Many writers are attracted to the historical mystery genre because they like weaving a mystery for readers to solve. Many other writers are history buffs and want to share their love of the past with readers in the present. You need both elements though to keep readers turning pages. Two worlds are always at play in the historical mystery: mayhem and yesteryear.
Writing historical mysteries means focusing on both whodunit and whentheydunit. Here are some suggestions to help you travel back in time to commit your crime.
Start with the history, not the mystery.
Before you plot the perfect murder, you need to be as comfortable in your historical setting as well as you are in your own living room. The time period shapes everything in your story: how people talk, what they eat, how they live their lives—and how they investigate when a life ends.
Three questions dominate your journey back in time:
A historical mystery’s believability depends on accuracy. This doesn’t mean you need to recite every historical fact—indeed, you shouldn’t—but you must be comfortable enough in this other world to enable your characters to move through it naturally.
Choose a main character who belongs.
The investigator in a historical mystery guides your reader through clues and through the era. They might be an amateur or a professional. This might be the three-hundredth crime they’ve solved or the first. It doesn’t matter; they belong here.
In historical settings, investigators often have limitations modern detectives don’t—and this goes well beyond technology. Everything from restricted travel to class barriers and rigid gender roles. These limitations can be opportunities to connect with your reader. Lean into them; they nudge creativity and add tension.
The sleuth’s personality and background should also reflect the era, while also offering traits—curiosity, stubbornness, empathy—that transcend time.
Research like a detective, not an archivist.
If your detective needs to walk down a street in 1912 Montreal, you should know what that street smelled like, whether cobblestones rattled under carriage wheels, and how likely your character was to meet someone selling newspapers on the corner.
Sources for rich and authentic detail include:
The goal is to take readers into this world by recreating it for them without overwhelming them with facts that will weigh your story down and bore readers. Instead, let historical details work like seasoning—enhancing the flavor without overpowering the dish.
Layer in historical conflict.
The best historical mysteries don’t just place a modern crime in an old-fashioned setting—they weave the mystery into the fabric of the time. A theft in 1920 might be tied to Prohibition smuggling. A murder in sixteenth-century Spain could intersect with religious persecution. These historical tensions add stakes and make the story more than a puzzle; they transform it into a lens through which readers experience the era.
Make dialogue a cornerstone.
Language is one of the quickest ways to immerse readers in the past, but it’s also a common pitfall. Too much archaic phrasing can make dialogue stiff and hard to follow, while overly modern speech breaks the illusion.
The key is selective authenticity:
Keep pacing tight.
While the past moved at a different pace, your plot shouldn’t drag. Balance richly detailed scenes with moments of action and revelation. In historical mysteries, tension often comes from the slow build—delays in communication, the time it takes to travel, the risk of misinformation spreading—but every delay should raise stakes, not stall the plot.
End on a deeper note.
When the mystery is solved, consider how this crime fits the morality of the era. Would a killer from a higher social class face justice? Would certain motives be more understandable—or unforgivable—back then? The ending of a historical mystery should leave readers feeling they’ve solved more than a crime, but that they’ve understood something about the world that once was.
donalee Moulton’s first mystery book Hung out to Die was published in 2023. Her historical mystery Conflagration! won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction). donalee has two new books out in 2025, Bind and Melt, the first in a new series, the Lotus Detective Agency. She has published short stories in numerous anthologies and magazines. “Troubled Water” was shortlisted for a 2024 Derringer Award and a 2024 Award of Excellence.
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