The Notting Hill Mystery (1862–1863) is an English-language detective novel written under the pseudonym Charles Felix, with illustrations by George du Maurier.

In 1952, William Buckler identified Charles Warren Adams (1833–1903) as the author of The Notting Hill Mystery and in January 2011, Paul Collins, a writer, editor and academic, writing in The New York Times Book Review, came to the same conclusion.

[1][2] Adams, a lawyer, was the sole proprietor of Saunders, Otley & Co., which published another book by "Charles Felix" called Velvet Lawn,[2][5] and an edition of The Notting Hill Mystery in 1865.

"[2] Some critics – including Julian Symons, a crime writer and poet – believe it to be the first modern detective novel, though it was later overshadowed by works by Wilkie Collins and Émile Gaboriau, which usually receive that accolade.

[3] Some aspects of detective fiction can also be found in R. D. Blackmore's sensation novel Clara Vaughan (written in 1853, published in 1864), about the daughter of a murder victim seeking her father's killer,[6] but Adams's novel contains several innovations, such as the main character presenting evidence of his own findings through diary entries, family letters, depositions, chemical analysts report and crime scene map.