The key to a good mystery, in my opinion, is narrative constraint. When the rules of a mystery - what the investigator can and cannot do, who and what was where and when - are laid out clearly for the audience, working within those limitations to puzzle out the case (a la any book by Agatha Christie, the who-dun-it queen) becomes irresistible.
Conway: Disappearance At Dahlia View knows exactly what its story, and its protagonist specifically, can and cannot do. Robert Conway can use his decades of experience as a private investigator to look for missing child Charlotte May Morgan, but what he cannot do is leave Dahlia View or get caught by the police. Confined to a wheelchair, Conway surveys his neighbours from the window of his second-floor flat, occasionally venturing down into the quiet courtyard below to infiltrate his neighbour’s homes. Though due to the declines of age or sheer arrogance, he does neither half so subtly as he’d like to think.
Within these constraints, Conway presents a classic locked room mystery, only the “room” is the neighbourhood of Dahlia View and, unbeknownst to Conway but made known to the audience, this has all happened before.
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