The best mysteries to tickle your funny bone

Jonathan Lethem’s first book is, perhaps, not as well regarded as some of his later works. But it blew me away back in the ’90s—with a black humor that satirized both noir mystery and science fiction. I still love it.

The future is totalitarian. Everyone is stupefied by mandated memory-deadening drugs. Karma scores must be kept up, or you’re put in the freezer—literally. Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf gets hired to tail a cheating wife. But things go sideways when the client turns up dead. The cops suspect Metcalf. He encounters many a shady, seedy character, including animals given human-like intelligence; such as Joey, the kangaroo hitman. And whodunit? I think the answer is shocking…and hilarious. I think you’ll think so, too.

I’ve been an M. C. Beaton fan since forever and realized that a cozy mystery doesn’t need to be trite and treacly. They can be tart, saucy, sarcastic, and cuttingly funny. Agatha Raisin’s debut misadventure is a good place to start.

Agatha, a London PR exec, has a chip on her shoulder the size of Surrey. But when she retires to the Cotswolds, she wants to fit in and make local connections. Why not enter a quiche in the local baking contest? (A store-bought quiche, in fact—typical Agatha.) A judge samples it and drops dead. Many a chuckle and hoot ensue, as headstrong, abrasive Agatha doggedly follows the clues of a clever murder and navigates the baffling complexities of village life.

If rolling on the floor laughing your ass off is your thing, then Carl Hiaasen is for you. This was my entry into whack-job Florida crime capers, and it still puts me in stitches.

The carousel of nuttiness starts spinning when two rare “blue-tongued voles” are nicked from Amazing Kingdom of Thrills, a low-rent theme park. Bouncing off each other is a crowd of madcap and/or menacing characters. The racketeer park owner. The two boneheaded thieves. An enviro-radical granny. An oversexed dolphin. A security chief hopped up on steroids. An actress who plays a goofy park critter. A gonzo former Florida governor turned eco-guerrilla. And, as the only normal person in sight, an ex-journo PR flak. Now, just climb aboard and hang on.

The place is definitely not of this universe. Literature—not sports and movies—dominates the culture. Thursday Next is a special agent in the Literary Detection branch. She tracks down forgers and whatnot. More notably, she can enter the worlds of fiction. Literally rub elbows with, say, a living, breathing Madame Bovary. But in this adventure, she has to prevent the snuffing of another protagonist…Jane Eyre. An arch-villain aims to snatch Jane out of her novel and erase her from all literature; then start croaking other famous fictional characters. And only Thursday can stop him.

For my money, Jasper Fforde’s first novel is a little masterwork of mystery, wit, and weirdness. And believe me, there are far more treasures in it than my description even hints at.

“I poured a few drops of an ’87 Mondavi Chardonnay into her navel and leaned down to slurp it out.” Thus begins the first adventure of Archie McNally, Lawrence Sanders’s foppish gumshoe. I first heard of him on a golf course not too far from his Palm Beach digs. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Think of Archie as the love child of Bertie Wooster and Sam Spade. He tootles around town in his red Miata, sleuthing for his barrister father and hiding his extracurricular ding-dongs from girlfriend Connie. Along the way, he rubs elbows with the one percent and collars crooks. And at day’s end, he can be found sipping martinis at the Pelican Club. I wish I could join him.