Kieran Scott on Closed Circle and Locked Room Mysteries (Plus Her 3 Faves)

What is a locked-room mystery? And is it different from a closed-circle mystery? I’ve heard people refer to my new book, The Getaway, as both, and this has had me scratching my head.

I’ve always thought of a locked-room mystery as exactly what the name implies. The room or other setting for the murder was literally locked or otherwise unbreachable when the victim died. A boat in the middle of the lake that only ever had one person on it. A cell where someone was secured that has not been breached. An international space station with one occupant.

On the other hand, a closed-circle mystery, to my understanding, is a mystery in which we know who the players are and we know one of them has to be the bad guy. Why? Because they’re all locked in the proverbial room together when one of them dies. And now, there’s no getting out. They’re just going to have to reckon with the mystery at hand—and hopefully get out alive.

I’ve done some googling and have noticed that a lot of people refer to what I call a closed-circle mystery as a locked-room mystery, citing books like Nine Perfect Strangers by Lianne Moriarty and The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman as locked-room. If that’s the way you look at it, it’s all fine with me. Why? Because whatever you call them, I love these types of stories. And it seems like the readers and writers of the world do, too.

As reader, we love the specificity of these stories. In a closed-circle mystery, there’s a small cast of characters in a secluded, unescapable space. As such, we know that someone we’ve come to know and maybe even love has to be the murderer. It can’t be some random person from society at large because society at large was not there when the crime was committed and couldn’t have been there. Why? Because the room was locked! Or because there was, as is the case of The Getaway, a hurricane keeping everyone out—and keeping our small cast in.

Closed-circle mysteries feel manageable. There are only a certain number of possible suspects! I can figure this out! But at the same time, they feel impossible. Katie couldn’t have done it! She has kids and a cat and she’s loves strawberry tarts! (I just made Katie up on the spot, but you get the idea.)

As an author, I love to write closed-circle mysteries because of the aforementioned manageability. If you have eight cast members, and you know one of them has to have done it, then you have only eight culprits to choose from. At least one of them is going to have to be evil. You can’t suddenly write in a butler with a nefarious purpose because the butler can’t get there.

It requires the author to think deeply about the characters and their motives. It keeps an author from cheating, in a way. There can’t be some random red herring—the author needs to make one—or preferably more than one—of these people the red herrings. It’s a very focused way to plot a mystery, and requires a ton of planning.

I’ve yet to write the version where the room is actually locked and someone mysteriously dies within it, but I’d love to try it one day. I’ve always found it a bit intimidating, coming up with some ingenious and undetectable modus for murder. Undetectable, at least, until your brilliant detective figures it out. Locked-room murders require the murderer to have really thought through what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it. They’ve figured out the timing, the method, the coverup—all of it—well ahead of time.

My murders are generally murders of passion—they happen in the spur of the moment, in the heat of anger or jealousy or passion. Let’s just say none of the villains I’ve written would have gotten away with a locked-room murder. I don’t think any of them would have had the patience to set one up!

Here are a few closed-circle/locked-room mysteries I’ve read and enjoyed recently. If you have a favorite, I’d love to hear from you! Find me on socials and send me your list.

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Ross Montgomery, The Murder at World’s End

In this genius historical whodunit, author Ross Montgomery has his eccentric Viscount lock his entire household up in his gigantic, secret-passageway-ridden mansion with boarded windows and nailed-shut doors, only to wind up the victim of a brutal murder—while he was alone in a locked room!

Montgomery has managed to give us both a closed-circle and a locked room in one book. Plus, it’s got a fun and quirky cast of characters and a truly twisty and baffling mystery that constantly keeps you guessing.

Nicola Whyte, 10 Marchfield Square

This story takes place in a small community in London, the denizens of which have been curated to taste by the elderly landlady, Celeste van Duren. When both members of a resident couple are murdered within twenty-four hours of each other, Celeste asks two of her residents to investigate.

The second murder at first seems like natural causes, then maybe suicide. After all—no one entered or left the apartment and the exclusive square has a security system that logs everyone going in or out. But the more our two amateur sleuths investigate, the clearer it becomes that someone in their sweet little square is a murderer.

Arturo Pérez -Reverte, The Final Problem

I love a story in which the protagonist’s love of mystery books or keen insight into mystery movies makes them the perfect person to solve a crime. In this case, Ormand Basil spent years playing Sherlock Holmes on TV. Now retired, Ormand goes on vacation to a small Greek island where he ends up getting sucked into solving the murder of someone who died while seemingly alone in a cabana.

It’s got an aspirational setting, an unlikely sleuth and impossible murder. Basically, my perfect read.

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