Mystery books allow us all to live vicariously through the characters in the text.  Most of us (probably thankfully!) won't need to solve the mysteries we read about, but we can imagine that our lives are more exciting by reading about the characters whose lives involve these adventures.

I love mystery stories.  I always have.  When I was young I read Nancy Drew, and when I got older I read Nero Wolfe.  I think we like mysteries because they are interactive.  We want to follow the clues and guess how the story is going to end.

I enjoy mystery books because they are so engaging.  I love any book that is hard to put down.  It makes the whole reading experience so much more enjoyable.  I also find it easier to immerse myself in an engaging book.  Mystery books in particular ask the reader to think for themselves rather than just follow along.  Most readers are tempted to try to figure out the answer to the riddle before the characters in the story.  This makes a mystery book particularly fun to read.

Mystery novels are fun because the entire premise of the book is intellectually engage the reader to try to "get the answer" to the problem the author created. While some people may like to figure it out before the end of novel and feel smart because they could do so, all readers like to understand how the all of the clues and details given along the way all contribute to the overall resolution of the novel.

I like mysteries because they are puzzles that need a solution. The best ones are those that keep you thinking, that get you so involved that you can't put the book down, that you've read straight through without realizing how much time has gone by. I want to be surprised by the ending; I hate it when I've figured out the solution before I'm halfway through the book.

First, this question should be moved to a discussion board. You will receive many different answers there.

I enjoy mystery books because they make me think about what I am reading. As a writer and English teacher, I am drawn to the characterizations of those depicted in this genre. I find the bits and pieces given to the reader over time much more engaging than a text which simply tells a chronological story.

The mystery text is engaging, thought provoking, and (in the really good ones) full of dead ends. It keeps the reader cognitively challenged.

The mystery book also provides for more assumptions to be made over the course of the text. It can build a reader up, or it can break a reader down.