It was past midnight. One could hear nothing but the crickets and, somewhere deep in the woods, the melancholy call of a nightjar — that lonesome bird whose song seems fashioned by nature expressly to unsettle the nerves of a solitary traveller. The trail had shown some promise at the outset, but the walk had since become a considerable struggle, for the darkness had closed about me with the totality of a sealed vault. The moon had retreated behind the tree canopy, and I was very nearly at the point of abandoning the endeavour altogether, when I stumbled — quite by Providence, I should think — upon an object caught upon a low branch. It appeared, at first inspection, to be nothing more than a scrap of rag; a tattered thing, unremarkable in every respect save one. There was a red stain upon it. And it was still dripping.

If there is one thing I love about the mystery genre, it is that moment when you can feel, somewhere within you, that the truth is about to be revealed. There are no more hints to be found. The book has perhaps twenty or thirty pages left. It is a moment of pure intellectual dispute between writer and reader — almost like a game where, if you have gathered all the clues and arranged them correctly, you stand a chance of arriving at the answer before it is given to you.

Mystery Elsewhere exists to explore this genre beyond the usual boundaries — not only through books, but through film, games, and other media where the art of mystery has taken root. It also exists to look further afield geographically. We live in a world of eight billion people. I find it difficult to believe that the great mystery writers are all confined to the same handful of countries.

My name is Gabriel. Welcome to Mystery Elsewhere.