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• This type of mystery is defined by humorous narration, scrambling action, bumbling but lovable characters, and just fun.

• Comedy is the primary goal.

Authors: Works:

Elmore Leonard Get Shorty (1995

•This type of mystery has a protagonist is usually brainy, eccentric, antisocial, possesses quirky areas of knowledge. Usually male.

Authors: Works:

Agatha Christie Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

•This type of mystery is almost entirely a female subgenre

•Usually include an amateur detective, cats, knitting or quilting, cooking, pots of tea, family, friends, and community

Authors: Works:

Nancy Atherton Aunt Dimity’s Death (1992)

Aunt Dimity Digs In (1998)

•This type of mystery is about spies and spying

•American version is also know as a “Thriller” and is more action-packed than realistic, often macho, includes gore and seduction

Authors: Works:

Robert Ludlum The Bourne Legacy

•This type of mystery uses crime-solving aspects of pathology, physiology, anthropology or archeology, psychology, and behavioral analysis

•Use trace evidence processing, fingerprinting, DNA, ballistics, document analysis accident reconstruction, bugging, wiretapping, computer technology, etc.

Authors: Works:

Patricia Cornwall Postmortem (1990)

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs (1988)

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•This type of mystery is set among criminals rather than crime fighters

•Typical storyline concerns revenge, vigilante justice, or the commission (rather than the detection) of a crime

•Formerly called “Sleaze”

Authors: Works:

Ed McBain Big Bad City (1999)

•This type of mystery is set in a previous era, or deals with events which occurred in a previous historical era

•Often feature real persons or events in some form

Authors: Works:

Jack Higgins The Eagle Has Landed (1975)

This type of mystery involves legal proceedings, lawyers, prosecutors and their English counterparts.

•This type of mystery had a protagonists are from one of the armed services of one of the world’s nations – usually a “superpower”

•Setting may include a war or military conflict, real or imagined

Authors: Works:

Nelson DeMille The General’s Daughter (1992)

•This type of mystery must be realistic depictions of official investigations

Authors: Works:

Ed McBain The Mugger (1956)

•This type of mystery has a governmental or public policy setting and focus

•They can vary from assassination novels, to Washington insider farces, to attacks for or against an issue such as capital punishment

Authors: Works:

Richard Condon The Manchurian Candidate (1959)

•This type of mystery is defined by a non-police detective, usually a paid professional investigator

Authors: Works:

Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon (1930)

•This type of mystery typically have a higher level of random violence, explicit gore, and serious mental illness than any other

•Serial killer stories can be crosslisted in any subgenre except Cozy

Authors: Works:

Thomas Harris Silence of the Lambs (1988)

•This type of mystery is among the most loosely used terms in the genre, being applied to any book with even a little action or adventure

Authors: Works:

Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code