Extant criticism of crime and mystery fiction has indicated how protagonists have freedom of choice in dealing with difficult situations in different forms of risky or challenging settings. In this article, previous criticism is evaluated in terms of its reflection of an essential element of the human condition: individuals’ free will to construct the existential and spatial meanings of their phenomenological existence in relation to others. The article further indicates that protagonists tend to disregard their freedom and responsibility for their actions, especially when they make existential choices in traumatic or critical situations. Additionally, the dominance of others and variously suppressive spatial contexts can inhibit the protagonists from acknowledging their free will to act responsibly in order to reach their authentic existence. In this article, Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of the human condition and its corresponding interpretative framework of spatial concepts are integrated to analyze the portrayal of protagonists in crime and mystery novels.