At their best, mysteries give us a window through which we can criticize our own society. The very best mysteries are not only well-written and even literary, they are fair.

A fair mystery meets the following four conditions:

(1) The characters involved in the crime (and most importantly the criminal) should be present in the book from beginning to end. Now, this doesn't mean that the guilty party must be introduced on page 1, but he or she should be introduced somewhere near the beginning.

(2) The clues as to "who did it" should be laid out for the reader all the way through the book.

(3) The detective (I use this to refer to whomever is trying to solve the crime) should solve the crime based on clues the reader has knowledge of or should fail to solve it.

(4) If the detective fails to solve the crime, then the crime should either remain unsolved or the solution should emerge some other way -- however, it is crucial that this other way be unrelated to any guesses or intuitive leaps the detective might make.

An unfair mystery is a mystery that fails one or more of these conditions. The criminal might be introduced late in the book, sometimes even after he or she is caught, and the clues to this person's guilt are often introduced after they are captured. The detective might solve the crime based on a guess or on intuition, or even by becoming a victim of the criminal. In all these cases, the reader has no fair chance to figure out who did it, because the clues are hidden, irrelevant or otherwise unavailable.

There is a difference between a book's fairness and its quality. Fair/Unfair is a dichotomy. A mystery either offers the reader a fair chance to figure out the solution, or it doesn't -- there is no middle ground. Good/Bad is a continuum. A book can be fantastic, great, good, fair, ok, bad, horrible, etc. Furthermore, a fair mystery is not necessarily a good book. A mystery can be fair, but badly or unappealingly written (like most Agatha Christie novels); or a mystery can be unfair, but also charming and well-written (like Lillian Jackson Braun's work).

My criteria for evaluating mystery stories is more complex than my criteria for any other fiction genre. I've put a lot of thought into what makes a mystery enjoyable, mostly so that I can maximize my reading pleasure.

All contents copyright 2002.
See my comments on plagiarism for more details.

Written on January 7, 2002