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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
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