Murder Mysteries

For the fiction genre "murder mystery", see crime fiction.

"Murder Mysteries" is a fantasy short story by Neil Gaiman later collected in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. The bulk of the story is an account of the first murder in the history of the universe, before even Cain and Abel, recounted in first-person hardboiled detective fiction style by Raguel, the angel who investigated it. In a frame narrative, the angel is shown to be telling the story to a young man in 20th-century Los Angeles, for reasons which escape the young man but which gradually become clear to the reader as the story progresses.

It was adapted by the author into an audio drama, which was produced by Seeing Ear Theatre in 2000, starring Brian Dennehy and narrated by Michael Emerson (best known as Ben in the television series Lost). (Gaiman and Seeing Ear Theatre went on to collaborate on an adaptation of another story, "Snow, Glass, Apples", and the two adaptations have been released together on CD under the title Two Plays for Voices.)

In 2002 it was adapted into a comic book by P. Craig Russell, and published by Dark Horse Books.

The depiction of the angels and their city is similar to the depiction in Gaiman's earlier The Sandman series of the Silver City and its angelic inhabitants, but there is nothing to say that the two are the same. (Particularly in light of the fact that the subsequent comic-book adaptation of "Murder Mysteries" was published by a different company.) Also, in this story Azazel is presented as an angel, but in Sandman it is strongly implied that Azazel is a demon who was never a fallen angel.^{[citation needed]} However, the events in the story provide a rationale for Lucifer's eventual revolt against the Presence. At the end of the story Lucifer leaves is dissatisfied with the justice of the conclusion.