7 Mystery Novels With the Best Twists
When I sit down to read a mystery novel, there are four key elements I want to see in it:
engaging charactersan atmospheric settinga mystery that keeps me turning pages, andat least one twist I didn’t see coming.
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There’s nothing like the mental puzzle of a good mystery, and the best of them have as many twists and turns as a labyrinthine mansion. Perhaps that’s why when I was writing my new historical mystery novel, Enchanted Hill, I set it at a lavish manor on the California coast and filled it with characters there for a week of parties: an undercover maid who is really a private investigator; a publishing magnate trying to hide his relationship with a famous starlet; and an escaped con posing as a rich guest all while trying to clear his name.
The trouble is, the undercover maid is the daughter of a former prison guard—and she and the fugitive recognize each other. They’ll have to decide if they’re willing to put their past history aside to unravel a dark secret that’s lurking just beneath the surface of the party’s rich and famous guests.
This was such a fun mystery to craft, and whenever I’m writing, I try to keep the four key elements that I love as a reader in mind. At the same time, I’m always learning and taking notes from some of the best mystery writers in the game.
Here are some of the masters whose mysteries nailed all four elements—and included some satisfying twists that blew me away.
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1. The Secret Keeper, Kate Morton
I adore Kate Morton’s sweeping, atmospheric historical mysteries. Her settings are evocative and her mysteries are layered with threads of clues, suspects, and motivations. Morton is an auto-buy author for me, and The Secret Keeper might be my very favorite of hers.
It opens with a girl named Laurel witnessing her mother murder a stranger who comes to the door. Many years later, when her mother is dying, Laurel begins to unravel the truth of what really happened that day—setting off an intricate journey back into her mother’s past and that of her once-boyfriend Jimmy and frenemy, Vivien. If anyone asks me for a book with a good twist, this is the first one I go to.
2. The Likeness, Tana French
Tana French is the queen of literary procedurals. Her first six novels shuffle recurring characters in the Dublin Murder Squad series so that they each take turns getting prime placement. The Likeness follows Detective Cassie Maddox as she goes undercover—after discovering a dead woman who could be her double, and infiltrating the victim’s life to see if she can draw out the killer. If you’re willing to go along with the premise, you’ll fall deep for this one.
French could teach a masterclass in dialogue and this novel is a slow-burn, chilling kind of creepy with gorgeous writing. It shimmers with lines like, “This girl: she bent reality around her like a lens bending light, she pleated it into so many flickering layers that you could never tell which one you were looking at, the longer you stared the dizzier you got.”
*****
Check out Emily Bain Murphy’s Enchanted Hill here:
*****
3. You Are Fatally Invited, Ande Pliego
I had the great fortune to read an early copy of You are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego (coming in 2025 from Bantam), and it’s a twisty stunner. Set at an isolated mansion on an island—like all of the best locked-door mysteries—it calls to mind a heady mix of And Then There Were None, Knives Out, and Only Murders in the Building.
This one was so clever that I blew through it in a day. You are Fatally Invited is a book written by someone who knows and loves the genre of murder mystery: first skillfully paying homage to each and every trope and then knocking them down like dominoes. There is witty joy on every page, razor-sharp references, and a thought-provoking ending. Put it on your TBR list and thank me later.
4. Malice, Keigo Higashino
Higashino’s bestseller Malice (originally written in Japanese) is such a good one for this list because it’s so unlike the others. Its atmosphere is stark and almost clinical. It features police detective Kyochiro Kaga as he tries to solve the brutal murder of a successful novelist. The author was killed in his own locked home, discovered by his best friend, and mourned by his wife—and even though both have solid alibis, Detective Kaga enters into a clever game of cat and mouse to discover which one is the killer.
There are shifting narratives and even when the murderer is revealed, the story takes its time to further delve into the why. It plays with structure in a fascinating way and is unlike anything else I’ve ever read.
5. Goodnight Beautiful, Aimee Molloy
Goodnight Beautiful is a psychological thriller that has multiple twists, including some placed well before the ending that made me gasp. Sam and Annie are newlyweds making a new life in Sam’s hometown. He’s a therapist, she’s lonely, and the vent in his downstairs home office just happens to lend itself to eavesdropping, with shocking results.
I love being surprised, and this one had some true wallops that delighted me by how little I saw them coming. The way this novel is written, with several clever mis-directions to keep the reader wondering if they can trust even their own assumptions, is genius.
6. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, Jesse Q. Sutanto
Mysteries have range, and this is why I love them so much—from psychological thrillers to cozy whodunits, they offer a variety of puzzles to solve. Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is a delightful addition to the bunch, with a very different tone than the other mysteries on this list.
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Vera Wong is not your typical sleuth. She wears orthopedic sneakers, tortoise shell sunglasses, and an oversized visor, and she owns a rundown tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She has advice for everyone—when to wake up, what to eat, even how to “slip and slide” into a cute girl’s DMs. After all, “destiny, Vera thinks, is something to be hunted down and grabbed tightly and shaken until it gives her exactly what she wants.”
When Vera stumbles across a stranger’s dead body in her tea shop, she decides to do her own sleuthing, bringing several suspects together into a plot that becomes as much about found family, food, and fresh starts as it is about solving the murder itself. I loved how much this one burst with unique personality and how I didn’t guess the ending.
7. All the Devils Are Here, Louise Penny
Louise Penny is simply a master of mystery. Her books have endearing characters and red herrings galore, mouthwatering food descriptions, and brutally dark murders contrasted with thoughtful, often hopeful conclusions. Most of Penny’s renowned Armand Gamache series is set within the charming, idyllic atmosphere in Three Pines—although All the Devils Are Here trades the quiet Canadian village for the glittering city lights of Paris.
In Devils, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec and his wife, Reine-Marie, travel to Paris for the birth of their newest grandchild. But danger and threats follow them there when Armand’s old friend, billionaire Stephen Horowitz, is purposefully hit by a car, leading Armand deep into a web of dark secrets hidden in the City of Light. Louise Penny is one of the best mystery writers of our time, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next installment of Gamache—the 19th book in a series that thankfully just keeps getting better.