/lit/ - Literature

>>22985094
A mystery novel is about solving mysteries, those have clues, deductive and inductive reasoning. Only hacks like Sherlock Holmes try to pass being smart as conjuring logical conclusions from minute details that either are never revealed or are so unimportant that the logical conclusions border on wild assumptions.
The very first mystery of your story is completely backwards. The idea that tape recorder was deliberately placed there is retrospectively retarded when you take into consideration that it's only much later revealed that it was both stolen, was not there before and that someone might have broken in to do so. Had you actually went through the motions of what your detective did when he arrived in his office I doubt that he wouldn't have pointed out that the recorder was not there and that someone might have broken in. He probably would even looked for such traces personally.
Saying that the recorder was placed there deliberately is also not showing that it was, which you did before, plentifully, making it a forgone conclusion to begin with. Not every single thing needs to be thought off, as in, shared with the reader. If you don't make your readers engage in the many mysteries of your story you will never get them invested. Let them come to their own conclusions. You should not craft a noir movie concerned with aesthetics, you should concern yourself with crafting mysteries for the audience to engage with, they don't have to be complicated, they just have to be there. Positive reinforcement is a great tool.
Your main character is also a non-existent figment in this story, he has no personality and barely an introduction. The way that your main character interacts with the world should be a reflection of their personality. That includes how he wants other people to see him, how he sees himself, how he fails to be his ideal self. That's the very basic establishment of self-esteem. Have him actually go up that three story building that you told us about and instead show us who Alan is through that building, what's in it and how he interacts with it.
Good writing is about a method and refinement of said method, you need a method if you want to write a story that isn't just someone saying that they cracked the case and shitting out assumption diarrhea that's totally right in the end. Or in this case listening to tapes and being very aloof about the idea of other people trespassing on his property because, you know, the description of the desk full of papers and a recorder was somehow more central for that story you came up with about the uncle schizo relaying his cult investigation over tapes that you had to write down on paper.
There's nothing wrong with making a rough draft or getting an idea down, but that's only the beginning. Don't get overwhelmed, establish what you want out of your work and create ways to achieve that over the course of a book. Too few here do.