The Value of a Mystery Novel

What’s the value of a mystery novel?

I understand entertainment, but why a mystery?

What makes such a book satisfying?

I think I know the answer. Let’s see if you agree.

The Best Mystery Novel of the 20th Century–-Who dunnit?

Bookbub and Goodreads agree: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

(This book was called Ten Little Indians when I read it as a teenager in the Dark Ages).

The style has been copied often over the years–a group of people locked up somewhere together (or on an island, or a snowbound train, or a ship on the Nile). One by one, they are killed off with the heroic detective (male or female), figuring out the case by the end.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles holds second place.

(Frankly, I prefer my Sherlock Holmes stories as told by Laurie R. King in her Mary Russell [or Mrs. S. Holmes] series.

Notice what happens in these stories. You have a mystery wrapped in a death and solved by one super-wise detective.

While we, the readers, travel along pages in time watching a story unfold, our stomaches clench, and our brains struggle to guess, we turn a corner and . . . it all resolves.

And when we review the story, we can see how it all makes sense.

Congratulate yourself.

Comfort novel mysteries

I’ve written before about a terrible accident when my husband was out to sea.

I had no one to comfort me. The toddlers who went to the hospital in an ambulance needed me to comfort them.

My husband didn’t learn about the horror until three weeks later.

In trying to process that time, I read and reread one Mary Stewart mystery novel after another.

I hadn’t read them since my teens, and yet a dozen years later, they comforted me, particularly Airs Above the Ground.

The hero was just as maddeningly logical as my husband.

It felt very familiar–and helpful to read–as the analytical husband comforted the semi-hysterical wife.

And the resolution? The bad guys were revealed, the family restored, and they all lived happily ever after.

Entertaining History?

Reviewing a list of mysteries I’ve enjoyed over the years, I see an interesting correlation.

Patricia Raybon’s All that is Secret involves an African American female seminary professor in 1923 Denver.

Elizabeth Peter’s Amelia Peabody takes on antiquities dealers in Egypt 1890-1915.

In far-too-busy February and March 2023, I read all fifteen books in the Hugh de Singleton Chronicles by Mel Starr.

This satisfying series takes place in a 14th century village not far from Oxford. I learned a lot about Medieval life, including food dress, health customs, influence of the Catholic Church and pre-Reformation ways of murdering people.

From these books–I’ve read all the Amelia Peabody and Mary Russell novels, also– I not only enjoyed a satsifying mystery, but I learned a great about the times, culture, and historic events.

Painlessly.

Unless you were the victim, of course.

Learning about new places through another’s eyes?

I liked Nevada Barr’s mysteries set in national parks–many of which I’d visited.

A strong clever woman using forensic skills in nature provided a new twist on a classic tale.

(I was shocked to learn how firefighters save themselves when overrun by a wildfire, for example).

But, I decided never again to read one while actually traveling to that national park.

It was one thing to read about exploring a “wild” cave in Carlsbad Caverns, but then to hike through one and have the guide turn out the lights?

Sitting in the dark that day and terrified to move, I’m glad I knew Blind Descent resolved with our favorite park ranger battered but alive.

We got out safely, too, of course.

So what IS the value of reading a mystery novel?

A mystery novel can teach us about times long ago. We can learn police procedures and about unique cultures. The step by step logic so many detectives employ demonstrates how to think in orderly ways to reach conclusions.

They can entertain us, comfort us, expose up to clever humor.

But good, satisfying mysteries have one thing in common.

The good ones, the ones worth reading, all resolve with a surprising, but satisfying way.

And when you close the book, all looks right in at least one (fictional) world.

Suggest another book series I should read.

Life is still a little crazy around here.

But, thanks be to God, I know how it ends.

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