HeyJaredMystery Minutes
Offering a cup of cozy along with byte-sized articles, reviews, and analysis for discerning consumers of all things mystery.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 7
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest issues
What features do you look for in a mystery? (opens the original)
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During my most recent re-reading of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles for my class on Detective Fiction, I remember experiencing a moment of surprise when, on my page 182 (of 240), the culprit was named by Sherlock Holmes. He was talking to Dr. Watson only, and no motive had yet been identified. Thus, the reader had the answer to the “Who?” question, but not “Why?” or “How?” Still, I was somewhat flummoxed—admittedly a perplexing reaction since surely I read this novel more than
(Re-)Introducing possibly the original “Lady” Detective (opens the original)
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Hello Mystery Minutes Community!This week, my Detective Fiction course is finishing its two-week discussion of Wilkie Collins’s The Law and the Lady. My students didn’t realize, when they were signing up for a course on mysteries, that the first novel was going to be a 400+ page Victorian monstrosity. Yet they have been so game, and some students were even gushing about how much they loved it—evidently contrary to their expectations. If you do pick up The Law and the Lady, it’s worth remembering
Astrid... and Raphaëlle? (opens the original)
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A fellow Francophile and lover of mysteries has been recommending Astrid for a while now, and I decided to watch at least the 90-minute pilot episode before my Fall semester of teaching started. Then we were hooked—both with the premise and the few words of French we were able to pick up—so we watched the 2-episode (each about 50 minutes long) mystery that started Season 1. So, please keep in mind the usual disclaimers that my observations here are based only on those 3 episodes…Astrid is a very
Early-ish thoughts on Tana French's "The Searcher" (opens the original)
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For over a decade I have been meaning to read Tana French, ever since I edited another scholar’s article on French’s second novel The Likeness (2008). That novel and the premise behind the “Dublin Murder Squad” series—following the perspective of a different central detective in each entry—sounded fascinating. Soon afterwards, I had an exchange student from Ireland enrolled in my Detective Fiction class who told me that she loved French’s writing as well. And in recent years the “Cal Hooper” ser
Another level "cozy": Can "The Sheep Detectives" charm in a cuddly mystery? (opens the original)
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Confession: I talk to my dog, and she talks back to me—in my own little dog voice, of course. When our older dog was still alive, I also scripted conversations the two dogs might have amongst themselves. (Those chats usually ran along the lines of, “Sis, when do you think mom and dad will finally feed us?”)Given that such anthropomorphizing of domestic animals must be commonplace amongst other pet parents as well (right?), I’m sure others were also taken with a trailer for The Sheep Detectives.
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