Characteristics of a Great Mystery Novel

A good mystery should remain a mystery until the very end. If you can figure out what is going to happen early on in the book, then it is not a good mystery.

The reader should be provided with clues, but some of them should be false clues that can throw the reader off the trail. But the writer should be careful not to include too many insignificant clues, as this will be distracting. When writing a complex mystery, it can be easier to wander off in many different directions in terms of the storyline. It is important that you avoid this, because you will usually lose the reader when doing so.

Setting is also very important. Research should be done to ensure that everything described in the story fits the time and place of the story's setting. It would be very embarrassing for the mystery to be solved using technology that has not even been invented at the time your story takes place.

Every good mystery is filled with suspense and an element of danger. You should keep the reader on the edge of their seat, wanting to find out what happens on the next page. Depending on your storyline, determine if your mystery should be a "cozy" mystery. A cozy mystery has little violence and no graphic descriptions of violence and brutality, even to describe the crime. It mostly focuses on the mental aspects of crime solving.

Finally, there must always be a motive. When the mystery is solved it needs to make sense. The reader needs to be able to connect the dots. Like a puzzle, all the pieces of a good mystery should fit together at the end.