Creepy Locked Room Mysteries

I love a good mystery, and ever since I read the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Speckled Band, I have been enamored with the Locked Room concept. Whether it’s an actual locked room, or a group of people stranded in a house or area by weather or other circumstances–the isolation and inability to summon help propels the story forward and keeps me intrigued. The following is a list of some of my favorite locked room mysteries.

I voluntarily reviewed complimentary copies of some of these books, and all opinions are my own. Some books I checked out from the library or are personal copies. This post contains affiliate links, see disclosures for more detail.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

About the Book: Who poisoned the wealthy Emily Inglethorpe, and how did the murderer penetrate and escape from her locked bedroom? Suspects abound in the quaint village of Styles St. Mary–from the heiress’s fawning new husband to her two stepsons, her volatile housekeeper, and a pretty nurse who works in a hospital dispensary.

My Thoughts: I’ve determined I am going to read my way through all of the books written by Agatha Christie, so I started at number 1. This one is about the death of a woman by poisoning, and Hercule Poirot is brought in to investigate. Christie’s plots have a plethora of characters, and sometimes I got a bit lost because she would go back and forth between calling someone “Miss” or “Mr” and then calling that person by their first name. But the crime, how it was carried out, and how all of the clues were put together are very clever and stands the test of time. This book was published in 1920 and the crime was just as clever today as it would have been then (except it would have been easier to solve today with fingerprint and other techie equipment) Overall very enjoyable. I listened to part on audio, and the narrator didn’t do a very good job with Poirot’s accent (sounded more of a Spanish accent to me), but otherwise kept the story moving along briskly.

Guess Who by Chris McGeorge

About the Book: At eleven years old, Morgan Sheppard solved the murder of a teacher when everyone else believed it to be a suicide. The publicity surrounding the case laid the foundation for his reputation as a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. He parlayed that fame into a gig as TV’s “resident detective,” solving the more typical tawdry daytime talk show mysteries like “Who is the father?” and “Is he cheating?”

Until, that is, Sheppard wakes up handcuffed to a bed in an unfamiliar hotel room. Around him, five strangers are slowly waking up, as well. Soon they discover a corpse in the bathtub and Sheppard is challenged to put his deductive skills to the test. One of the people in the room is the killer. He has three hours to solve the murder. If he doesn’t find the killer, they all will die.

My Thoughts: Rating: 3.5 stars. Pretty good locked room mystery, really interesting resolution and a couple of very good twists. I didn’t give the book 4 stars primarily because there were a few things that were a little too convenient and contrived to make the plot work, especially in the back story. 
Overall, I thought this was an imaginative tale that will appeal to mystery lovers. This is an author to watch in the future.

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

About the Book: Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are ruthlessly ambitious high-flyers working in the lucrative world of Wall Street finance where deception and intimidation thrive. Getting rich is all that matters, and they’ll do anything to reach the top.

When they are ordered to participate in a corporate team-building exercise that requires them to escape from a locked elevator, dark secrets of their team begin to be laid bare.

My Thoughts: John Grisham’s The Firm is one of my favorite books because I love the way it flows and the adventure of the plot. Escape Room reminds me a lot of what I enjoyed about that book.
This was a very quick read, I finished in less than a day because the plot moves forward at such a dramatic pace. It is divided between the first person account of Sara Hall and chapters featuring a group of colleagues trapped in an elevator designated as an escape room. 
I loved the way things unfolded and although I figured out pretty much where things were going halfway through, I still liked the journey and the satisfying ending. This is a superb summer read, recommended for those who enjoy a good locked room whodunnit.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

About the Book: Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

My Thoughts: 3.5 stars–Not as solid as Ware’s first book, but a decent read nonetheless. I get super frustrated with the premise that something has happened that we as readers “see” happening and then no one else in the book believes the character. Once we got past all of that, the book really took off and is a great thriller.

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

About the Book: During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

My Thoughts: A bit of a slow starter, it took me a while to get used to the writing style and sorting out which character was which. However once it got going, this was an intriguing psychological thriller. Set in the snowy Scottish Highlands on a remote estate, filled with characters all protecting dark secrets–what a setup for a great mystery!
About halfway through I couldn’t put it down and kept reading in order to know what happened. It’s not even clear from the beginning who the murder victim is (although it’s not terribly difficult to figure out, that part doesn’t really matter). The ultimate resolution is surprising and satisfying.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Morarty

About the Book: Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

My Thoughts: This has been a very interesting book because people have such strong feelings about it. People either seem to love it or absolutely despise it, with despise being the more common reaction I’ve heard.

I didn’t think this was as bad as many people did, it definitely wasn’t up to Moriarty’s previous books in terms of character development, humor, and refreshing storyline, but overall it’s not that bad. I started to listen to this as an audio book, and I think that might have been what kept me invested in the story rather than giving up. The narrator’s Australian accent adds authenticity and gives the characters a voice that I might not have been able to imagine otherwise. But…the narrator spoke SO slowly that I ended up giving up because it was just taking forever.
I did like the characters and it would have been better if maybe there were fewer so we could get to know each of them better. As it was, I felt like some of them were decently developed and others not so much. 
The story really goes off the rails at one point, I’m not sure why the author chose to go that route, but it makes the book more of a weird farce rather than the drama that it seemed to be in the beginning.
Bottom line–not a bad book, but not the best of this author’s by far.

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

About the Book: It’s winter in the Catskills and Mitchell’s Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing–maybe even romantic–weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.

So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity–and all contact with the outside world–the guests settle in and try to make the best of it.

Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead–it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic. 

Within the snowed-in paradise, something–or someone–is picking off the guests one by one. And there’s nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm–and one another.

My Thoughts: Quick read, very reminiscent of an Agatha Christie type book. A group of strangers stranded at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, no power, ice and snowstorm raging. Someone dies.
The cast of characters is large and difficult to keep straight at first, but the multiple points of view help the reader to get to know the various characters. It was fascinating to see how they get more paranoid and frightened (I sure would) the more things that happen and the less sleep they are getting. This is a great mystery, fully explained at the end and will really appeal to those who like this genre. I have enjoyed Lapena’s other books and will continue to read them in the future.

No Exit by Taylor Adams

About the Book: On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside, are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

My Thoughts: Incredibly fast-paced suspense thriller. The action starts on the first page and doesn’t let up until the end, it’s propelled forward at a breakneck pace.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked Darby very much, but as the story progressed I grew to like her spirit and was rooting for her and Jay to triumph.
There are many great surprises in this book–I hesitate to use the word “twists” because that’s not what they really are, but there are some unusual turns of event that kept me invested and made me appreciate the author’s ingenuity for moving the storyline in a plausible way despite the obstacles of location and circumstance. 
If you like psychological suspense thrillers, this is definitely one to put on your list.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

About the Book: Tonight, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed… again.

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. 

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…

My Thoughts: This is not a fast-paced book, but it is certainly an intriguing, captivating mystery. This Agatha Christie-esque book is actually two mysteries: Who killed Evelyn Hardcastle, and what on earth is actually going on? 
I found it a bit difficult to keep the characters straight at times, I was so thankful for the party invitation in the front that listed all of the key characters and I referred back to this regularly. One pet peeve that keeps popping up in my reading: why is it that authors insist on naming characters starting with the same letter? It is SO difficult to remember who’s who: Dickie, Derby, Donald, Daniel, Dance (some are referred to by their last names all the time!) It really affected my reading enjoyment because I got quite confused.
The core story here is beyond excellent and creative. Although the middle got a bit bogged down, the ending more than makes up for it with its unique conclusion. This is one of the most original books I’ve read in quite a while, both in its premise and construction. It bears re-reading now that I know how things turn out so I can keep a better eye out for clues.

Have you read any intriguing locked room mysteries?