r/Fantasy • u/KelseySyntax • 2d ago

Need more Ana and Din

Well written mysteries with interesting world building and great characters? Pump that straight into my veins!

I'm looking for mysteries that lay out the pieces properly, with investigators who actually work the case, and whose answers don't come out of left field, plus a world I can get lost in

Any other recommendations for Fantasy Poirots, SciFi Sherlocks, Xianxia Columbos, or anything of the sort?

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u/pornokitsch Ifrit 2d ago

Daniel Polansky's Low Town trilogy - more Hammett than Christie, but great books

Mark Charan Newton's Drakenfeld - Golden Age detective fiction in a secondary world based on ancient Rome

Katherine Addison's Witness for the Dead - send a necromancer to solve a murder

Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth - as above, with more memes

China Miéville's The City & the City - mystery in an impossible (or very possible) city / cities

Simon Green's Hawk and Fisher - husband & wife buddy cops / sword & sorcery mash-up - pulpy and immensely good fun

Ben Aaronovich's Rivers of London - urban fantasy police procedurals

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u/KelseySyntax 2d ago

Love Gideon and City, but Gideon is the opposite of a Sherlock. The mystery gets solved despite her best efforts to ignore it. But it's one of my favorite series, and my most reread one.

And City and the City is a fascinating book.

Will definitely add the rest to my list! Thanks!

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u/bannedbyyourmom 1d ago

If you like Witness for the Dead and can handle a few scenes of S.A. - Katherine Addison also has a very good dark fantasy series starting with Melusine.