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As most will know, a mystery novel is one that starts off with a conundrum – someone has been killed, something or someone has gone missing – and proceeds along a logical path until the puzzle is solved, generally with plot twists and red herrings along the way. There are many variations on this theme, and consequently many subgenres have cropped up over the decades since mystery novels first appeared, with an often-cited early English-language example being Wilkie Collins' 1860 work The Woman in White. These include:
- Locked-room mysteries, where someone in the room must be the murderer, as in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None
- Historical mysteries, set in an earlier age, like The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Noir mysteries, which are dark and gritty, such as Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep
- Detective novels, where the protagonist is a private detective or amateur sleuth, e.g., Sherlock Holmes … and many others.
Robert ...
