The commercial fiction I write under the crime label falls in one of two large groups: mystery and other.

Mystery, to me, is basically the traditional whodunnit. My P.I. Frank Johnson titles, for instance, use the whodunnit premise. A crime has been perpetrated, and our private eye hero is hired to follow the clues, deflect the red herrings, and decipher the right solution. Part of the fun the reader has is trying to guess the solution before the private eye does.

Of course, writing and reading the whodunnits gets a bit repetitive. I can attest to that. Therefore we're left with the other large group. This group is labeled as crime fiction. Noir falls under this category. There's little or no mystery involved with the narrative. Rather the emphasis falls on portraying the protagonist.

Lake Charles, my latest novel (it has been called "Appalachian noir") out now, contains an element of mystery. But there is also the tight jam the characters find themselves in and trying to escape.

By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Satisfying."
The Rap Sheet/Kirkus Reviews