Guide to Writing the Mystery Novel: Part I

Perhaps a third of the way through writing the first draft of Sound Proof, my second mystery novel, I realized that I wanted to write a how-to book on writing the mystery novel. Two factors contributed to my wanting to write such a guide. 

The first was that I had been reading a lot of mystery novels which, in one way or another, annoyed me.  One might have had a far too obvious villain: somebody I recognized as the murderer by the third chapter. Another might have had a far, far too obscure...