
Sarah	Yeah, absolutely. So um during our 100th episode live event, someone asked where we would suggest a reader start. I think it was with Golden Age mysteries, and we had both said A.A. Milne’s Red House Mystery. But it’s a great question, and I thought it would be fun for us to dig into it a little bit more.
Sarah	You and I have covered many elements of mystery and there are still many more for us to explore, but I love the idea of helping someone who is new to mysteries fall in love with the genre. So, what would you say if someone asked you where to start?
Brook	I think the first thing that I would ask is, you know, what they usually like to read or even watch, like what their personality towards entertainment is, because then I feel like if they’re like, “Well, I really love, uh, you know, rom coms, I just can’t get enough of them” or “Well, I’m a crime true crime junkie,” that’s going to give us a way in to something else that they will like in mystery because there is a sub genre that would please everyone in my opinion.
Sarah	I agree. I think there is something for everyone in mystery. And when I encounter someone who says, oh, I don’t i don’t read mystery, I am a little bit sad for them because I think there’s so much to enjoy in the genre.
Sarah	And I think that they just haven’t either been given the right advice of where to find something that they are going to like, um or they they haven’t given it enough of a chance.
Brook	For sure. And you know to be completely honest, and this is maybe going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think some of those people have maybe started with Golden Age because that’s who we think of as you know like maybe they picked up an Agatha Christie, maybe they picked up you know ah Arthur Conan Doyle, which is a little earlier, but you you get my feel, a classic mystery.
Brook	And I don’t necessarily think that’s the best place for someone to start. Um that’s not because the stories aren’t amazing, but we’re over 100 years away from that. And unless you’re super into classic literature anyway, it’s probably going to be a really hard read for you.
Sarah	I agree. I think I would suggest something that was a little bit more accessible um as someone’s first foray into mystery. So, one of the books that I have recommended in the past to people who were interested in in reading mystery is Alan Bradley’s Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, which is, it is historical and I’m not sure if I would say, it’s not YA, the character, the main sleuth is 11 years old, so you know a much younger sleuth, but it is an adult fiction, an adult mystery.
Brook	Mm hmm.
Sarah	From there you could jump into historical mystery and you know go back a little bit further and read Tasha Alexander or Anne Perry um or you could read you know if you liked the coziness you could jump forward in time and read some of the modern cozies that you know you and I have talked about in the past you know I i think for me that is one of my favorite first books to recommend to people.
Brook	It’s a gateway.
Sarah	Absolutely.
Brook	So playing off that idea that we say, okay, well, what do you generally like to read or watch? If someone said, oh, I love like action-adventure movies, what kind of books would you recommend?
Sarah	Well, I think I would probably recommend ah the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child because there’s definitely some action. But he’s also you know a thoughtful character, Jack Reacher is. And if someone is says, you know I don’t really want to read, but I want to watch something, there is a series on Prime. And then there are the movies featuring Tom Cruise that I have never seen. I don’t know, actually, if there’s only one, but um I haven’t seen that. So I can’t I wouldn’t recommend that only because I hadn’t seen it. Um, but I think that’s probably where I would suggest someone starts.
Brook	Yeah, I like that suggestion a lot. And they’re um they’re quite easy reads because they’re they’re very accessible, great stories, right? That’s a good suggestion for that. I think in an overarching way, you’d probably be looking at um more detective fiction because they’re going to have more action in them. Spy fiction might also be something an action-adventure person would like, and a good heist story. So, um in broad terms, that’s probably a good ah good direction to point someone in.
Sarah	So I would hope that after your first recommendation that the person would come back to you for another and then you could just kind of build that reading library for them. So if they really liked, you know, if you recommended a detective fiction to them and they really liked it you could say well what is it that you liked about that and find something else that you know fits for them so if they they just really liked how the detective pieced everything together um but weren’t super keen on there being you know lots of
Sarah	ah fight scenes, then you could you could definitely find a police procedural to recommend. You know, maybe I would suggest Louise Penny’s series because there’s a little bit of action, but it’s yeah a little bit more um of Gamache and his colleagues speaking to people to to uncover the the mystery.
Brook	Yeah.
Brook	Yeah. Yeah, good point. If you could then say, OK, what did you like about that? And then deepen those recommendations.
Sarah	Yeah. Or what didn’t you like?
Brook	I think when you, or yeah exactly, or what wasn’t your cup of tea. Yeah. Yeah. I think in the topic of romance, it’s very easy because I feel like there are a lot of sub-genres. There are a lot of sub-genres that do not include romance, so don’t get the wrong idea. But there are plenty that do, if that’s something that you like included in your story.
Brook	And one of my very favorite, very romantic, mostly cozy, I think, or traditional mystery is the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn. it’s It’s really good. It’s very romantic. And it would be a very good place to start and put a mystery in your romance story.
Sarah	I don’t think I’ve read any of those books. I have read one of her Veronica Speedwell mysteries and I really enjoyed that. So yeah, I think Raybourn is ah an excellent recommendation.
Brook	And there again, we you were speaking a little on the overlap when we were in the action-adventure area. We have the overlap. This is historical and it’s also romantic and then it’s mystery. So there again, it’s like, well, what did you really enjoy? Well, I loved the setting. Okay, well then let’s go back into historical mysteries a little more. Or I didn’t like the setting. Okay, great. Let’s get you in contemporary romantic suspense.
Sarah	Mm hmm. Yeah. There’s just so many places that you can go if there’s if you can identify what is it that you that you really liked. And um you’re not limited to books, right? There’s lots of television programs and lots of films that we could recommend as well. um you know If someone really just wanted something that was just a bit of an escape, I would recommend ah Death in Paradise, which is, you know, this series that is set in a Caribbean island where most of the people who um the police encounter are holidaymakers and, you know that allows for there being this continuous set of of murders.
Brook	Yeah.
Sarah	I’m not sure I would go to this island myself because of the number of people who die there, but, um you know, that is a really great example of a cozy detective series that, you know, you’re satisfied after watching an episode because it’s been resolved.
Brook	Yeah and you know, Sarah that’s an excellent idea too because you might not know what kind of mystery you want to if you’re thinking of reading so start with television because the you know the menu is just like and it’s very visual then and you could be like oh I want something light-hearted okay I like light-hearted mysteries or No, I really like the gritty, I like the grittier and grimmer stories. And I think it’s pretty obvious when it’s visual and you can experience it so quickly. Because you can digest a mystery episode in 30 or 40 minutes where it takes, you know, maybe a few days or weeks even to read a book. So, I think that’s an excellent place to start and then go back and find, if you’re a reader, to go back and find some books that are are similar.
Sarah	Mm hmm, mm hmm. So what about Brook, if your conversation with someone, you got the sense that they would be into something that was more of a domestic thriller, domestic suspense, what would you recommend then?
Brook	So my auto-buy, auto-read author in this category is Ruth Ware. And I don’t think you can really go wrong as far as like any of her titles, but I do, I have heard in speaking with other readers that um they feel like some of her earlier books are slower and like harder to get into.
Brook	So I would just like just start with some of her fresh stuff. Like Zero Days is ah a great one. um It’s more of an urban setting, which is a departure for her. She likes a lot of rural things. And maybe my favorite one of hers so far is The It Girl. That was really twisty, and it had a great um surprise towards the end. So um yeah, I would I would point someone to Ruth Ware.
Sarah	Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great recommendation and Zero Days. Yeah. Is, is almost, um, there’s ah definitely an action element in that as well. Right. So if, you know, someone maybe wanted more of a female character, um, but in an action setting, then that would be a great recommendation.
Brook	Yes, that book is very action packed. And similarly, like I said, it’s more urban. Um, I would say most of her books are less action and more, you know, cerebral, people talking and things like that. So, um, yeah, something kind of new for her.
Brook	So, Sarah, if you had a true crime buff friend, even though you’re not into true crime as much as some, but you have this friend, they love true crime, where do you point them for fiction?
Sarah	Mm. This is a great question. I would probably recommend something that bounces the bounces off from the true crime subgenre. right So there’s several examples of fiction that you know the protagonist is themselves at a true crime buff.
Sarah	And maybe they have a ah podcast or they’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and they’ve decided that, there’s a local crime that, you know, cold case that they want to investigate.
Sarah	So in in terms of a television recommendation for that sub-genre, I would maybe recommend A Murder at the End of the World, which is ah something that we did a episode by episode breakdown of. um And it featured a a young sleuth who was a true crime fan and had written a true crime book.
Sarah	And then she has to figure out what’s what’s going on when people start dying at this remote resort in Iceland.
Sarah	So for a book recommendation, I probably would choose something by Karen and McManus, and that is Nothing More to Tell. So this is YA, but a high school student looks into a cold case um as part of a ah project that she does for school, which is a very similar summary that I would give for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which is also YA and was very good, but that was written by Holly Jackson.
Brook	I love that suggestion, Sarah. That is a great idea to take that backdrop and then put it into fiction. Because then that person is going to, they’re going to see themselves, I think, in that character a lot because they’re already the true crime fan. So, excellent suggestion.
Brook	So, when we think of someone who likes those rom-coms, would we send them to cozies, do you think, Sarah?
Sarah	Yeah, you know, I think that’s probably the right place to start because there’s typically a a romantic thread in in those books, especially I think in the cutesies.
Brook	Mhmm. Yeah.
Sarah	But I don’t read enough of those that I could make a recommendation.
Brook	Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of similarities because they’re usually um quite lighthearted, a little bit fanciful, a lot of times like small town or at least a small circle. So, I think you’re going to get a lot of those feelings with cozies or anything really with an amateur sleuth. It’s not going to be too heavy. So that’s probably where I would send someone. You know, I might even say that they might want to read some kid fic and have like Nancy Drew be one of my recommendations depending on the person and their age.
Sarah	So, you know, when we started this conversation, you said that you wouldn’t ah necessarily recommend Agatha Christie or any of the Golden Age authors as the place that someone starts, but at what point would you recommend someone pick up one of those authors?
Brook	Oh, that’s a great, great question. I think once somebody knows that they really like the conventions, because you know there’s some definite conventions to a mystery story. And if they really have found that they like the the way that they’re set up, and then the introduction of the sleuth, and then all the way the interviews and the clues, because I think by that point, they’re going to be able to stick in and follow along to a book that might be a little bit more dense of a read or or ah or um prose that’s not the same style that we read or write in anymore.
Brook	So I guess it kind of depends. We got to get them hooked first.
Sarah	Yeah. I think that’s a great point. I would, just thinking about some of the earlier questions that we’ve talked about, if someone really liked kind of an action, a more actiony book, after they’ve read a couple, I might recommend Margery Allingham so that they could read Albert Campion because he is a bit more, you know, there’s a bit more action in in his books.
Sarah	I would I have to think about which Agatha Christie’s to recommend because I do think her books are are pretty accessible, but you recommend them maybe with a bit of a warning that, you know, this was written 100 years ago or 80 years ago.
Sarah	And the way that we talked about people has changed and, you know, ah maybe provide some of that um some of that context.
Brook	Yes.
Sarah	I would recommend that someone who’s a fan of mystery ah read And Then There Were None. And then maybe I would also recommend some of the Miss Marple short stories because they are ah much shorter to read, but just as satisfying as any of Christie’s novels.
Brook	Yes, great suggestions. And then by that point, you’d be ready to you know tackle Poirot and you know kind of pick and choose. There’s so many to choose from. And maybe if you like more of that action adventure, then that’s the time to jump into some Tommy and Tuppence because those are also like capers that take them you know from one country to another. There’s a lot of action in those. um Yes, certainly we don’t want anyone to miss out on the Golden Age authors at all, ah but maybe just warm up to them.
Brook	And while we’re talking about some of the classic mysteries, i I want to bring up a pet peeve of mine. If someone would like to read historical mysteries, we have suggestions for that. But Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L. Sayers, they are not historical mysteries. They are stories that were written in their time. They’re they’re old to us, but they are not historical mysteries. And sometimes I hear people referring to them as that, and I just wanted to make that clear.
Sarah	Yeah, that’s ah that’s a great clarification, Brook, that um just because something was written 100 years ago doesn’t make it a historical mystery.
Brook	That’s right. But if you do like mysteries set in historical times, then I would recommend CJ Sansom’s series, Elizabeth Peters’ work, um and Kate Quinn. They all write about different periods of time in history, but excellent mystery authors.
Sarah	OK, well, Brook, I think this has been ah a good conversation, especially for someone who is new to the genre. And we will make sure that all of our recommendations are in the show notes so that people can look for the the books that we’ve recommended.
Brook	Yes. And many of these subgenres we discussed today have been covered in full episodes on Clued in Mystery. So, if one of them kind of perked your interest, go back in our archive and we probably have discussed it at length. But for today, thank you so much for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery.