Uncommon Mysteries

Mystery fiction has never been content to follow the rules. For more than 150 years, writers have reinvented the detective, overturned familiar formulas, devised impossible crimes, crossed genres, experimented with form, and found new ways to surprise readers who thought they knew what a mystery could be. In Uncommon Mysteries, Michael Cohen takes a curious tour through more than 150 noteworthy works by 125 authors, from Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Anton Chekhov to Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Jorge Luis Borges, Louise Penny, and many others. Arranged chronologically and framed by lively introductions to each period, these brief, opinionated essays trace the changing shape of mystery fiction through the books that stood apart from their contemporaries. Along the way, Cohen explores whodunits, locked-room puzzles, hard-boiled detective stories, police procedurals, cozies, historical mysteries, literary experiments, thrillers, capers, and works that refuse to fit neatly anywhere. Some are classics. Some are overlooked. Some are ingenious, eccentric, flawed, or gloriously strange. All give readers another way to understand the possibilities of the genre. Written for mystery lovers who enjoy discovering unfamiliar titles, reconsidering old favorites, and wandering beyond the usual suspects, Uncommon Mysteries is a lively guide to the remarkable variety of crime and detective fiction, with occasional spoilers along the way.