I love books and I love to read. I spend a lot of my time trolling through bookstores and used paperback shops just browsing. Sometimes after browsing for 2 hours I’ll buy a stack of like six books and sometimes I’ll buy nothing, to the ever increasing frustration of my wife. She can go into a bookstore, look for 10 minutes and be done. However, get her in a fabric store and time loses all meaning. But a bookstore, that’s my domain.
One of the things I love to read is the murder mystery genre. It’s one of the most popular genres of books including such classic authors as Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Recently I’ve noticed a trend with murder mysteries wherein the author tailors the murder story around a specific hobby or lifestyle. I guess it’s to make the story more relatable to the reader. As this practice has become more and more popular, the subjects for these murder mystery books has become so intensely specific that it has become a bit ludicrous. Here are ten of the most ridiculously specific murder mystery books I could find. And there may be even more odd ball ones out there. You can click the book covers to read more about the titles on Barnes & Noble.com.
Sudoku, the OCD numbers puzzle that has become quite the rage the last few years. Now, there’s a murder mystery series featuring them. The story in this series involves a Sudoku creator for the Oregon Daily participating in a Sudoku tournament where a competitor turns up dead. She must solve the mystery and then win the Sudoku tournament (of course she does) if she is to be crowned King Sudoku and become one of the 8 Deadly Immortals and protect the Earth from the attacking Demonicle hordes…..okay, I made the last part up, but I was getting a little bored and had to think of something a little more awesome than winning a Sudoku tournament. Other titles in this series include Murder by Numbers and Sinister Sudoku.
Crossword puzzles. They are like Sudoku for old people. People obsess over these things. There are books and dictionaries created specifically to help people solve crossword puzzles. My father, my mother-in-law and my aunt are obsessed with these things. My dad told me that he’ll start a crossword puzzle during breakfast and the next time he looks up it’s 5pm, time for dinner and he hasn’t moved…or showered. Great, my dad is becoming Howard Hughes. What’s an 8 letter word for shut in? (FYI…it’s “puzzlers”) Other titles in this series include Puzzled to Death and And a Puzzle to Die On. Stay tuned for mysteries involving Yahtzee, Bunko and Parcheesi. Okay, Dad, you can shower now.
These two books belong in the “so boring I may have just passed out” category. On the left you see the first book in a mystery series about a tea shop. A.TEA. SHOP. Yes, little old ladies in red hats drinking tea and eating scones off lace doilies solving murders. It’s like a less interesting Murder, She Wrote (if that’s possible). Each title in the book has the name of a tea in the title as a pun. For instance, Gunpowder Green and Shades of Earl Gray. It’s like the author is actively trying to get me NOT read her books. On the right you can see the first book in the “coffeehouse mysteries” set in a trendy “mom and pop” coffee shop. I guess a coffeehouse is as good a place as any for a murder scene because every time I go there with my wife there are several douchebags I want to actually murder. Other coffeehouse titles include Decaffeinated Corpse and Roast Mortem. And since writing those “tea shop mysteries” most certainly drove the author insane, she also writes a mystery series about scrapbooking.
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Cavalcade of Awesome 
