10 Best Locked Room Escape Mystery Books: Tension like an Escape Game!
Who doesn't love a cracking locked room mystery? That tense atmosphere where characters - and readers! - are trapped in a single location, compelled to unravel cryptic clues, contend with ticking clocks, explore secret tunnels, and wrestle with impossible puzzles to break free! If you're like me, you get a rush out of these escape game vibes. It’s like a brainteaser on steroids with far higher stakes! The thrill of the chase, the crave for the climax, the excitement of the unexpected; all packed in a room where the only way out is through mind-boggling riddles and brain-cracking enigmas. Welcome, folks to the 10 best locked room escape mystery books list! This isn't just your ordinary locked room mystery list, but rather, a special collection that up-levels the concept. Books where the strain isn't just solving the mystery, but also escaping the room - kind of like an escape game! So get comfy, prepare your best detective glasses, and dust off your thinking cap because you're in for a twisty, suspense-riddled roller coaster that merges all the charm of a gripping mystery novel with the adrenalin kick of an escape room. Enjoy the ride, it's time to pick a lock on literature!
『The Tokyo Zodiac Murders』
One of The Guardian’s “Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries” An amateur detective races to solve a decades-old murder mystery in this “bloody and bizarre” Japanese crime novel with a twist hailed as “one of the most original” (Daily Mail). Astrologer, fortune teller, and self-styled detective Kiyoshi Mitarai must solve a macabre murder mystery that has baffled Japan for 40 years—in just one week. With the help of his freelance illustrator friend, Kiyoshi sets out to answer the questions that have haunted the country ever since: Who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, and then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, ‘the perfect woman’? With maps, charts, and other illustrations, this story of magic and illusion—pieced together like a great stage tragedy—challenges the reader to unravel the mystery before the final curtain falls. This quintessential Japanese “logic mystery”—eerie, gory, and intriguing—combines the puzzle-solving of Golden Age Western detective fiction with elements of shocking horror and dark humor.
Author | Soji Shimada |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Pushkin Vertigo |
Release Date | Sep 15, 2015 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Westing Game』
BE CLASSIC with The Westing Game, introduced by New York Times bestselling author Mac Barnett. A highly inventive mystery begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of the very stranger will of the very read Samuel W. Westing. They could become millionaires, depending on how they play a game. All they have to do is find the answer - but the answer to what? The Westing game is tricky and dangerous, but the heirs play on - through blizzards, burglaries, and bombings, Sam Westing may be dead ... but that won't stop him from playing one last game! Winner of the Newbery Medal Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award An ALA Notable Book A School Library Journal One Hundred Books That Shaped the Century "A supersharp mystery...confoundingly clever, and very funny." —Booklist, starred review "Great fun for those who enjoy illusion, word play, or sleight of hand." —The New York Times Book Review "A fascinating medley of word games, disguises, multiple aliases, and subterfuges—a demanding but rewarding book." —The Horn Book
Author | Ellen Raskin |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Oct 13, 2020 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Closed Circle』
The characters of The Rotters’ Club–Jonathan Coe’s beloved novel of adolescent life in the 1970s–have bartered their innocence for the vengeance of middle age in this incisive portrait of Cool Britannia at the millennium.
Author | Jonathan Coe |
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Price | $11.99 |
Publisher | Vintage |
Release Date | Dec 18, 2007 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Secret of Chimneys』
Murder, political intrigue, theft, secret identities, and deception—this Agatha Christie mystery has it all! In this fast-paced mystery from Agatha Christie—one of the masters of detective fiction—Prince Michael, heir to the throne of Herzoslovakia, is found murdered at the English countryside manor known as Chimneys. A plot full of political scheming, the theft of the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond, and layers of deception unfolds as Superintendent Battle from Scotland Yard investigates. Each clue weaves a new thread into a web of intrigue that mystery thriller fans will be hard-pressed to untangle!
Author | Agatha Christie |
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Price | $4.99 |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Release Date | Jun 27, 2023 |
Source | Google Books |
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Price | unknown |
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Release Date | |
Source | Google Books |
『Murder On The Orient Express』
An international cast of suspects, all passengers on the crowded train, are speeding through the snowy European landscape when a bizarre and terrible murder brings them to an abrupt halt. One of their glittering number lies dead in his cabin, stabbed a mysterious twelve times. There is no lack of clues for Poirot - but which clue is real and which is a clever plant? Poirot realises that this time he is dealing with a murderer of enormous cunning and that in a case frought with fear and inconstencies only one thing is certain - the murderer is still aboard the train waiting to strike again.
Author | Agatha Christie |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Lulu.com |
Release Date | Nov 01, 2018 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Sanatorium』
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK | An instant New York Times bestseller! A page-turning thriller from the author of The Retreat. “An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my seat.” —Reese Witherspoon “This spine-tingling, atmospheric thriller has it all… and twists you’ll never see coming.” —Richard Osman, New York Times bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club You won't want to leave. . . until you can't. Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel. An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic. Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. . .
Author | Sarah Pearse |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Jan 11, 2022 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Woman in Cabin 10』
From New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware comes The Woman in Cabin 10, a suspenseful and haunting novel set at sea. In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant, but as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the desk, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong... Using surprising twists, spine-tingling turns, and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense read in The Woman in Cabin 10—one that will leave even the most sure-footed reader restlessly uneasy long after the last page is turned.
Author | Ruth Ware |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Release Date | Jan 07, 2020 |
Source | Google Books |
『No Exit』
“What a box of tricks! This full-throttle thriller, dark and driving, rivals Agatha Christie for sheer ingenuity and James Patterson for flat-out speed. Swift, sharp, and relentless.” — A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath. A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do? On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers. Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate. Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her? There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one? Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape. But who can she trust? With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.
Author | Taylor Adams |
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Price | $9.99 |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Release Date | Jan 15, 2019 |
Source | Google Books |
『Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six』
Three couples rent a luxury cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway to die for in this atmospheric and gripping locked-room thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
Author | Lisa Unger |
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Price | unknown |
Publisher | Legend Press Ltd |
Release Date | Feb 28, 2023 |
Source | Google Books |
Alright, folks: there you have it! Ten white-knuckle, page-turning, sleep-wrecking locked room escape mysteries that'll have you swearing you're smack dab in the middle of a mind-bending escape game. These novels aren't just stories, they are labyrinthine trials that compel you to pit your wits against a cunning mastermind. The clock is ticking, the walls are closing in, and escape seems downright impossible. But isn't that the whole thrilling, tantalizing point? Dive into these juicy reads to witness hotly triggered chases, puzzle-filled exploits, and the ingenuity of characters under pressure like never before. These tales of suspense and sleuthery won’t just keep you guessing; they'll keep you riveted to the edge of your seat. Don't forget to come up for air, okay? Happy Reading!
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