13 Intriguing Locked Room Mystery Books

The locked room mystery is one of my favourite type of mystery books. Locked room mysteries are based around a crime that takes place in some kind of isolation, where it would be impossible for the perpetrator to enter or leave undetected. Usually, this means that someone in the “locked room” setting must have committed the crime, or know who did, which adds a psychological suspense element to the mix. Here are thirteen intriguing locked room mystery books that will have you desperate to discover who could have possibly done it.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None is the world’s best-selling mystery, with over 100 million copies sold – so you know it must be good! It’s got a (pardon the pun) killer premise, as a locked-room mystery, with a ticking clock. Ten strangers are lured to a remote and isolated island, where they discover that they’re all hiding dark secrets, and they’re going to be killed off, one by one. One of them must be the mastermind murderer – but who? The Queen Of Crime will keep you guessing until the very end! Read my full review of And Then There Were None here.

The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle is a time-travel, body-hopping, locked room murder mystery – every bit as complicated as it sounds. Each day starts with the narrator running through a forest, with no memory of who or where he is, and promptly witnessing a murder. It turns out he’s doomed to repeat this day again and again, each time in the body of a different guest in a crumbling mansion, until he solves the case. His memories are wiped each time, the clock resets, and he has to put all the pieces together before it happens again. Read my full review of The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle here.

The Woman In Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

It’s hard not to feel envious of journalists that get plum assignments – like travel writers who get an all-expenses-paid luxury cruise across the picturesque North Sea. But I can promise your jealousy won’t last long when you read the locked room mystery The Woman In Cabin 10. Everything on board is going swimmingly for Lo Blacklock, until she witnesses a woman being thrown overboard – and, when she tries to raise the alarm, everyone else on board insists that the woman was never there to begin with. With all passengers officially accounted for, the ship sails on, despite Lo’s increasing panic.

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

The Sanatorium has one of the most spine-chilling settings of all locked room mysteries: a sanatorium with a sketchy past that has been repurposed as a luxury hotel. Traumatised detective Elin arrives at the hotel at the invitation of her estranged brother, to celebrate his engagement. When his fiance mysteriously disappears, and a sudden storm cuts off all access to the rest of the world, all of Elin’s bad gut feelings are confirmed. The former sanatorium might not be haunted, but someone there is definitely a killer, and with the storm showing no signs of abating, Elin is the only one who can find the truth. Read my full review of The Sanatorium here.

The Concierge by Abby Brown

Hector Harrow has worked at Cavengreen Hotel for his entire adult life. He’s the hotel concierge, which means he sees everything and says nothing… until now. He’s finally ready to spill the beans about what happened the night of the murder. That’s where The Concierge begins, and what unfolds is a fascinating locked room mystery. It turns out Hector didn’t just discover the body, he was accused of the murder, and he’s telling his story in the hopes of clearing his name. Read my full review of The Concierge here.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Tranquillum House is one of those retreats that offers everything you need: escape, relaxation, mindfulness, and a little pampering. Nine people gather at the remote retreat, each in search of their own solution to life’s problems. But is Tranquillum House really offering answers? Or is there a nefarious scheme afoot? Nine Perfect Strangers is an innovative locked room mystery written by the reigning queen of the domestic thriller, Liane Moriarty, so you know it’s a good one. Read my full review of Nine Perfect Strangers here.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

In Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, everyone in Ernie’s family has (as the title suggests) killed someone – including Ernie. He just wishes he’d killed whomever decided to host their family reunion at a ski resort. Surely, in a family of killers, not everyone will make it out of this snowy vacation alive. It’s a modern twist on the classic locked room mystery, where everyone is a perpetrator and the true victim is a mystery. It’s “Knives Out meets Clue meets Agatha Christie meets The Thursday Murder Club“, as per the blurb, and it’s good – albeit ridiculous – fun. Read my full review of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone here.

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

You can’t blame Julia Bartz for “writing what she knows” in The Writing Retreat – after all, a writing retreat is basically the perfect setting for a locked room mystery. A bunch of creatives, many of whom bring overweight emotional baggage, are isolated in a location where there’s nothing to think about but their art and each other. And, in this case, the whole shebang is overseen by a reclusive and demanding author who wants a lot more out of them than a good story. It’s hard to imagine that there are any such retreats without a murder, come to think of it… Read my full review of The Writing Retreat here.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

A movie star invites her friends to join her on a private Greek island… and then there’s a murder. That’s basically the premise of The Fury, and most mystery readers won’t need to know any more than that. It’s a locked room mystery in a gorgeous location with glamourous characters. Michaelides is clearly doing everything he can to catch our eye, and (of course) he’s got a few plot twists up his sleeve to keep us interested. This one definitely won’t play out the way you’re expecting. Read my full review of The Fury here.

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Maid is one of the best-selling locked room mystery books of the century (I think), and for a while there you couldn’t swing a bookmark without hitting a copy. The cozy whodunnit was picked for the Good Morning America book club, and millions of readers fell in love with the unique oddball heroine. Her life is upended when she finds a guest dead in his bed at the hotel where she works as a maid – and all of a sudden, she’s part of a rag-tag team trying to find out what happened to him. Not all locked room mysteries have to be scary-suspenseful and filled to the brim with tension – this one proves they can be heart-warming too. Read my full review of The Maid here.

The Woman In The Library by Sulari Gentill

The Woman In The Library is a meta-fictional locked room mystery, a book-within-a-book with two puzzles playing out on the page. Hannah Tigone is a crime writer, working on a novel that begins in the Boston Library, where four strangers get to talking after a woman’s scream in the next room breaks the silence. Later, they discover that the woman who screamed was murdered – could one of them be the killer? As Hannah writes her locked room mystery, she forwards each chapter to a writer friend for feedback – only he might not be exactly what he seems. It’s a twisty and mischievous novel that’s a true delight to read. Read my full review of The Woman In The Library here.

Kill Your Husbands by Jack Heath

Kill Your Husbands is a locked-room mystery set over the course of a weekend getaway. Three couples rent an isolated house on a mountaintop, to spend some time reconnecting and relaxing in nature. Things get spicy when the idea of partner-swapping comes up. The friends concoct a convoluted scheme where, for one night only, they’ll sleep with someone who isn’t their spouse. What could go wrong? Well, one of the husbands turning up dead, for one. And then another. And one of the wives goes missing. Read my full review of Kill Your Husbands here.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

A peaceful retirement village might seem like an odd choice of setting for a locked room murder mystery (with comedic elements, no less), but that’s what you get with The Thursday Murder Club. In this highly-entertaining whodunnit, four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves set about trying to solve the murder of a local property developer. They’re an unlikely gang, and certainly unassuming in the high-stakes world of murder investigation, but this story proves that first looks can be deceiving and there’s no substitute for the wisdom of experience. Read my full review of The Thursday Murder Club here.