Crime, mystery, and thriller stories…
Some people consider these three words to be genres, but now they’re just keywords that help readers figure out what the plot is about or what is emphasized, and, in many cases, a short story, novella, or novel can be described by all three. Crime stories (often called police procedurals when involving cops) focus on the crime solvers and their techniques. Mysteries are often more cerebral and focus on who committed the crime and why, and the mystery solvers are more likely to be ordinary people, not pros—the reader doesn’t know who committed the crime and the author often includes misdirects to confuse her or him so s/he can’t guess who did it. In a thriller, the reader is likely to know who committed the crime, or who is planning to commit one, and the protagonist(s) are more concerned with stopping it.
Consider a story about a serial killer. That’s one case where all those keywords can apply, and the most appropriate keyword just indicates an emphasis. For the crime writer, a cop will match wits with the serial killer, try to find out who s/he is (most serial killers are males, though, so a female could be a twist), and then apprehend the perp. The mystery writer might also have a protagonist match wits with the killer and try to find out who s/he is, but there might be many misdirects and even events from the protagonist’s past that connect her or him to the killer. The thriller writer would tend to alternate between the serial killer and those chasing him, letting the reader get into the minds of both, and action scenes might be featured more (see a previous writing post). Clearly all these stories can have elements of crime, mystery, and thrills.
Novels from Connolly’s Harry Bosch series are stories that are essentially police procedurals, but they’re also mysteries. They don’t have that many thrills. The writer’s interests are clear—he’s hung out around police stations and is intimately familiar with police work. Yet, in some books, he alternates between perp and cop, which is one characteristic of a thriller.
Novels from Child’s Jack Reacher series (about the six-foot-six mauler of the novels, not height-challenged Tom Cruise who would never get his hands dirty in real life, let alone injure them by punching someone) are stories that are essentially thrillers, but there are usually a lot of mystery elements in them too. They aren’t necessarily crime stories per se, although the villains are often criminals Jack brings to justice. There’s usually something going on that’s just wrong, so Jack steps in like an avenging angel and makes it right again.
For mystery, I’d say it’s hard to find a “pure mystery” these days. By “pure” I mean in the Conan Doyle or Christie sense. Modern mysteries tend to have a lot of police procedural and thriller elements, with even the “who did it?” aspect often playing second fiddle to “why?” They do tend to have more twists and turns and misdirects. Carl Hiassen’s Razor Girl is a modern example, but it also is humor (most of his books are hilarious). His Skinny Dip, in contrast, is more thriller than mystery.
There is so much overlap between these categories that online retail sites and bookstores tend to group mysteries and thrillers together and just assume that some of them are also crime stories, putting them on the same shelf too (but they often distinguish the fictional crime stories from true crime). I see nothing wrong with that. It gets a bit confusing, though, when you consider more classic genre labels. Is a cozy mystery romance or mystery? Is a historical thriller historical fiction or thriller? (Of course, that confusion just proves my point that the modern reader should just consider these categories to be descriptive keywords.)
Let’s consider some books from my “Steve’s Bookshelf” webpage: Donna Carrick’s The First Excellence is a mystery and crime story that is unusual because it’s set in China. Edgardo David Holtzman’s Malena is a historical thriller set in Argentina during the Dirty War. Carolyn J. Rose’s Hemlock Lake is a more classic mystery with elements of a police procedural, but it has a few thriller elements too. Like the more famous books and series mentioned above, these books by lesser known authors are excellent examples of the storytelling art (maybe even superior ones!)—the keywords are only a guide at best (in fact you might never find them on Amazon just with the keywords!).
In the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” featuring my two NYPD homicide detectives, you will find every book contains police procedural (or crime story), mystery, and thriller elements, although they tend to oscillate between what they emphasize. (They also oscillate in settings, i.e. not always occurring in NYC. In the newest, Gaia and the Goliaths, due out next year, much of the action takes place in Europe, but the detectives are still in Manhattan!) I don’t worry about these keywords very much now. When I wrote Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, #3 in the series, I considered it the first real mystery in that series and reviewed everything I could about writing in the “mystery genre.” While it’s true the novel emphasizes mystery elements more than anything else (Chen is framed for murder, but why?) and has many misdirects and twists, I now think all three keywords apply.
My bottom-line recommendation for all writers is to just tell a good story and worry about the keywords describing your story only when you write the blurb for your new book. Retailers will ask you to classify that book, don’t worry, so those keywords can be important. They’re not, though, for spinning your yarn. In the case of Connolly, Child, and Hiassen, they’ll sell their books no matter what keywords are chosen. In your case, along with the authors mentioned and me, our readers will be looking for another good story and might rarely come across it by using only keywords, but their enjoyment of our stories will never depend on those keywords.
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Action on the southern border! No, it’s not Trump beginning the construction of The Wall. It’s Chen and Castilblanco fighting terrorists, a cartel, and neo-Nazi militias. In Angels Need Not Apply, the deadly duo from the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” go undercover to fight crime as part of a national task force. This novel is available in all ebook formats.
In libris libertas!
