If you knew the world was coming to an end, how would you spend your final years, months, days? That might sound like a dreary thing to think of, but it\u2019s a great setting for a murder mystery. First, there\u2019s a societal breakdown, which is prime for creating an atmosphere of crime. It also opens the door for a lot of philosophical questions about community, society, humans, how we live, death, all of which add more layers.<\/p>\n
Below are three authors who took the idea of a world coming to an end \u2014 or a viscount convinced it is \u2014 and threw in a murder mystery.<\/p>\n
A meteor is set to hit the Earth and cease life. This has created a massive breakdown of society, and in Japan, many people have fled the country or decided to take their own lives, as Haru\u2019s father has. But Haru has decided to continue her time left on earth as she normally would and is taking driving lessons in order to get her driver\u2019s license. When Haru and her instructor Isagawa come upon a murder victim, Isagawa \u2014 who, it turns out, is a former police officer \u2014 immediately takes action to solve the murder. Haru is along for the ride, and the two wildly different personalities end up on a wild, twisty, and layered \u201cadventure\u201d trying to get answers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In this completed trilogy, asteroid 2011GV1 will hit Earth in six months, and many people have taken to either ending their lives or walking away from work and responsibilities to complete their bucket lists. Unlike his colleagues, 27-year-old Detective Hank Palace will continue to solve crimes in Concord, New Hampshire. Currently, his sister needs him to find her husband, and there\u2019s a suspicious suicide that is going to look. Throughout The Last Policeman<\/em>, a question frequently comes up: Do laws only exist if there is an idea of a future?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Here we have a setting that isn\u2019t actually the end of the world, but is believed to be by Lord Stockingham-Welt. Halley\u2019s Comet is predicted to pass by the Earth, and he, along with many people panicking around the world, believe it will be the end of the world. Even though he boarded up and sealed shut Tithe Hall \u2014 which is on a remote island!\u2014 and was locked in his study, he was still found murdered by a crossbow. The accused is, of course, the under-butler who was recently in prison, but the victim\u2019s 80-year-old great-aunt, Miss Decima Stockingham, is on the case \u2014 which creates an odd-couple sleuthing team!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Browse the books<\/strong> recommended in Unusual Suspects\u2019 previous newsletters on this she<\/a>lf<\/a> and see 2026<\/a> and 2027<\/a> releases! Until next time<\/strong>, come talk books with me on Bluesky<\/a>, Goodreads<\/a>, Litsy<\/a>, and Multitudes Contained.<\/a><\/p>\n If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you or you read it on bookriot.com<\/a> and you\u2019d like to get it right in your inbox,\u00a0you can sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you knew the world was coming to an end, how would you spend your final years, months, days? That might sound like a dreary thing to think of, but it\u2019s a great setting for a murder mystery. First, there\u2019s a societal breakdown, which is prime for creating an atmosphere of crime. It also opens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Murder at World\u2019s End<\/a> (Stockingham & Pike #1) by Ross Montgomery<\/h3>\n