Defining Literary Crime Genres: Not So Easy To Solve

The Tragic was prompted by the subject matter of his last post, namely, the plethora of Mystery Awards which are due shortly, to ponder the nature of how the genre defines itself. The subject matter is approached with a fair degree of trepidation knowing that every author, publisher, bookseller, reader or collector of mystery/crime books has their own definition.

A recent brisk conversation with a number 'Crime-Heads' over the body of a dead cow at a barbecue recently, was a case-in-point, The Tragic, despite his healthy obsession with Literary Awards of all genre's, found himself scrambling madly to try and get his bearings as definitions flew back and forth dangerously across the slowly roasting beast. The distilled wisdom was as follows:

The broad genre 'Crime', seems to provide an umbrella for a series of categories, each with their own sub-categories and often sub-sub-categories. Many books, of course, mingle genres and defy classification. However, there are some things that the 'collective can perhaps agree on (or maybe it can't depending on the motives and where every one was at the time the proposition was first raised..).

First, Mystery and Detective Fiction can be arguably classified as two broad categories within crime fiction. The difference between mystery and detective fiction is subtle, and in practice, there are many examples of books that can be characterised as both.

Examples of detective fiction include, Private Eye (soft-boiled and hard-boiled), and the Cozy, the latter generally featuring a non-professional investigator as the principle character. A further detective category is Police Procedural with the investigative process sometimes more important than the investigative characters. Others we might consider include Capers, Spy, Spoofs and Parodies or even the inverted detective story.

The Whodunnit is a classic mystery genre. The main emphasis of a Mystery novel is generally an atmospheric and stylised narrative where we are invited deep into the characters of the crime perpetrators as well as the investigators. Thrillers can also be mysteries with their sub-genre described by adjective, (legal thriller, political thriller, you get it). The Suspense genre, generally involves psychological thrills with a moody and dark dimension and may fit into the Crime genre under certain circumstances.

Confused or clarified? No doubt the Tragic has missed a few sub-sub-sub genres but he can only do so much- if only that woman in the pale blue dress would stop following him and opening his mail, he could perhaps delve deeper.......

Under the circumstances, (as highly suspicious as they are), The Tragic will be posting details of a new swag of Mystery/Crime Awards on BookAwardsonline.com shortly under the broad banner of Crime Fiction. This in the full knowledge that it is perhaps a cowardly representation of the genre given the depth of the field. But, given the potentially ugly potential crime scenes at the barbie last week, discretion seems the better part of valour....