Posted on December 16, 2022
I’m hardly a mystery buff. In fact, I’ve been known to actively avoid the mystery section in most bookstores for reasons I’m sure are unfair to mystery fans and writers. The best answer I can articulate as to why I steer clear of the mystery genre probably has a lot to do with its reputation as pulp and where the focus of many mysteries tend to lie. I’m not fully invested in a novel where the only thing keeping me going is the fact that I don’t know who killed who. Because it doesn’t really matter to me who killed who if I don’t know who those characters are and why their deaths matter to the living. I prefer novels that blend genres. I like stories that are difficult to define. I want a fantasy novel that focuses on the individual struggles of the characters rather than the broader struggles of a world I’m unfamiliar with. And I want a mystery that keeps me invested in the stakes of the mystery and their relation to the characters rather than the actual puzzles they’re attempting to solve.
The mystery of a murder or disappearance is not enough for me. I want to be challenged by the moral ambiguity of the detective and the murderer. Maybe the murderer killed her husband to save her own life. Maybe the detective has to choose between the law or protecting the murderer from said law. I’m sure this story has been written a thousand times already, which is why characters are so important: characters, if written well, steer the stories in unexpected places. This is what I believe the novels below are doing. There is a mystery (or several) at the center of these stories, but the mysteries themselves are either second to character, or challenge the character into second-guessing everything they thought they knew about the world, the people they love, or, most deliciously, themselves. It’s going to be so hard not to spoil these fantastic novels, but I’ll do my best.
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline:
What do you do if your beloved husband goes missing? What happens when the minute you stop searching, you find him preaching a sermon full of messages that go against every single one of your values, and the values you thought he had? And finally, what happens when you confront this man, the man you know is your missing husband, but he doesn’t seem to know you or the person you’ve been searching for? These are the questions Empire of Wild places at the front. As a reader, I found that even if I could hypothesize possible answers to these questions, I was more invested in the characters and the goals of Joan, the woman at the center of the novel. My motivation for reading wasn’t just about the answers or whether I could predict the outcome, but Joan’s personal stake in answering these questions. This isn’t to say that the answers were easy to guess, because most aren’t uncovered until the very end; which makes the story hard to put down, and easy to pick back up. What I love most about the book is something I alluded to in my introduction, this novel can’t be neatly classified as one thing or another. You might find it in the horror section of your local indie bookstore, or under a list of Indigenous authors and characters, or another list regarding French Canadian and Indigenous folklore. But what keeps the pace of this story are the questions that go unanswered until the very end, and how the characters are affected and changed by these questions and answers.
The Curse Workers series by Holly Black:
I was actually supposed to be reading Empire of Wild for a book club I started when I found this series. I purchased it as an e-book not knowing it was a three-book series. I assumed it would be a quick and easy read (it was definitely quick, but only because I couldn’t put it down. By the way, I knew it would be dangerous to read and walk a dog at the same time, but I did it anyway). This series, like Empire of Wild, can fit into multiple categories: YA, noir, urban fantasy. It’s set in a familiar world, with one change: there exists a demographic of people (workers) who have the ability to curse others in several ways. The categories of the different ways people can be cursed are luck, death, bone, memory, emotions, dreams, and transformation. With this foundation, the series tackles issues such as criminalizing traits that people are born with. No one can control whether or not they are born with the power to curse, but they can control how they use said ability. The issue is that the powers in charge don’t make a distinction between the two. As long as you are capable of cursing another person, you’re a criminal in the eyes of the law. The main character and narrator, Cassel, is the only non-worker in a family entirely made of workers. As a result, his family is full of either con-artists or members of the mob. As soon as the book opens, Cassel must contend with multiple mysteries entangled together: why is he sleepwalking, why are his brothers acting weird around him, what’s with the gaps in his memory, and did he really kill his best friend and why can’t he remember the details? What make these questions intriguing are the personal stakes they have for the narrator and how the answers have the potential to change everything Cassel knows about himself and his family.
The Angel of Crows by Katherine Addison:
I found The Angel of Crows in the fantasy section of my local independent bookstore, but this novel—out of the three I’ve listed so far—would be the novel that fits the most neatly in the mystery section. By the authors own admission, this novel was based on fanfiction she wrote about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. With a few changes to the characters, their names, and the world surrounding them, the novel became its own beast (pun-intended). One significant change to the familiar world of Sherlock Holmes is the fact that angels live on earth, as do fallen angels, hell-hounds, vampires, werewolves, etc., all attempting to co-exist with humans in Victorian England. The novel is narrated by the John Watson stand-in, Dr. Doyle, yet, he is given a unique voice as well as a few character-specific secrets with significant stakes that are teased out of his narration as the story moves forward. Multiple mysteries make up the bulk of the novel, including the mystery of the Jack the Ripper murders. The mysteries are typically solved within a chapter or two, and their stakes aren’t significant as far as they’re concerned with the main characters. What kept me invested are the characters themselves, the unique and consistent voice of Dr. Doyle, and his relationship with his angel roommate—the Sherlock Holmes stand-in, Crow. One not need be a fan of mysteries or Sherlock Holmes to enjoy this unexpected novel.
~
Even while each of these novels have a mystery at the center, they’re focused primarily on the characters, and I believe that’s what makes them unexpected and difficult to classify in any particular genre. As long as the mystery answers one question—how do the outcomes of these mysteries change the lives of the people solving them?—I’m invested.
SIERRA STONEBRAKER is a first-year fiction writer originally from Seattle, WA. She currently serves as a consultant in the University Writing Center.
