It is so exciting when, at the end of a storybook, the mystery is
solved and the culprit is found and punished for his crime. The suspense
created by the authors of some of the books I have read has been ‘nail-biting’
and ‘hair-raising’ as they say in the reviews and book covers! I have stayed up
nights and forgotten to eat meals for my love of murder mysteries. When I am in
the grip of one, I am transported to the land and the time where it all
happens. I am compelled to keep turning the pages to find out what happens
next.
Nothing beats a juicy, suspenseful, intricately woven plot with all the
complexity of the human nature and circumstantial phenomenon that would lead
the crime investigator to the actual culprit. There is also a spine chilling revelation
of how shallow and hollow human nature can be and how little it takes for one
to kill another.
I love detective stories the most because, in these stories the
protagonist will, with the help of her or his observation and deduction powers,
come to some astounding truths and thus put the whole picture together, solving
the whodunit with an adroitness and finesse that never fails to impress me. Of
course the smarter the adversary or antagonist, the more exciting the story. I
have always loved to hate the villain in the stories that I read.
Amongst all the books that I have read, I think Agatha Christie’s books are by far my favorite. I love her creations
Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle comes a
close second though. Both these authors have developed such extraordinary
characters – these crime detectors! They are human of course with not one or
two but several human faults – Poirot is strange in his own way with his quirks
and his vanity always brought out in the mysteries whereas Sherlock’s idiosyncrasies
and his restlessness, his abruptness with others and complete disregard for
social norms and formalities is also shown as a part of his character in his
stories. Since these super intelligent detectives themselves are shown as not
above human peculiarities, these books are much more believable for me and the
characters much more lovable. It makes it easy for me to want them to win
against the bad guys.
I have been trying to analyze why I love murder mysteries so much. One
reason I think is that it always has a happy ending. The Hero or Heroine always
wins in the end, capturing the villain and throwing him or her to the
authorities. The balance is back and justice is served. The second reason I
think is that I love the process of solving the puzzle. It is the puzzle that
needs to be intriguing for me to really love a murder mystery. The third reason
I believe is my fascination with how the human mind works – I am amazed by the
crookedness of the evil mind as well as the ability to conceive what the evil
mind might have thought, and bravery of the sound mind. I am shocked by observing
the lengths to which these fictional characters can go to – either to commit
the crime or to find out who, what and why of the crime.
I do think that writing about such stories takes a different kind of
genius and I thank all those fictional crime writers and the authors of the
detective stories for working so hard in giving us exciting novels to read and
enjoy in our daily lives, in our travels, in our moments of frustrations and in
our times of peace!
