By Roshan Ratnam Murugappan
Why do we enjoy reading or watching stories about murder? When you think about it, it is rather a strange hobby. Yet millions of people across the globe are willing to follow the story of detectives, suspicious characters, increasingly complicated clues, and a complex web of relationships, all to answer one question: Who did it?
I recently found myself doing the exact same while reading Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. I quickly became convinced that I solved the mystery only for my mind to change several times as new clues appeared. Those who had the motive weren’t gutsy enough to commit such a crime and the suspects who had the gusto didn’t possess a plausible motive. This intricate network of characters, motives and relationships forced me to consider every suspicious glance and seemingly insignificant detail. Instead of reading the story, I was playing detective alongside Hercule Poirot.
Agatha Christie, often called the “Queen of Crime”, was a British author famous for her complex yet accessible and intriguing mysteries featuring unforgettable detectives, particularly Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Her novels published between the 1920s and the 1970s have still managed to remain popular for generations. But what makes crime fiction such an entertaining genre in the first place?
The answer evidently lies in our brains. Humans generally enjoy solving problems and finding patterns. A mystery gives us incomplete information and encourages us to connect the dots, make predictions and test our theories. This engages our prefrontal cortex, the area right at the front of our brain that drives our deductive reasoning, logical analysis, and hypothesis testing. It helps you weigh evidence, spot contradictions in alibis, and construct timelines. Once we’ve solved the mystery we feel a great sense of reward which is a result of our brain’s mesolimbic pathway that transports dopamine to motivate us to keep completing a certain task, helping explain why we may become fond of mystery novels.
Yet mystery novels are not only entertaining – reading them has a plethora of benefits too!
Encourage critical thinking: Readers have to assess the evidence and clues, consider different explanations and alibis, and avoid jumping to conclusions. Just like Poirot, we shouldn’t be fixated on to onto explanation
Improved attention to detail: Crime writers often hide small yet pivotal interactions in ordinary scenes. It’s up to the reader to notice these inconsistencies and remember them so they can keep track of who could be the potential criminal.
Encourage considering different perspectives: Understanding a character’s motives allows us to consider the reason behind why someone behaves in a particular way, even if we disagree with their actions.
Perhaps our fascination with crime fiction isn’t about crime at all; it’s about the puzzle. Whether it’s Agatha Christie’s renowned novels or contemporary detective stories, the pleasure we derive from solving a puzzle and discovering the answer before the end of the story is truly unmatched. The next time you find yourself suspecting all the characters in a story, remember: you might just be giving your brain a pretty entertaining workout.
