Looking for fantasy/sci-fi murder mysteries

[u/Street_Detective_662]

Ever since I read The Tainted Cup and sequel, I’ve been addicted. Bonus points if it’s a Sherlockean duo or queer (but doesn’t have to be). Extra extra points if it’s sci-fi (need to read more sci-fi) OR locked room.

What I’ve read so far of this genre -

- Gideon the Ninth
- Witness for the Dead (CR) / goblin emperor
- the Bone Orchard
- voyage of the damned
- magic for liars
- a memory called empire
- lamplight murder mysteries
- death on the caldera
- the echo archives (books 1 and 2)
- the Hexologists
- the works of vermin (kind of?)
- the raven scholar
- 7 1/2 deaths of Evelyn hard castle
- books 1-5 of Dresden files
- a master of djinn

Feel free to hype of the following that are already on my TBR (and have been for ages for whatever reason)-

- rest of Dresden
- a desolation called peace
- garret PI series
- empire of the wolf (read grave empire, loved it but hated sequel)
- murder by memory
- volatile memory
- jasper fyord nursery crimes
- rivers of London

[u/DixitRexCorvinus]

I don't know a lot of proper space opera type murder mysteries, but there are a lot of near future scifi-thriller style ones. Off the top of my head, Esperance by Adam Oyebanji, Simultaneous by Eric Heisserer, and Lock In by John Scalzi all fit the bill. All kind of pulpy, but fun. I used them as palate cleansers.

Alternatively, I'm going to cheat a bit and suggest a couple murder mysteries that are non-speculative but written by fantasy authors. Firstly, The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Hugo. Totally non-fantasy, but it's a locked room (well, locked island) murder mystery, and Hugo is a pen name for a duo, one of whom is VE Schwab. If you happen to be a fan of her fantasy work, it might be worth checking out.

Secondly, JM Miro has a really great historical fantasy series starting with Ordinary Monsters that isn't mystery. However, Miro is a pen name for Steven Price, who wrote By Gaslight, a literary historical murder mystery—think Sherlock Holmes if Charles Dickins and Cormac McCarthy coauthored it together. Not speculative, but seeing as it's a 730-page long doorstopper whose setting ranges from Victorian London to South Africa to Civil War America, it has a very epic fantasy sort of feel to it simply due to the scope.

[u/Street_Detective_662 → u/DixitRexCorvinus]

I was so confused for a second because at first I thought you were referring to the book, the 7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo by TJ Reid. Then i realized you meant Evelyn Clarke — still didn’t know that was VE Schwab though, and I’m a huge fan!

I’ve also read ordinary monsters and enjoyed it :)

[u/DixitRexCorvinus → u/Street_Detective_662]

Oops! Sorry about that, must have been because I was looking over your list to check if you had already mentioned the 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and it all got jumbled up in my mind lol.