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2019 Challenges > Jan-Feb MYSTERY & CRIME Challenge

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message 1: by Melissa (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
There are several sub-genres under the mystery and crime genre. Your challenge is to read at least 2 books (or more if you can) but they must each come from a different subgenre.

They are:
Standard Private Eye
Cozy Mysteries
Classic Detective
Police Procedurals
Hard-Boiled
Thrillers

I found a nice description of the subgenres at the Eastern Nazarene College webpage and have included the website below as well as copied over the descriptions for you. https://libguides.enc.edu/mysteryfict...

There are a number of sub-genres within the broad category of mystery/detective/crime fiction. They overlap and are open to subjective interpretation. Some of the widely recognized categories are:

Standard Private Eye.
•Writers include Ross Macdonald, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky,and Robert B. Parker. Some of these are hard -boiled (see below), some are "soft-boiled," featuring more psychology and less action. The PI typically has a license to practice and collects a fee.


Cozy Mysteries.
•This style features minimal violence, sex, and social relevance; a solution achieved by intellect or intuition rather than police procedure, with order restored in the end; honorable and well bred characters; and a setting in a closed community. Overlaps with the Classic Detective category, below. Writers include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Elizabeth Daly.


Classic Detective.
•Sometimes called the old-fashioned detective story, this sub-genre was at its height in the 1930s. It generally features a mysterious death, a closed circle of suspects who all have motives and reasonable opportunity to commit the crime. The central character is the detective who, by logical deduction from the facts in evidence, solves the mystery. Overlaps with the Cozy Mysteries category, above. Writers include Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Patricia Wentworth, and John Dickson Carr.

Police Procedurals.
•In the 1940s the police procedural evolved as a new style of dectective fiction. Unlike the heroes of Christie, Chandler, and Spillane, the police detective was subject to error and was constrained by rules and regulations. As Gary Huasladen says in Places for Dead Bodies, "not all the clients were insatiable bombshells, and invariably there was life outside the job." The detective in the police procedural does the things police officers do to catch a criminal. Writers include Ed McBain, P. D. James, and Bartholomew Gill.

Hard-Boiled.
•In his biography Ross Macdonald Matthew J. Bruccoli describes hard-boiled literature as "realistic fiction with some or all of the following characteristics--objective viewpoint, impersonal tone, violent action, colloquial speech, tough characters, and understated style; usually, but not limited to, detective or crime fiction." Writers include Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, Sue Grafton, and Bill Pronzini.

Thrillers.
•Thrillers have a basic set of structural compoenents, such threats to the social order, heroes and villains, and deduction and resolution. Many thrillers are also mystery or detective stories. Examples are Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels and novels by Robert Ludlum.


message 2: by Lea Ann (last edited Jan 15, 2019 06:45PM) (new)

Lea Ann (buntingla) | 768 comments domestic noir - The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn


message 3: by Melissa (last edited Jan 19, 2019 06:31AM) (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
Classic Detective: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

This book shows on list of classic detective books but it didn't actually have a detective in it. Not sure what it would be called.


message 4: by Melissa (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
Thriller: Zero Day (John Puller, #1) by David Baldacci


message 5: by Krista (new)

Krista Barnett  (mzkris25) Cozy Mysteries: Mall Santa Murder (Gemma Stone #2) by Willow Monroe


message 6: by Lea Ann (new)

Lea Ann (buntingla) | 768 comments I'm reclassifying my book because I was reading a book review of it and it was described as "domestic noir" (a term I hadn't heard before). Domestic noir is a subgenre of crime novels where the action takes place in the home, is usually told in first-person narrative, and from a female's perspective.

Learn something new every day.


message 7: by Melissa (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
Lea Ann wrote: "I'm reclassifying my book because I was reading a book review of it and it was described as "domestic noir" (a term I hadn't heard before). Domestic noir is a subgenre of crime novels where the act..."

That is a new one on me!


message 8: by Melissa (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
Arrowood (Arrowood, #1) by Mick Finlay

I read this which is a detective mystery.


message 9: by Lea Ann (new)

Lea Ann (buntingla) | 768 comments Crimson Angel (Benjamin January, #13) by Barbara Hambly . Historical mystery


message 10: by Melissa (new)

Melissa | 1389 comments Mod
I finished

Old Scores, The Distant Echoand Wet Grave .

I read all kinds of mystery this month.


message 11: by Lea Ann (new)

Lea Ann (buntingla) | 768 comments Working on a "cozy mystery" right now. Hope to finish it today.


message 12: by Lea Ann (new)

Lea Ann (buntingla) | 768 comments Finished A Cat of One's Own, a "cozy mystery" since the protagonist is an out-of-work aging actress. This is book 17 in the series. It was okay. Apparently, the author features a cat in each mystery. Not really interested in reading more of the series, if that tells you anything.


message 13: by Krista (new)

Krista Barnett  (mzkris25) Classic Detective: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie


message 14: by Karin (new)

Karin | 415 comments I read what I believe is a Classic Detective mystery last night.

February Fever by Jess Lourey


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