Spoiler policy: The recommendations reveal premises, not solutions.
There is a particular pleasure in a mystery that draws a circle around its suspects and then washes away the road out. In Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s The Final Problem, a storm strands strangers at a hotel on a Greek island in 1960. When an apparent suicide raises questions, Ormond Basil, an actor famous for playing Sherlock Holmes, has to investigate a crime that seems to demand the skills of the fictional detective he once portrayed. Atlantic Books describes Basil and the island setting in its synopsis.
If the island, the theatrical detective-fiction references, and the question of who could possibly have done it kept you turning pages, the twelve books below offer different ways back into that feeling. “Locked room” has two meanings here: a literal crime that appears impossible to commit, and the broader closed-circle mystery in which an island limits the suspects and the means of escape. The latter describes several of these books more precisely. None of the entries assumes a literal locked-door murder.
Start here: the closest matches
| If you liked… | Read next | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Classic clues and a finite suspect list | The Decagon House Murders | A mystery club on an isolated island |
| The golden-age influence | And Then There Were None | The essential island countdown |
| Another Greek island with a performer at its center | The Fury | Celebrity secrets and narrative misdirection |
| An investigator facing an island crime | The Island | A stark Icelandic investigation |
| An unusual solution and big conceptual stakes | The Last Murder at the End of the World | A murder that threatens an entire community |
1. The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
If you want the closest match for The Final Problem’s affection for detective fiction itself, start here. Students from a university mystery club travel to a remote island and stay in a strangely shaped house tied to an earlier mass murder. Their borrowed crime-writer nicknames make the genre references part of the story, but the danger becomes real when one of the students dies. Pushkin Press’s description sets out the club’s trip and the first death.
Best for: Readers who want an island puzzle that actively talks back to Christie and the traditions of the whodunit. The island is a closed circle; judge the puzzle on its clues rather than expecting every crime to happen behind a locked door.
2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Ten people arrive on Soldier Island, near the Devon coast, under the direction of an unseen host. As their numbers diminish, the island’s geography turns suspicion into a practical problem: if no outsider can easily arrive, what does that say about the people still alive? The official Agatha Christie site recounts the isolated-island premise.
This is the foundational choice for readers who loved the old-school construction of The Final Problem. It is a closed-circle island mystery, even though “locked-room” is often used loosely to describe it. If you have already read it, try Ayatsuji next to see a later writer engage directly with that legacy. For more classics, our guide to golden-age mystery books offers another route in.
3. The Guest List by Lucy Foley
A wedding gathers friends, relatives, and old resentments on an island off the Irish coast. The setting promises privacy until the celebration becomes the scene of a death. The publisher’s description of The Guest List places the wedding on the windswept island and frames the festivities as a trap for secrets.
Foley is a good choice if you enjoyed having a limited roster of strangers to watch, but want a contemporary thriller driven by shifting perspectives and relationships. This one emphasizes the question of who is in danger and why; it has a different rhythm from a classical impossible-crime puzzle.
4. The Fury by Alex Michaelides
An ex-movie star invites friends to her private Greek island, and the gathering ends in murder. Celadon Books lays out the star, her friends, and the island trip. The overlap with The Final Problem is especially tempting: another Greek island, another story with performers in the mix, and another mystery that understands how appearances can be staged.
Choose this if you liked Pérez-Reverte’s interest in the relationship between a story and the person telling it. The appeal lies as much in narrative misdirection as in narrowing down a suspect list. It is a psychological, closed-circle thriller, rather than a promise of a literal locked room.
5. The Retreat by Sarah Pearse
A wellness retreat opens on an island off the Devon coast, where deaths draw Detective Elin Warner into an investigation. Sarah Pearse describes the island’s ominous history and the resort deaths on her site. The contrast between expensive calm and rising fear gives this pick a different texture from the modest hotel in The Final Problem.
Elin is an actual detective, which changes the pleasure of the story: instead of watching an actor improvise his way into a role, you watch a professional probe what a supposedly restorative place may be hiding. This is book two in the Elin Warner series, following The Sanatorium, though its island case supplies its own central mystery.
6. They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall
Miriam is invited to a private island in the Sea of Cortez, only to discover that her fellow guests have arrived under false pretenses and carry secrets of their own. Macmillan’s synopsis introduces the seven strangers and the isolated setting.
Read this for the unnerving feeling that an invitation was really a summons. Its link to Christie’s island tradition is direct, but the contemporary voice and focus on the guests’ pasts make the premise feel different. The central pressure is the small group and the lack of a trustworthy way out.
7. The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
An island community survives behind a barrier while a lethal fog covers the world outside. Then a murder endangers the system that keeps the island alive. Sourcebooks describes the isolated community and the murder’s far-reaching stakes.
Here the island is effectively the whole habitable world. Turton retains the irresistible closed-circle question—who in this community killed someone?, while adding speculative rules and a ticking clock. Pick it if The Final Problem left you wanting a puzzle that pushes the form into unfamiliar territory. Its science-fiction premise makes it the most genre-bending choice on this list.
8. The Last Visitor by Martin Griffin
A research team reaches an uninhabited island, where evidence of a recent murder upends what should have been a controlled trip. The publisher introduces the island, the team, and the disturbing discovery.
This is a strong next read if the appeal of The Final Problem was watching suspicion spread through a group with nowhere comfortable to retreat. Griffin leans into survival and unease as the investigation proceeds. It is an atmospheric island thriller with a confined group, rather than a cozy exercise in solving a room’s physical impossibility.
9. The Island by Ragnar Jónasson
Four friends reunite at a hunting lodge on Iceland’s remote Elliðaey island, and their trip ends in disaster. Macmillan’s series description identifies the lodge, the cut-off location, and the book’s place in the Hulda series. Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir follows the trail of what happened.
The sparse landscape makes isolation feel less like a clever contrivance and more like a physical force. Read it for a colder, darker investigative counterpart to Pérez-Reverte’s sunlit Greek hotel. This is the second Hulda novel, so readers who prefer to start a series at the beginning can read The Darkness first.
10. One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke
Six women travel to a Greek island for a bachelorette celebration that ends in murder. Penguin Random House summarizes the island trip and its deadly outcome.
This is the pick for readers who want the Greek setting to stay, but would rather trade a formal detective game for secrets within an intimate group. Friendship, divided loyalties, and what each person withholds do more work than a physical locked-room trick. It is a looser match for puzzle purists and an easy choice for fans of holiday suspense.
11. The Club by Ellery Lloyd
An exclusive members’ club opens its most ambitious outpost on an island. The launch draws the sort of guests who can make trouble disappear, until the weekend creates a scandal that will not stay hidden. Pan Macmillan introduces Island Home and its high-profile opening.
Where The Final Problem finds its meta-fiction in a Sherlock Holmes actor, The Club takes aim at celebrity, status, and the machinery that protects them. The island offers a restricted setting with a crowd full of motives. Choose this one for social satire and simmering interpersonal suspense over strict fair-play detection.
12. The Last Resort by Susi Holliday
Amelia joins a small group invited to try a private-island getaway, then learns the retreat has another purpose. Holliday’s own synopsis explains the island invitation and its disturbing technology experiment.
It is the most overtly tech-inflected entry here. The questions shift from simply identifying a killer to understanding why these guests were assembled and what the organizers know about them. Read it when the “no escape” element of an island story matters more to you than classic clue gathering.
Which island mystery should you read first?
For the strongest bridge from The Final Problem, pick The Decagon House Murders: both books reward readers who notice how detective stories work. For the essential precedent, pick Christie’s And Then There Were None. For another Greek island where performance and perspective matter, pick The Fury. If you want the island to stretch the very rules of a murder puzzle, pick Turton’s The Last Murder at the End of the World.
The fun of these books is the same initial contradiction: an island appears to make the suspect list manageable, yet every new discovery makes that tidy list harder to trust.
FAQ
Is The Final Problem a Sherlock Holmes story?
No. Pérez-Reverte’s Ormond Basil is an actor known for having portrayed Holmes. The novel plays with the gap between acting like a detective and actually solving a crime.
Is an island mystery the same as a locked-room mystery?
Not exactly. A strict locked-room mystery involves a seemingly impossible crime in a sealed or otherwise inaccessible place. An island mystery can instead create a closed circle of suspects through geography, weather, or limited transport. This list includes both puzzle-focused stories and broader closed-circle thrillers.
Which book is closest to The Final Problem?
The Decagon House Murders is the best place to start if you want a self-aware detective-fiction puzzle on an island. The Fury is the more direct choice for another Greek-island setting with performers and misdirection.
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