What is a Locked Room Mystery?

This is going to contain major spoilers for You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego (and to a lesser extent And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie). It’s not a bad book and this is a rare case where spoilers will affect how much you’ll enjoy it. If you plan to read it at all, please read the book before reading this post.

This week on Words About Books, we covered You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego. The book has its flaws, but overall I found it to be a fun ride. Unfortunately, there’s something that has been bothering me about the marketing of this book:

I’m going to be blunt. If You Are Fatally Invited is a “Locked Room Mystery” then any case in which the victim is not gunned down in the street is a “Locked Room Mystery.” This is not a criticism of You Are Fatally Invited, rather it’s a criticism of book reviewers and book marketers. For those who have not read the book, You Are Fatally Invited is very similar to, if not an outright homage to, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Much like in Christie’s book, a group of people are invited to an isolated island. They slowly realize that every one of them, including the servants, is guilty of a crime that the justice system is powerless to punish. They have been invited here by a murderer who has decided to take justice into their own hands. That’s where the similarities end.

I would like to offer some suggested definitions for common terms in the mystery genre and then try to make the case for why it would be best for all of us if these definitions became the standard

• Locked-Room Mystery – A mystery in which the crime or event in question is committed in an enclosed space that is locked from within. All external access is impossible (no secret passage, no accessible windows, no sign of forced entry). A second party could not have entered the room, committed the crime, and left.
• Impossible Crime – A crime has been committed which seems to defy the laws of nature. The puzzle the reader must solve is not just “who” but “how”. There are many ways to achieve this, but the puzzle is not limited to the simple locked room. The Locked-Room Mystery is a subgenre of the “Impossible Crime” genre.
• Closed-Circle Mystery – The mystery takes place in a controlled environment. The characters are isolated from the outside world, often unable to leave until the mystery is resolved. This need not be a subgenre of impossible crime. The crimes that take place may ask only “who” but not necessarily “how.”

Under these definitions You Are Fatally Invited would be considered a “Closed-Circle Mystery.” The characters are indeed isolated, but nothing about the crimes challenges the reader to imagine how they were possible. The challenge, instead, is the classic: whodunnit?

I find it telling that throughout the entire book, You Are Fatally Invited references numerous genres and subgenres of mystery, horror, and thrillers, but the characters never wonder about being trapped in a classic locked room mystery. Ande Pliego very much thinks of this as a thriller with multiple interwoven mysteries. Never does anyone question how the circumstances are possible. In fact, I believe Pliego is purposely steering the reader away from thinking too hard about that, because if the reader did spend more time thinking about what was mechanically possible they would be much closer to finding Alastor’s true identity.

So if Pliego never mentions locked room mysteries herself or puzzles over the supposed impossibility of the crime, why is so much promotional material for the book invoking the phrase “locked room mystery?” If I had to guess, and I do because there isn’t much data on the subject, advertisers have correctly deduced that audiences respond more favorably to the phrase “Locked Room.” It certainly has a much more menacing ring to it than “Closed Circle.” In addition to the cool factor, Locked Room also evokes the achievements of great mystery writers of the past. It isn’t easy to write a locked room mystery. It isn’t easy to solve a locked room mystery.

From what I’ve read, it seems that the locked room subgenre is beloved by people interested in the puzzle solving aspect of a mystery. I’ve heard the term “fair play” puzzle come up again and again. Locked Room mysteries have a reputation for being solvable, but difficult. It’s bound to catch the interest of the most enthusiastic mystery readers. People who like these things tend to like them a lot, and because they are difficult to create, the audience never has as many as they would like. Advertising your book as a locked room mystery is a good way to get it picked up by enthusiasts.

This can obviously backfire if your book is not, in fact, a locked room mystery. While I do not consider 3.6/5 stars to be a low review score, the reading market often does. There are a lot of books out there. More of them have 4/5 or 5/5 than you could ever read in one life time. Many readers don’t bother with anything less. Personally, I think Pliego’s book is worth at least 4/5. That rating is predicated on my being a generalist reader who is just looking for an entertaining story. I am not a locked room mystery enthusiast. If I were, I would have been very disappointed by the distinct lack of a fair play, locked room mystery to solve in this book.

This dilution of the term by marketers and reviewers is not serving readers or writers. It’s resulting in a mismatch of author to audience. If this book were marketed as more of a thriller with multiple mystery elements, it would have had a much easier time finding the audience who would give it 4 and 5 stars, which would help the book maintain its legs after launch. This is why genre pedantry is so important.