Sherlock Holmes to Sleuth: 10 of the greatest murder mysteries ever
AlamyAs the new Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, is released on streaming, here are more ingenious – and confounding – whodunnits to watch and read.
When Rian Johnson's Knives Out was released in 2019, it was widely acknowledged as bringing the film whodunnit to a wider, newer audience. Now six years on, it's an established franchise, with the third film, Wake Up Dead Man, released on Netflix tomorrow. Featuring another all-star cast led by the brilliant Daniel Craig, this latest film explicitly references some of the great crime writers of the past, among them John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie. With that in mind – and should you be looking for further cases to get stuck into after watching – here are 10 of the most ingenious murder mysteries ever committed to page or screen:
1. The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892) – Arthur Conan Doyle
No list of murder mysteries would be complete without one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes adventures. Any number of short stories and novels featuring the Baker Street sleuth would be worthy of mention, but The Adventure of the Speckled Band has a particularly twisting element (literally) at the heart of its crime. Doyle pitted Holmes against very few traditional "locked-room mysteries" – in which a seemingly "impossible" murder or other crime takes place in a confined space – so this one particularly stands out. Originally published in the Strand Magazine in 1892, this short story details a difficult case for Holmes, with the discovery of the earlier murder of a woman hinting at danger for her surviving sister. Conan Doyle's somewhat surreal but deeply effective tale is one of his strongest, and possesses a decidedly malevolent atmosphere.
Alamy2. The Invisible Man (1911) – GK Chesterton
Maverick writer GK Chesterton was equally at home writing about politics and philosophy as with murder mysteries. Yet he is ultimately most famous for the latter, due to his vast number of stories centred around modest clergyman detective Father Brown. Brown's natural moral intuition and theological insight render the stories both witty and intellectual. The Invisible Man presents a murderous problem that is easily one of Chesterton's most intriguing and confounding. Young inventor Conrad claims to be the victim of harassment from an unknown assailant, known only as the "invisible man". When he is eventually found murdered in a heavily guarded house, it seems that Conrad's tormentor really was invisible, having never been seen entering or leaving the crime scene. Luckily, Father Brown is on hand to provide some much needed clarity.
3. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) – Agatha Christie
Considering her vast and monumental output, Christie's work could occupy the entirety of this list. From bringing to life the most famous fictional detective of the past century, Hercule Poirot, to her evocative stand-alone stories, she is the undisputed master of the whodunnit. Her other truly great creation was the brilliant Miss Marple (the best screen version being Joan Hickson's 1980s interpretation of the marvellous character), and The Murder at the Vicarage was the great lady's debut. Concerning the murder of Colonel Protheroe who, in the most Cluedo-esque fashion, is found murdered in the local vicar's study, this puzzling Christie plot is complicated, not just by the manipulation of evidence but an endless string of confessions as well. The result is one of Christie's most satisfying conundrums, coupled with a masterful series of character studies.
Alamy4. The Hollow Man (1935) – John Dickson Carr
When it comes to locked-room mysteries specifically, few are as high calibre as The Hollow Man. The novel is specifically referenced in Wake Up Dead Man by Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc, and Knives Our creator Rian Johnson has praised it as "an incredible, intricate locked-door puzzle". Featuring Carr's regular detective lead, Gideon Fell, it sees him left to solve the murder of Professor Charles Grimaud, found shot dead in his study moments after receiving a mysterious visitor, who has vanished without trace. The tricksy novel won plaudits from crime fans and general readers alike, not least for its in-character lecture from Fell late on about the very nature of locked-room mysteries and their possible solutions; such was its impact, this chapter has itself been re-published as a standalone essay on numerous occasions, in spite of being delivered by a fictional detective.
5. Green for Danger (1946) – Sidney Gilliat
Adapting a novel by lesser-known golden-age crime author Christianna Brand, British director Sidney Gilliat was an excellent choice for heightening an already perplexing whodunnit due to his experience co-scripting Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Lady Vanishes (1938). But Green for Danger shows Gilliat's directorial skill to be equally suited to the murder mystery. Brand's story follows Inspector Cockrill (played by the perfectly louche Alastair Sim) as he gets to the bottom of a double-murder; one skilfully conducted in a medical theatre during an operation, and another seeing off a witness to the first during a World War Two blackout. Cockrill must disentangle a web of liaisons and tensions among the hospital's small coterie of suspect staff, while also navigating the natural chaos of wartime England.
Alamy6. The Living and the Dead (1954) – Boileau-Narcejac
French crime-writing partnership Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac monopolised the market in the 1950s with a range of complex crime thrillers, including the brilliant She Who Was No More (adapted by director Henri Georges Clouzot as film classic Les Diaboliques). Another of their novels, 1954's The Living and the Dead, is most famous for the film it inspired, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), and equally showcases their skill with depicting emotional trauma and serving up relentlessly brutal twists. When Parisian lawyer Roger is tasked by his friend Gevigne to investigate his wife's strange behaviour, Roger ends up inevitably falling for her. What follows is a haunting mixture of supernatural insinuation and unsparing criminal machinations, as a simple investigation inevitably conceals a far more complex murder.
7. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Dario Argento
The Italian film genre of Giallo is a must for any murder mystery fan after a higher dose of gore. Taking their name from the lurid, yellow covers of paperback murder thrillers, Giallo films looked to whodunnit stories in translation for inspiration, and added a healthy injection of bloody horror. None were as successful in this endeavour as the brilliant Dario Argento, and his debut feature The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) showcases his visual talent and psychological insight. When US writer Sam (Tony Musante) witnesses the attempted murder of Monica (Eva Renzi) in a Roman art gallery late at night, he is quickly plunged into a tense story haunted by a black-hatted, leather-gloved killer. Like many of Argento's Giallo films, the dramatic twists and turns are matched by the sheer, audacious violence which often achieves a kind of operatic quality, right until the very final reveal of the killer.
Alamy8. The Black Tower (1975) – PD James
British writer PD James (alongside another genius, Ruth Rendell) inherited Agatha Christie's mantle as the queen of the traditional detection and murder mystery novel. Her books following DI Adam Dalgliesh is really her crowning achievement, and The Black Tower (1975) is a great example of the series' very particular character. With more of a morbid hue than her other Dalgliesh novels, thanks to her hero being off-duty and recovering from leukaemia, The Black Tower follows him as his convalescence is interrupted by a series of increasingly suspicious deaths at a rural care home. Initially considered somewhat too slow-paced by critics – with Newgate Callendar of The New York Times suggesting the book was "heavy going" and would "try the patience of most readers" – in hindsight The Black Tower perfectly highlights James's distinct approach as a crime novelist, favouring meticulous detail, precise characterisation and melancholy atmosphere over pyrotechnics and showy shocks.
9. Sleuth (1972) – Joseph L Mankiewicz
An adaptation by Anthony Shaffer of his own play, Mankiewicz's Sleuth (1972) is perhaps the most self-aware entry on this list, due to its characters' fluency in murder mystery clichés and tropes. Pitting crime novelist Andrew (Laurence Olivier) against his wife's lover Milo (Michael Caine), the plot descends into a nasty power-play in which the pair fake crimes in order to manipulate each other. The film received even more critical acclaim than the stage-play, with four Oscar nominations, including one each for Olivier and Caine. While built as much on the powerhouse performances of these leading men, Sleuth certainly showed Shaffer firing on all cylinders; its witty sleight-of-hands and unforgiving denouement are utterly unforgettable.
Alamy10. Have Mercy on Us All (2001) – Fred Vargas
One of France's greatest living crime writers, Vargas (real name Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau) continues the Gallic trend honed by Georges Simenon and Boileau-Narcejac of splicing murder mysteries with more Gothic stylistics. Indeed, her series of novels following the chaotic Commissaire Adamsberg often render Paris as a city more within the eerie traditions of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera than a modern crime novel. This one, somewhat anachronistically, revolves around a town crier in Paris's 14th arrondissement who is paid by a mystery person to recite cryptic, ominous messages about a plague soon to return to the city. When plague symbols appear on the doors of locals, followed by deaths appearing to be the result of plague-ridden flea bites blackening the flesh, Adamsberg embarks on a particularly dark investigation in this bleak but utterly gripping page-turner.
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