15 little-known detectives with a confusing plot

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A message in a bottle written in blood, a mysterious plane crash and awakening in someone else's body are just the tip of the iceberg.

1. "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" by John Le Carré

Alik Limas lives in Germany and works for British intelligence during the Cold War. His agents die one by one under mysterious circumstances. The hero suspects who is behind this. But to get reliable evidence, Alik will have to play a double game, because traitors were found among his colleagues.

John Le Carré is a former diplomat and master of spy detectives. He loves to screw political intrigue into the plot, telling the reader how problems are actually solved at the state level.

2. "Alienist", Caleb Carr

The future US President Theodore Roosevelt was appointed Chief of Police in New York at the end of the 19th century. At the same time, a maniac is operating in the city, killing boys and disfiguring their bodies. To catch the serial killer, the authorities bring in psychiatrist Laszlo Kreizler.

The doctor applies methods of analysis that were revolutionary for that time and tries to draw up a psychological and emotional portrait of the criminal. In search of a maniac, he is helped by an artist and the first woman in US history who was allowed to work in the police.

3. "Mysterious River" by Dennis Lehane

Three friends - Dave, Sean and Jimmy - did everything together. One day Dave was kidnapped. In captivity, he was subjected to violence. He managed to escape and return home. Only this was not at all the child that his comrades knew. He closed in on himself, and the friendship came to naught.

25 years later, Jimmy's daughter disappears. Dave falls under suspicion, and Sean is assigned to investigate this case. Fate brings the heroes together again, only now they are unlikely to be friends.

4. "Fine Work" by Sarah Waters

Victorian England is not only about gorgeous ladies and polite gentlemen. Other characters lived in the hidden corners of the dirty streets: crooks, thieves and those who wanted to profit at the expense of others.

Two of these rogues play a multi-move. Girlfriend Sue is rubbed into the trust of a rich lady, then to introduce her to her partner. And Richard's task is to win over a rich woman, get married and get rid of her later in order to appropriate a fortune. At first glance, this is a perfect plan, but unforeseen circumstances arise along the way.

5. An Amazing Riot of Color by Claire Morrall

Disappointed in the present and losing hope for a bright future, the heroine focuses on the past. The mystery of the mother's death haunts her. Kitty herself does not remember anything, because she was still quite a baby. The brothers and father constantly evade answering her direct questions and do not reveal the secret.

By doing this, they further arouse Kitty's interest and desire to get to the bottom. Starting to unearth long-forgotten episodes, the heroine stumbles upon secrets that change her idea of the family and herself.

6. "Darkness in a Bottle" by Jussi Adler-Olsen

"Darkness in a Bottle" is a Scandinavian detective story in the best sense of the word. A huge number of threads are intertwined into one tangled ball. A bottle with a note is nailed to the shores of Copenhagen. The condition of the paper and text is poor. However, experts manage to determine that they wrote a message at least 10 years ago.

One detail makes you horrified. Human blood was used instead of ink. How the message ended up in the sea, by whom it was thrown, and how it relates to the long-standing abduction of children, will have to be sorted out by the special department of Q.

7. "Cruel Words," Louise Penny

In the wilderness of a Canadian village, there is a hut in which a hermit lives. One autumn morning, his corpse is unexpectedly found in a cafe. How he got there is not clear, because the room was closed for the night. The motive raises even more questions. The killed man had no enemies.

Inspector Gamache is assigned to investigate. With each new interviewee, he understands that behind the facade of a friendly society there is a whole web of mysteries and omissions. The illusion of good neighborliness is crumbling, and almost every second person is suspicious.

8. "A Simple Grace" by William Kruger

Some shocks are not easy to talk about. The hero of the novel decided to tell about a terrible story from childhood only 40 years later. In the distant 60s of the last century, a small southern town in the United States was swept by a wave of murders. She also touched the family of the central character.

Frank and his younger brother decide for themselves who is to blame for the tragedy. The boys had to grow up dramatically after the death of a loved one. The author will put the final point in this story not earlier than the epilogue, keeping him in suspense until the very end.

9. The Fine Art of Death by David Morrell

At the beginning of the 19th century, a heinous murder was committed in London. Soon the villain was found and executed. 40 years later, the writer Thomas de Quincey published an essay describing the events of those terrible days.

As soon as his work was published, a similar crime is committed on the streets of the city. The police are torn between several versions. Perhaps, almost half a century ago, they executed the wrong person, or the maniac had a copycat. They do not exclude the option that the killer is de Quincey himself, who will now have to prove his innocence.

10. "Alex", Pierre Lemaitre

In the middle of a busy evening street, a young girl is attacked. She is pushed into a van and taken away somewhere. There is little sense from the witnesses: no one remembered anything. The identity of the kidnapped, like the criminals, is shrouded in mystery.

The detective tasked with the case has no idea where to start the search, and with every hour spent, the hope of finding Alex alive melts away. The more he learns the details, the less obvious who the victim is. As soon as something is clarified, the plot takes on a new unexpected twist, knocking the ground out from under our feet.

11. "In Danger" by Flynn Berry

Nora comes to visit her sister and finds her murdered in her own house. After standard police procedures, she waits for the results, at least a subtle hint of motive and the culprit. But soon the heroine realizes that the authorities are deliberately delaying the investigation and are hiding something from her.

Obsessed with the capture of the culprit, the girl decides that only she can get to the bottom of the truth. And then not the most pleasant facts from the biography of her beloved sister and many people who, at first glance, seemed quite harmless, begin to surface.

12. The Drought by Jane Harper

The hero comes to the funeral of a friend. He committed suicide after taking the lives of almost all of his family members. But the parents of the offender do not believe in this version and ask Aaron to find out what really happened.

In addition to this tragedy, another one, more ambitious, is played out here. For the second year already, not a centimeter of precipitation has fallen in the already arid city. Unbearable heat and a constant premonition that something terrible is about to happen is pressing on the inhabitants.

13. "Before the Fall," Noah Hawley

Private jet crashes. Among the survivors, there are two: it is not clear how the poor artist got on board and the four-year-old son of the richest tycoon. The hero thinks that the struggle for life is over at the moment when he and the child were saved, but he is mistaken. He becomes the target of attacks from the media, which are frantically eager to find someone to blame for the disaster.

The FBI is also interested in such a high-profile case. When investigators begin to build a picture of the incident, the main question becomes what caused the plane to crash and kill people: a series of accidents or a specific mistake.

14. "Bureau of Verification", Alexander Arkhangelsky

In the early 80s, the USSR was preparing for the long-awaited Olympics, listening to Vysotsky and did not suspect that there were only 10 years left before the collapse. Against the background of this, the hero of the novel, a graduate student of Moscow State University, Alexei, receives an unexpected telegram, because of which he goes to hot summer Moscow.

There he will spend nine days, following the mysterious instructions of a mysterious incognito. The young man does not devote any of his relatives to his affairs, and they can only guess why he suddenly changed so much. Unlike the heroes of many other intricate stories, Alexei knows the clue in advance. But the reader remains in the dark until the very end.

15. "The Seven Deaths of Evelina Hardcastle," Stuart Turton

The hero regains consciousness in the forest, not understanding how he got there, and devoid of memory. Moreover, he does not know in whose body he woke up, but he suspects that he is not in his own. Finding his way to the estate, he meets a well-wisher, who tells him that he is part of an unusual game.

Aiden needs to find the culprit for the death of the daughter of the owner of the house, who will die in the evening at the ball. If he fails, the day will repeat itself over and over again until the killer is found. And each time the hero will wake up in a new body.