Mysteries in the Mail: Letters and Epistolary Novels

📬 Do you love mysteries where the format is part of the puzzle? What about crime fiction told through letters, emails, and documents? If you answered yes to either question, join me as I explore epistolary mysteries—one of my favorite subsets of the mystery genre.

✉️ I share the inspiration behind my own Mysteries in the Mail letter subscription featuring Lady Eileen and Fitzhugh, two delightful characters whose adventures are told in installments mailed in physical letters.

📖 Then I delve into epistolary crime fiction, and I also discuss epistolary-adjacent mysteries like interactive puzzle books and crime fiction where letters play a key role in the plot.

📚 Read-alike recommendations include classic epistolary mysteries, puzzle books, and more letter-based crime fiction to add to your TBR pile, all of which make fantastic gifts for mystery readers. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Mysteries in the Mail by Sara Rosett: https://sararosettbooks.com/products/mysteries-in-the-mail

Epistolary Mystery Novels:

The Appeal by Janice Hallett: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54621096-the-appeal

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13526165-where-d-you-go-bernadette

Currently Reading:

Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1499952.Daddy_Long_Legs

To Read:

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/129117.The_Spellman_Files

The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/130633488-the-documents-in-the-case-by-dorothy-l-sayers-and-robert-eustace

Death on the Down Beat by Sebastian Farr: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61041891-death-on-the-down-beat

Epistolary-Adjacent : Interactive Puzzles:

Cain's Jawbone by E. Powys Mathers: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50074593-cain-s-jawbone

The Creeping Hand Murders by Maureen Johnson: You Are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222683984-you-are-the-detective

The Museum Heist by Henry Lewis: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173404229-the-museum-heist

Epistolary-Adjacent : Crime Fiction with Letters:

The Brothers of Baker Street by Michael Robertson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9672561-the-brothers-of-baker-street

The Missing Maid by Holly Hepburn: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203020023-the-missing-maid

🕵️‍♀️ 📦 Cozy Books Corner Subscription Box (affiliate code), a book box curated for cozy mystery readers.

➡️ Use code SaraR5 and get 15% off! ⬅️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Author Sarah Rosette. This is a bonus episode, and it's all about epistolary mysteries. And those are folks told their letters, emails, documents, and other courses. I'm also going to share a little bit about my own foray into epistolary fiction with my mysteries in the mail project. So I'll start there and then we'll jump into the mysteries that are based on letters. Back in 2022, I created a mystery story told through physical letters for a Kickstarter campaign. And the response to it was really good. Readers really loved them. They told me how much they enjoyed receiving physical letters in the mail and that those letters brought them joy. And ever since then, I've wanted to create more. I did a second set of letters with a second Kickstarter. And now I'm doing just letters without the Kickstarter, just selling them on my site, on my store. These new letters feature two new characters, Lady Eileen and Fitzhugh. So Lady Eileen is a World War I widow. She's very clever. She enjoys a good puzzle. And FitzHugh is her chauffeur. He is very dependable. He's always there when she needs him and she needs some backup. But he stays mostly in the background for the first couple of stories. If you've read the High Society Lady Detective novels, you might remember Lady Eileen if you have a really, really good memory. In Murder in Blackburn Hall, the second book in the series, Olive goes to a small English village to search for an author who's gone missing. And the author writes this series of books featuring Lady Eileen. So I was going back over a couple of things. It was a couple of years ago when I got this idea. And I have this thing where these what ifs start bouncing around in my mind. What if the author of those books had kept a journal in the voice of a sleuth, Lady Eileen? What if that journal was found and reproduced in a set of illustrated letters mailed to readers? Yeah, that's the thought process of how I got to writing this story. Because really, when I looked back at that list of books that this fictional character in this story, Murder of Blackbird Hall, had written, I was like, oh, that's a whole nother series. Because there was a story that took place on a golf course, and there was one that took place in a yacht, and then some other things. And I was like, these are fun, and this could be another series. So I decided instead of writing it as a series of novels, I would write it as a series of letters that are mailed through the post. So you don't have to read the high society books to understand the letters. Both the letters and the books stand on their own. And it's been a really fun project to work on. The format itself is part of the mystery, which is what I like about it. You're seeing the investigation unfold in real time through the letters. And it was a challenge for me to write them because it's a different type of writing. You have to write short, and writing an installment is completely different than writing a 70K novel. So that was fun for me. And then I got to combine it with working with some artists to create custom artwork, illustrations, and sketches that are included, that capture the places there. So that's completely different from a novel, and it was just a lot of fun. If you're interested in checking out the mysteries and the mail letters, you can find them on my store at SarahRosetteBooks.com. I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. The pre-order is open until December 8th. After that closes, I will uh create the list of everyone who's getting the mail, and then they will begin going out in December. From December on, everyone will receive two letters per month for the next 12 months. So it's a year's worth of letters. All right. So working on this project, it got me thinking about epistolary mysteries in general. And I realized that this is one of my favorite subsets of mystery. Now I've read a lot of these types of books that are not mysteries, but there are some that are specifically mystery genre books. And so I'm going to talk about those today. I feel like there's more of these available in just general fiction. But anyway, so this these are this episode is just going to focus on mystery genre, epistolary mysteries. And one reason I really like them is that you're not just reading someone trying to solve a mystery, you're piecing together the mystery from these fragments of information, just as the characters are doing. And I think that's why I also like it in general fiction, because in general fiction, you may have a fictional story that doesn't have a mystery element in the plot, but the way it's presented, if it's through letters and documents and podcast transcripts, it lets you participate in solving a mystery vicariously, even in a fictional setting, that's not a mystery. So I think that's one reason I enjoy these so much. Um, here's a couple of my favorite epistolary mysteries. And some of these are also on my to be read list as I was preparing this episode. I found a bunch of these. I was like, oh, I haven't read this one, I haven't read this one. So some of these will be on my to be read list as well. So first up, uh, probably the most well-known type of book like this in the mystery genre is written by Janice Hallett. The first one she wrote was called The Appeal. And it's a book that story is told entirely through emails, text messages, police transcripts, and documents from a local amateur dramatic society. The society is putting on a production, a play, and there's a suspicious death connected to the group. So that one you can really solve it along with the characters. And there's a whole series of books set up in the same format. So if you enjoy that first one, you can read a whole bunch of hers. Up next is Where'd You Go, Bernadette? And this is by Maria Simple. It's S-E-M-P-L-E, is her last name. Now, and this one's very popular a couple of years ago. It's this one is more about a disappearance than a whodunit mystery. So you're trying to figure out what happened to Bernadette, and it's told through a collection of emails, letters, documents, and other correspondence and stuff. And Bernadette is this really smart but sort of eccentric person who vanishes, and her teenage daughter is trying to figure out what happened to her. So those are the two that come to mind that are probably the most well-known epistolary mysteries. I'm currently reading one that's not strictly a mystery, but it is told in letters. It does have a mystery element to it, and I think you'd enjoy it. It's called Daddy Long Legs by Gene Webster. And it's from, it was published in 1912, and it's letters from an orphan girl that she writes to her anonymous benefactor. There's a mystery element to it because she doesn't know who he is, and she's trying to figure it out throughout the book, and it's very charming so far. I think you'd enjoy it. All right, and these are a couple that are on my TB red list. These are epistolary mysteries that I haven't read yet, but would like to, and I will get around to them. The first one is The Spelman Files by Lisa Lutz. It's about a family of private investigators, and it's it's not purely epistolary, I don't think. It looks like it includes some other things, but it has a lot of documents, surveillance reports, case files, things like that. So that looks good to me. And then I've always enjoyed books by Dorothy L. Sayers, and I've never read this one. It's called The Documents in the Case. And it is told through letters and documents, and it involves a suspicious death and the question of whether it was a murder or a death from natural causes. So I'm looking forward to reading this one because I haven't really delved into this and I've always enjoyed Sayers. Apparently, there's no word Peter Whimsey in this one, though. Another one I want to read is Death on the Downbeat by Sebastian Farr. And this is a mystery that it's I haven't read it, but I've seen the backcover copy, and it sounds like it takes place. There's a death that takes place during a musical performance that this British inspector is attending, and he's trying to solve the case. It happened in plain view of everyone, but no one knows who did it. And he's trying to solve this mysterious case, and he's writing letters about it to his wife, which is just this huge breach of protocol, but we'll forgive it for the sake of the mystery and enjoying the story. And um I believe it's set in, I believe it was published in the late 30s, early 40s. So it's a classic British mystery. Now, I also want to mention some books that I would say are epistolary adjacent. They're interactive puzzle books where the format is part of the challenge. So Kane's Jawbone by E. Poes Mathers is probably the most famous example of this. It's a murder mystery where the pages are printed out of order and you have to rearrange them to solve there's several murders in this story. It is incredibly difficult. Now, this one it kind of surged in popularity during COVID. And our family, we ordered a copy. And the way you do this, normally people order this book and then they tear the pages out of it and try and rearrange them. And there's all these elaborate TikTok videos and uh Instagram videos of people trying to work this out. And uh we, my family, my husband and I, we gave it a try and we just ran out of time. We just did not have the ability to spend the time that needed to be spent to solve this puzzle. But that is an interesting one. If nothing else, there's no other book that I've seen like it. Um, there's also one called The Creeping Hand Murders by Maureen Johnson. And this is part of the You Are the Detective series. And I haven't read this one either, but the book gives you evidence along with lots of illustrations to help you solve the case. So it's much more interactive than most mysteries that are just you reading along. And then there's another one that I want to try this holiday season. It's called The Museum Heist by Henry Lewis. And it's another interactive mystery where you have documents and clues and you have to figure out what happened. So that sounds like a ton of fun to me because if there's a museum involved, I'm always up for it. Now, here's another category of epistolary adjacent books that are letters as part of the plot, part a significant part of the plot. One of my favorites in this type of book is a series. The first book is called The Brothers of Baker Street by Michael Robertson. It's about two brothers who rent a law office at 221B Baker Street in modern times, and they inherit all the letters that people send to Sherlock. So part of their lease is they agree to take care of these letters. And one of these letters arrives and leads them into this real mystery. And then the it's a whole series of books. So if you like Sherlock and you like this conceit of letters being part of the plot, definitely check this series out. Another one that is very similar to this is called The Missing Maid by Holly Hepburn, and it's set in 1932. And our sleuth has been demoted because she rebuffed the boss's advances and she gets demoted in her job. She's working in the same setup, the same situation as the other story where she's working in this building where all these letters arrive that are addressed to Sherlock Holmes, and she has to handle those. But she ends up turning this demotion into something really good. She proves her worth handling these letters, and she gets involved in a mystery herself and has to solve that. So I enjoyed that story. It was very interesting. So that's one I have. Those are two that I've read that I've really liked that have this setup with letters as a key role in the plot. So those are some of my favorite epistolary mysteries and some that are on my TBRed pile. I'd love to know if you've read any of these or if you know some other great epistolary crime fiction. You can find me on Instagram at Sarah Rosette, or you can leave a comment on the show notes for this episode. And if you're interested in checking out Mysteries in the Mail letters featuring Lady Eileen and Fitch Hugh, you can find those at SarahRosetteBooks.com until December 8th. And then after that, there will be a sign-up where you can be on the wait list for when the next set of letters comes out. I'll have all the books I mentioned in the show notes today as well. And I hope this podcast has helped you discover some new mysteries to try. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.