My favorite mystery is "The Pit and the Pendulum." I enjoyed this one because of its suspense and action. I enjoy Edgar Allan Poe's tendency to write gruesome stories. Being slowly sliced in half by a swinging axe sounds unpleasant, but it's fun to read about. I also enjoy the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I think the ideal introduction to a mystery would be something like Doyle's "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." I like the way it introduces a seemingly unimportant object, Holmes deduces amazing things from it, and then the object suddenly becomes relevent to the mystery. Here is the opening paragraph to my mystery. It seems pretty random, but it is all relevent to the mystery:

     Matthew waited patiently in his small bush plane. He and the only other man aboard, the pilot, sat near the runway at Boeing Airfield in Seattle. Matt watched as the snow fell silently on the plane. The de-icing crew drove up to begin work on the plane. Two men dismounted the truck and began spraying antifreeze on the wings and body of the little Cessna. It was a cold night, and Matt was glad that he was in the warmth of the plane. The men finished the plane quickly and departed in their truck for another plane. The pilot mumbled something in his headset and ignited the plane’s engine. They were headed out of Seattle and into the wilderness of British Columbia, Canada. Matt was going hunting for the weekend, and was glad for the much-needed vacation. The turboprop lurched off the runway into the night. Despite the snowfall, when the plane ascended above the clouds, there were clear skies. Matthew sat back and enjoyed the flight. One hour later, the plane was on the ground in a heap of wreckage and flames.