Literary Mysteries

I have been reading 'mysteries' for the last 60 years and have just completed an analysis of the 1256 books read during that time. I always knew I was interested in what I thought of as well written stories with some sort of uncertain nature of an 'outcome'. Recently I discovered the category of 'literary mysteries'. To my great delight I discovered that I had read half of the top 100 such books on a Goodreads list. I can now use tagmash to find the same list of books.

It is important to note that while 'crime' is a factor in many of these stories, the uncertainty is often involved with other dimensions.

Is there anyone in this group that has an interest in such books so we could share ideas and thoughts?

Hello, Joe. Who would be some of your favourite authors in this genre?

>2 Sergeirocks:
You can do a tagmash of '2020,literary,mystery' and get an excellent list. I have 147 of the 500 listed, but following are some of my favorites.
Plus, it is important to note that pretty much every book these authors write will be literary mysteries.
For example, my favorite author Kate Atkinson has 8 books and each of them have different sub-genre mixes and crime isn't a dominant factor in any of the books.
There are 99 different authors in my literary mystery list, but here are some of the top ones.

Diane Setterfield
Margaret Atwood
Kate Atkinson
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Elizabeth Kostova
Mark Z. Danielewski
Daphne Du Maurier
Kate Morton
Laurie R. King
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Markus Zusak
Umberto Eco
Sarah Waters
Julian Barnes
Jasper Fforde
Julian Barnes
Alan Bradley
Jacqueline Winspear
Charles Todd

I should have added that at the top of most literary mystery lists is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. If you haven't read it you should.

I have several of these authors in my ‘favourites’ list.
Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series, I love; I found the first in that series, set post-WWI, to be very poignant, and I’m reading the series in order (not something I always do), book 10 will be next inline for me.
I’m heavily into Charles Todd at the moment - another post-WWI series, in fact: Inspector Rutledge. I am at present two thirds of the way through The Red Door, book 12 in the series. Unfortunately, I have not been able to access all the books in this series, so have a blaring gap after book 1, but I don’t think this has affected my enjoyment too much.
I’d also always relish a Du Maurier novel - always full of atmosphere, I find.
I’ve dipped into Kate Atkinson and Laurie R. King, but they aren’t necessarily high on my go-to list, just at present.

>4 Sergeirocks: Thoe two authors are always on my goto list also.
I read all of my books, when available in audio form and I find that every book is enhanced for me. I get all of my books from the Denver Public Library so I get each new book by all of my authors in a reasonable time. Some time the wait will be 3 months, but I don't mind.

>3 JoeB1934: I’m afraid I’ve never mastered the art of tagmash-ing, but I’d be interested to know whether Robert Goddard makes the list of literary mystery authors, as I would most certainly place him there. I find him a masterful story-teller, whose protagonist will quite often turn out to be an ordinary man-in-the-street (not necessarily a detective or a high-powered individual), who becomes a mere participant in the unfurling mystery (from the looks of it, simply because he has nothing better to do with his time), but gets to the bottom of things in the end.

>6 Sergeirocks: Yes, Robert Goddard is an excellent member the list. He was an author that I settled on way back around 2008. His writing was so desirable to me, but at the time I didn't even know about literary mysteries. I just knew I preferred his kind of storytelling. I have 3 other authors to recommend in the same vein. Thomas H Cook, Allen Eskens and John Dunning.

By the way you can go to my profile page and you will understand where I am coming from in what I call my Reading Journey

>6 Sergeirocks: >7 JoeB1934: I’ve never been great at deciding what is a literary mystery author but amongst the favourite of those mentioned are :

Robert Goddard - In Pale Battalions amongst my favourite but he can do on wrong.
Kate Atkinson
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - love The Shadow of the Wind.
Jacqueline Winspear
Elizabeth Kostova
Kate Morton
Markus Zusak
Daphne Du Maurier

Would also add
Josephine Tey
Arthur Conan Doyle
Elizabeth George
Louise Penny
C J Sansom
Alexander McCall Smith
Robert Harris
Ian Rankin

I would also add Jed Rubenfeld, only published two books but loved them. The Interpretation of Murder and The Death Instinct.

I will definitely be exploring the three recommendations.

>8 Andrew-theQM: You've certainly named many of the best! I encourage you to consider Diane Setterfield. She is very close to the top of my complete list. By the way my complete list has 94 authors that the tagmash search classifies as literary mystery authors.

>9 JoeB1934: I do own The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and really need to read it. Thanks for the other three recommendations, I will explore these further along with the 94 authors.

>10 Andrew-theQM: Oooooh, The Thirteenth Tale! Loved that book.

>3 JoeB1934: Thanks to Jasper Fforde, I ended up reading Jane Eyre at long last. And I've just finished re-reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose that I found fascinating and heartbreaking and intriguing, all at the same time.

It is great that there are some others reading literary mysteries. I have learned that there are many who simply don't know, or care what the book they are reading is called. In my scouting for books to read I am finding authors who aren't labeled as literary mystery writers, but they do write fabulous books of the literary quality that I love.

One thing to remember is that a tagmash of literary, mysteries will list the top 500 such books. But what about all the rest? According to tagmash my library contains 147 of the top 500 books. However, if I do a tag mirror on my library it lists 344 books which other readers have given the LM label to. To me, the key is to find authors who write with the literary quality I am looking for and tag mirror lists 104 such authors in my library.