The best mysteries that break the mold

Stuart Turton's novel, published as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the US, has a Groundhog Day setup but with head hopping, a crumbling English manor isolated on all sides by woods, and a murder at the end of the night. The pace is quick, the characters plenty sinister—including a mystery man with a medieval plague doctor's mask. The story starts with a map of the grounds and an invitation: “You are cordially invited to Blackheath House for The Masquerade,” your hosts the Hardcastle family. From there we’re off, with the narrative’s twists and turns requiring the reader’s full attention. An engrossing, ambitious whodunit. 

In Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes, a crew of clones opens their eyes aboard the spaceship Dormire headed away from Earth to find their previous versions floating around dead. Not just dead, but murdered. There’s nowhere to go and each and every one of them could be the killer. That’s a premise that could have gone in a dark direction but Lafferty keeps it light, much of the story propelled by lively dialogue as the clones go about keeping the spaceship on course while zeroing in on the killer in their midst. Weighty questions about the ethics of cloning alternate with jokes, secrets are unpeeled in flashbacks, and twists and surprises abound in this entertaining space whodunit.   

It’s the hot, hazy summer of 1862 and painter Edward Radcliffe has arranged a creative retreat for his friends at Birchwood Manor, on a bend of the river Thames. Things go terribly wrong and there's a death. A hundred and fifty years later in London, archivist Elodie Winslow stumbles across a leather satchel; what’s inside—a photograph and sketchbook—sends Elodie on an investigative journey. While Elodie can come and go as she pleases to Birchwood Manor, someone else can’t—the ghost that’s inhabited the house ever since that fateful summer. An atmospheric mystery, one to be savored on a winter’s evening with your feet up in front of a fireplace and a cup of tea by your side.

Rob Hart’s The Paradox Hotel is bursting at the seams with interesting characters. The hotel of the title serves the needs of wealthy time tourists on their way to and from the nearby Einstein port. Working security is one January Cole. Her only friend an AI drone, January is grieving a lost love and fast succumbing to a time-travel illness that has her becoming unmoored from the present. Things go from bad to worse when she stumbles on a dead body that only she can see—turns out, it’s quite tricky to solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet. Surprisingly poignant, with moments that made me laugh out loud, and some inventive time travel shenanigans.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. You’ve heard the famous first line, maybe seen the Hitchcock movie or the recent (not very good) remake. Rebecca has been called a thriller, a Gothic novel, a romance, but in its bones it's a tale of two things: Love and murder. Handsome, brooding widower? Check. Atmospheric setting? Check. Creepy housekeeper? Check. Much of the story is told in an extremely effective stream-of-consciousness fashion. The book is eighty-some years old and it shows. There's an incident of brownface at a masquerade ball; a disabled character is treated with callousness; and bits of dialogue here and there raise the modern eyebrow. So be forewarned, but otherwise a tense, compelling read.