A Good Mystery Novel Needs A Minimum Of X Suspects?

[Prettygurl12]

For those of you who enjoy a good mystery novel every now and again, what's the minimum number of suspects necessary for you to really enjoy the book?

This is, of course, assuming the quality of the writing/plot/characters/etc. is already up to your standards.

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six+

[AviatorTom]

My SO pisses me off. When we watch mysteries on TV, she almost always pegs the guilty one in teh first 5 minutes. She says she does the same thing when she reads novels.

Me personally, I prefer to wait a while before I figure out which of the 3 main suspects did it.

[Prettygurl12]

😂😂😂 I fuckin' love calling it within the first 5 minutes. I get more and more excited as I am proven more and more right.

[ArtemisSilver]

I've read a novel where there were no real suspects at all and the detective was just going insane due to a brain-eating parasite. Was still pretty dope. Guy kept thinking he was working old cases and his mind kept jumping around his timeline.

[Agape93]

For a one shot novel, 3. One red herring obvious, one may be the killer and one you'd never suspect

For a series, 10. Make that shit dynamic and chaotic

[NamerOfStars]

I don't know if you can quantify it so simply; I quite enjoyed "Murder by Death" and that had ZERO suspects.

[footslave21]

I guess 4 is a good number as below this it becomes more predictable and beyond this it may confuse few people and make them think the plot is too complex.

[maximumpower]

Fewer and its too easy to figure out.
More and the film will go too long.

[msc545]

Perhaps three suspects are about optimal at least for me.

[OnTheLevel]

Usually 2 or 3 but in the end, the perpetrator is someone who you never saw as a suspect.

[jengeorge26]

I think maybe two?