101 Mystery Vocabulary Words List (For Writing a Mystery Story)

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Like a detective who needs clues to solve a crime, same as a writer needs to know the common mystery vocabulary words to write a breathtaking mystery story. So, If you are thinking about writing mystery fiction (which is also called detective fiction), then first you need to get familiar with the common mystery vocabulary words used in the genre.

Knowing all the important mystery vocabulary words makes it much easier for a writer to build up their mystery story and write it easily without spending much time looking for the perfect words to describe any event in the story.

Below is the list of common mystery genre vocabulary words used in mystery story writing. These words can also be used to brainstorm new ideas for your mystery fiction.

Related: Mystery Genre in Literature

101 Mystery Vocabulary Words List-


  1. Alibi
  2. Baffling
  3. Bizarre
  4. Breakthrough
  5. Catch
  6. Caution
  7. Cautiously
  8. Cleverly
  9. Clue
  10. Conspiracy
  11. Custody
  12. Crime
  13. Criminal
  14. Cryptic
  15. Culprit
  16. Curious
  17. Deduce
  18. Deny
  19. Destroy
  20. Detective
  21. Discovers
  22. Distress
  23. Doubt
  24. Elusive
  25. Encounters
  26. Enigma
  27. Escape
  28. Evidence
  29. Experts
  30. Explores
  31. Finds
  32. Fingerprint
  33. Flashback
  34. Forensic
  35. Foreshadowing
  36. Footprint
  37. Fraud
  38. Guilt
  39. Heist
  40. Hidden
  41. Homicide
  42. Hunch
  43. Intelligence
  44. Interrogate
  45. Investigate
  46. Investigation
  47. Investigator
  48. Lies
  49. Mislead
  50. Motive
  51. Murder
  52. Mystery
  53. Mystified
  54. Note
  55. Origins
  56. Offense
  57. Ominous
  58. Perpetrator
  59. Perplexing
  60. Police
  61. Problems
  62. Proof
  63. Puzzling
  64. Red herring
  65. Relieved
  66. Resolve
  67. Revelation
  68. Reward
  69. Riddles
  70. Risk
  71. Secret
  72. Shadow
  73. Shocked
  74. Silently
  75. Sinister
  76. Sleuth
  77. Sneaky
  78. Speculate
  79. Spy
  80. Strange
  81. Stranger
  82. Stumped
  83. Suspect
  84. Suspense
  85. Suspicions
  86. Testimony
  87. Theory
  88. Threatening
  89. Truth
  90. Uncanny
  91. Uncover
  92. Undercover
  93. Unease
  94. Unexplained
  95. Unknown
  96. Unnatural
  97. Unravel
  98. Unsolved
  99. Victim
  100. Vulnerable
  101. Witness

To write better mysteries and explore more mystery vocabulary words, you can start reading popular mystery books and the works of prominent mystery writers.

Start with reading the works of the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie‘s popular mystery novels and short story collections.

Related: 7 Popular Detective Novels

Neel Rana

About the Author- Neel Rana is a YA short story author, flash fiction writer, literary enthusiast and the founder of Pandora Post. Neel holds a degree in BA Honours in English Literature and has been writing since 2017. Neel’s magnum opus YA short storybook, “The Drunken Ghost” has been well received by the readers.