Books and movies for a kid who loved Knives Out?

December 5, 2019 8:18 AM

My 13 year old loved Knives Out. She is interested in more mysteries that are intricately plotted and resolve in a satisfying way, but are definitely PG to PG-13 (nothing too gory, no graphic sex). Other than Agatha Christie, what’s out there?
posted by Pater Aletheias to Media & Arts (38 answers total)

Twelve Red Herrings by Jeffrey Archer was one of my favourite books at that age for precisely those reasons.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 8:22 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Murder by Death is great fun and definitely in PG territory. Plus, the cast includes some gone-but-not-forgotten stars that she ought to get to know.
posted by JimN2TAW at 8:26 AM on December 5, 2019 [8 favorites]

She might like the Sherlock Holmes run that featured Jeremy Brett. Looks like they're all on Youtube.
posted by jquinby at 8:32 AM on December 5, 2019 [6 favorites]

Noises Off is a great stage play with farce and tight staging that might fit this brief. No idea how the movie is.
posted by theora55 at 8:35 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe might fit the bill!
posted by Carillon at 8:37 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I think 13 was about when I started reading Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane books. The writing is a bit more involved than Christie's (though in my opinion, also just better) and there is a love story that weaves its way through the books, which may or may not be a good thing.
posted by peacheater at 8:38 AM on December 5, 2019 [16 favorites]

Best answer: I haven't read it myself, but my kid who's the same age liked Murder Is Bad Manners. She also liked watching Endeavour with me, although I don't know what she gets out of it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:47 AM on December 5, 2019

I would second Murder is Bad Manners and the sequels - they are aimed at maybe slightly younger than 13, but I really enjoyed them as someone significantly older.

Regarding Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and the other Golden Age writers (including Dorothy L. Sayers in some cases), there can be a fair amount of unexamined racism, sexism and classism in their books. If I were to give them to a 13 year old, I would at least make sure to have a discussion about it with them.
posted by scorbet at 9:02 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

I loved Mary Higgins Clark books at that age. I didn’t realize how cheesy they were until I was an older teenager.
posted by sallybrown at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I think she'd really enjoy Deathtrap. And, of course, Clue.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:17 AM on December 5, 2019 [14 favorites]

Seconding The Westing Game.

If you live near a theater that's showing The Play That Goes Wrong , it's a comic version of this sort of mystery story, which is a ton of fun.

And of course, the movie Clue.
posted by Mchelly at 9:19 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

I'll second Nero Wolfe, delightful for the character banter and vocabulary.
posted by Alensin at 9:23 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

The Maisie Dobbs series, by Jacqueline Winspear, may fit the bill.
posted by CiaoMela at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Thirding Nero Wolfe. There's an A&E adaptation that's pretty low-budget, but has some of the books' rougher edges smoothed off. Rex Stout was a progressive for his day, which doesn't mean there's no questionable material in the books (the attitude towards women is distinctly old-fashioned, though mostly in the more benign sexist way than the virulently misogynistic), but it's not as blatant as in Christie or Sayers. Too Many Cooks and A Right to Die are the two involving major black characters and, again, are "good for their day," but would probably require a little previewing/discussion (in the first book, the n-word is used freely by certain unsympathetic characters, as a depiction of contemporary practices, but these days this kind of light genre novel [correctly] wouldn't use the word at all). No graphic depictions of gore, sex is nodded at but basically handled off-stage.
posted by praemunire at 9:56 AM on December 5, 2019

In addition to all the excellent suggestions above, I recently read Sujata Massey's The Widows of Malabar Hill, about a woman lawyer in 1920s Bombay who solves a murder. Lots of great social detail, especially about the lives of women at the time.
posted by basalganglia at 9:59 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

(I should add, I'm not even sure the A&E series adapted either of those, and they certainly wouldn't have used that language--they're quite frothy, not to mention made in the 21st century. My caution was about the books.)
posted by praemunire at 10:00 AM on December 5, 2019

The UK television series Jonathan Creek was usually pretty good for this -- it's about a magician's assistant who solves crimes on the side. Episodes 60-90 minutes long. I think it's available for streaming on Netflix or Amazon, depending on your region.
posted by rollick at 10:13 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Seconding Deathtrap and also nominating Sleuth

(I also endorse the book the Westing Game, and the TV show Jonathan Creek.)
posted by girlpublisher at 10:16 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I used to watch Poirot at that age, it's got great plots with no graphic violence and nothing sexual beyond veiled mentions. More recently, Father Brown is great but it's a bit more cozy-mystery with humourous b-plots. I also loved Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, but that's less focused on the mystery and more about the character arcs. By contrast, Poirot has basically no character development and is just straight mystery.

She might also enjoy reading the original Sherlock Holmes! There are lots of stories, most of which have never been adapted to TV/movies. They're not graphic at all, they were for broad readership in a squeamish era. The only flag is the mention of illicit drug use, because things like cocaine and opium weren't a big deal at the time.
posted by 100kb at 10:18 AM on December 5, 2019 [5 favorites]

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries!
posted by tangosnail at 10:20 AM on December 5, 2019 [7 favorites]

I was also going to suggest 'Sleuth' (1972), it's a classic slippery plot. Avoid spoilers before seeing.
posted by ovvl at 10:22 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I know you said "other than Agatha Christie," but I wanted to make sure you had run across 13 for Luck! A Selection of Mystery Stories for Young Readers. I went through this in the fifth grade and loved it. The stories are accessible to younger readers, but they don't particularly feel YA, and a 13 year-old would be a suitable reader. It has the further advantage of introducing the reader to characters other than Poirot and Marple, such as Parker Pyne and Harley Quin.
posted by ubiquity at 10:24 AM on December 5, 2019

kind hearts and coronets
posted by brujita at 10:33 AM on December 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Movie: The Thin Man

If she enjoys that movie, than I recommend Ashley Weaver's Amory Ames mystery series. It features a wealthy, glamorous couple who solves mysteries in 1930s Britain.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 10:45 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Louise Penny! The novels are set in the province of Quebec but feature many hallmarks of the British whodunit genre, including murders by unconventional means, bucolic villages, large casts of suspects, red herrings, and a dramatic disclosure of the murderer in the last few pages of the book
posted by saucysault at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I haven't watched it yet (and in fact had never heard of it until very recently), but Rian Johnson has cited the 1973 movie The Last of Sheila as a big influence on Knives Out (along with the aforementioned Sleuth and Deathtrap). I love Sleuth, Deathtrap, and Knives Out, so I'm planning to check out The Last of Sheila very soon. It looks like it's rentable on several streaming services (Amazon, YouTube, etc.)
posted by doctornecessiter at 10:54 AM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Ellery Queen.

There was a mystery magazine under that name, a 70s era TV show, a bunch of movies, and many books.

One word of warning: check reviews of the books before buying or borrowing them. The Ellery Queen name and character was used in a fair amount of sub-par books.
posted by The Deej at 10:56 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I second the rec for reading The Westing Game, but she should know we are also currently going through a golden age of murder mystery video games good for that age range: I'd recommend the Danganronpa games, the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series, and Return of the Obra Dinn for starters.
posted by waffleriot at 11:24 AM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was about that age when I started reading Dick Francis and I think those fit the bill. (Extra bonus points if she likes horses, but you don't have to like horses to like the books.)
posted by Daily Alice at 11:37 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I was your daughter! I adored that type of mystery novel when I was her age (and in fact still have a soft spot for it). Some series I especially liked at the time:

- The Mrs. Pollifax series by Dorothy Gilman: an older woman is recruited to work for the CIA, and manages to achieve great spying success precisely because nobody suspects her. Charming and funny.

- The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters: a woman archaeologist in the 1800s who solves mysteries on digs and elsewhere. Surprisingly well-written and lots of interesting historical detail.

I also liked the Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Braun but I remember those a lot less well than the Gilman and Peabody, which perhaps means they were not quite as good...
posted by ethorson at 12:22 PM on December 5, 2019 [6 favorites]

I read all the Dick Francis mysteries at about that age, and loved them. If she doesn't mind the British-ness and horse-racing-centric-ness of them (which for me was a big draw), then she should be set with like a hundred new books to read!

I can't recall whether there's any swearing, and there's no sex -- but there's a murder in every book (duh).
posted by wenestvedt at 12:23 PM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

There's a tiny bit of sex in the occasional Dick Francis - I remember because as a 14-year old I censored a brief passage because I was going to lend my dad the book and I didn't want him to read it and know I'd read it and omg. It's very mild, though.
posted by PussKillian at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Josephine Tey, especially "the daughter of time"
posted by bluedora at 1:45 PM on December 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

"Brick" is written and directed by the same person who made "Knives Out." It is a noir mystery set in a high school and is fantastic.

It is rated R because of two swear words and some violence, but I really don't know why as it isn't any more graphic than "Knives Out." You can read a guide to the rating here.
posted by tacodave at 6:03 PM on December 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Flypaper sounds like it should fit the bill.

Tripp (Patrick Dempsey) walks into a bank to get some change and ends up as a hostage to two bank robber-teams, robbing the bank he is at. In an almost Sherlock Holmesian way he has to solve this Agatha Christie inspired mystery and win the girl's (Ashley Judd) heart. But not everything is at it seems, and there are many twists and turns in this comedy.

It's funny and fun, too.
posted by porpoise at 12:20 PM on December 6, 2019

Your mileage may vary on "resolved satisfactorily", but I found that the Ace Attorney anime does a good job of tightening up the cases from the games (which can have a tendency to faff about with meaningless plot points). I personally prefer the dub to the sub - more personality there.
posted by divabat at 9:11 PM on December 6, 2019

Simon Brett. An enormous backlist, very funny, and even the older ones are remarkably progressive for their day. Charles Paris (a mediocre, borderline alcoholic, actor who keeps stumbling across crime in the theatre/television world and Having To Solve It) is my favourite (and was a staple of my teenage reading), but I’d also recommend the ‘Mrs Pargeter’ books (amateur detective, and widow of a career criminal - whose questionable associates have all flocked around to assist and protect her). And the ‘Blotto & Twinks’ series is a merciless and farcical send-up of Golden Age crime novels, which she might enjoy as someone very familiar with Christie’s work.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 10:04 PM on December 6, 2019

Watched Murder by Death today on the recommendation of this thread, and be aware that a) it hasn't aged well, in part because it's parodying a famous literary detective who's aged so poorly he's largely forgotten, but also because it's the 70s and casual misogyny and transphobia was more acceptable, and b) it's a spoof of a mystery rather than a mystery that's toying with its own conventions, like Knives Out is.
posted by Merus at 7:16 AM on December 8, 2019