{"id":10303,"date":"2025-12-12T17:41:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=10303"},"modified":"2025-12-12T17:41:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:41:52","slug":"the-mystery-of-loving-mysteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2025\/12\/the-mystery-of-loving-mysteries\/","title":{"rendered":"The mystery of loving mysteries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are some stalwart theories as to why people love a mystery. Not thrillers, mind, where the excitement or suspense is the central trick, but mysteries. Detective stories, cozies, whodunnits.<\/p>\n<p>For many years, the theory has been that people like solving puzzles. They enjoy watching a character find the solution, and the challenge of trying to find it themselves. But I have never been a gamer or a puzzle fan. Sure, I do the occasional crossword, but more for the words than for solving it. (Years ago when I played <em>Assassin&#8217;s Creed<\/em>, I only did it to see the scenes of Italy and London.)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10305\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 310px\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10305\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/precious.jpg?resize=300%2C287&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/precious.jpg?resize=300%2C287&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/precious.jpg?w=316&amp;ssl=1 316w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\"><em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Another theory is about justice. Humans like seeing justice done. Whether that justice is legal or divine, we like seeing the evildoer get his or her comeuppance. Certainly I want humans who do bad things removed from situations where they can continue doing them.\u00a0 I strongly believe in societal systems of justice, and enjoy studying them.<\/p>\n<p>But it occurred to me that there&#8217;s another reason we like the whodunnits. In most mysteries, though not all, the solver of the puzzle is motivated by helping people. While the murder victim may be dead, the living have questions, pain, and a need for resolution. If you&#8217;re a suspect, and you didn&#8217;t do it, you need help even more. The detective, whether professional or amateur, uses skills not common to everyone to find the miscreant, and often those skills are appreciated, at last if not at first.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter that sometimes the detective doesn&#8217;t seem to care about anyone. I&#8217;d put Lord Peter Wimsey in this category, and Sherlock Holmes. Even Miss Marple keeps herself removed from the angst of a case. Others, like Benoit Blanc or Precious Ramotswe, seem to care a lot and become involved in people&#8217;s lives.<\/p>\n<p>Those who get emotionally involved are often appreciated by those they assist. The detectives who distance themselves get satisfaction from what they do, regardless of whether they are thanked or not. We, the readers, provide that appreciation even when others do not, making us complicit in their helpfulness.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some stalwart theories as to why people love a mystery. Not thrillers, mind, where the excitement or suspense is the central trick, but mysteries. Detective stories, cozies, whodunnits. For many years, the theory has been that people like solving puzzles. They enjoy watching a character find the solution, and the challenge of trying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10306,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10303\/revisions\/10306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}