By Rachel Paris
As viewers worldwide grieve the end of the latest season of The White Lotus, I’ve pondered what exactly it is about murder mysteries—and Mike White’s HBO dramedy in particular—that has captured our collective imagination, especially with my debut murder mystery, See How They Fall, launching in the US on April 29.
Each of The White Lotus’s three seasons follows the same successful recipe: it opens with a mysterious death in a glamorous setting and introduces a cast of (predominantly) appalling uber-rich people who double as potential victims and suspects. The viewer’s quest is to determine who died, whodunit, and, most importantly, why?
The show ticks off the key elements of any successful murder mystery: (1) a strong hook; (2) an atmospheric setting; (3) a range of suspects with plausible motives to harm another character; and (4) a suspenseful ride towards a satisfying resolution. Stories with these elements work because they engage both our hearts and our minds. A character’s shocking death instantly raises the story’s emotional stakes and triggers the primal fear of our own mortality, while the mystery component engages our curiosity and intellect as we piece together the clues and discard the red herrings to solve the crime.
I believe the murder mystery’s parameters also afford a level of comfort in uncertain times. Unlike with other genres, we need not be anxious that the plot will veer off in an arbitrary direction, nor fizzle out at its dénouement. We can sit back and enjoy the drama and the requisite twists and turns as we hurtle towards the moment the culprit is unmasked, their motives are exposed and order is restored.
But The White Lotus isn’t your garden-variety murder mystery. Its speciality is murder among toxic rich people behaving badly in a luxurious location. Why, at a time of such economic turmoil, is the show so darned popular?
One simple answer is escapism. In a global cost-of-living crisis, it’s diverting for us ordinary folk to imagine living like the lotus-eaters for whom Mike White named his fictional resort chain where the biggest stressor is which spa treatment or hotel restaurant to book.
But there is more than vicarious pleasure going on in The White Lotus. The show deftly taps into our appetite for armchair sleuthing that has been fuelled by true crime documentaries and podcasts. It also deliberately apes the format of successful reality shows from Big Brother through to Survivor by trapping a bunch of egotistical strangers together in a closed setting, seeding conflict and applying maximum pressure (cue the signature percussive score). Fun fact: Mike White is himself a three-time reality show contestant and was crowned runner up in Survivor: David vs. Goliath.
But perhaps what elevates The White Lotus above others in its genre is its exploration of the gulf between appearance and reality, and the biting social critique it delivers as a result. Appearance versus reality has been a recurrent theme in philosophy and literature since Plato shared his Allegory of the Cave in The Republic, around 380 BCE. When the hotel guests arrive at the resorts, they resemble Plato’s cave-dwellers in their state of ignorance and delusion because they have had one distorted world-view their whole lives. In Plato’s allegory, the people imprisoned within the cave can see only distorted shadows, and not the real objects casting them. Similarly, the hotel guests have spent their lives in an echo-chamber of wealth and privilege, so they have no self-awareness, no awareness of the dysfunction and secrets within their own families and relationships, nor any awareness of the plight of the hotel staff who serve them. For these elites, ignorance truly is bliss. Meanwhile, we—the viewers at home—are the enlightened souls outside the cave who clearly see the truth of these ghastly people’s lives.
Over the course of each series, the guests’ power struggles—stoked by greed, vanity, envy, or, in most cases, a combination of all three—are laid bare, and we are reassured that for all of their privilege, these people aren’t immune from the problems the rest of us face. Indeed, in these challenging times viewers relish the schadenfreude that comes when they get their comeuppance. Apparently, Mike White agrees, telling The New Yorker in the February 10, 2025, issue: “I think the sensibilities of the culture have changed . . . I think people want a little blood in the mouth.”
Like the hit show, my debut novel is a murder mystery with plenty of family drama and luxe settings that tackles wealth, privilege, and class. For that reason, See How They Fall has been compared to The White Lotus by no less than People Magazine, Bookbub, SheReads, and Brit + Co. Certainly, Mike White and I share the conviction that the world of the super-rich is a juicy setting for a whodunit.
In crafting my novel, See How They Fall, I was influenced by classic suspenseful reads set among the super-wealthy, such as Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. I believe those novels have stood the test of time because they share many of elements that have made The White Lotus a cultural phenomenon. In each case, beyond the murder mystery at its heart, there is much to savour in the novels’ rich settings, timeless themes, and complex characters that reveal some unpalatable truths about human nature.
If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to The Strand Magazine.
We publish newly discovered stories, original fiction, and interviews with major writers.
Be the first to comment