A Field Guide To Mysteries by Dennis Mossburg
The mystery genre has become one of the most popular genres in writing today. One of the main reasons for this popularity has to be the many different forms a mystery can take, providing enough variety to appeal to most everyone. In this article I examine major categories of the mystery genre. This list is not comprehensive as there are sub-groups within these categories and some mysteries straddle these categories, but every mystery falls somewhere on this list.
A quick note: many TV shows and movies also fit in these categories, but this article is about books, short stories and novellas. I enjoy TV and movies, but this is not the time nor place for that discussion.


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The first, and perhaps the most recognized type of mystery is the private citizen protagonist. The citizen may be a private detective, the so-called gifted amateur, the nosy neighbor, or oddly, some sort of chef.
The type of private citizen mystery will fall somewhere on a continuum ranging from soft-boiled to medium-boiled to hard-boiled.
In the soft-boiled mystery (aka cozy) the protagonist is rarely a private detective. This is the realm of the gifted amateur. This protagonist (usually a woman) just happens to be around when a homicide occurs. The prime suspect is usually a friend of the protagonist and is usually arrested by an over-worked and perhaps incompetent law enforcement officer. It falls upon the protagonist to clear the friend.
In the final scene, the protagonist is able to prove, often dramatically (with all the suspects and law enforcement on hand), that someone else committed the crime.
These tales are flooded with red herrings and critical clues are sometimes withheld from the reader until the final scene. Another trademark of the soft-boiled mystery is the lack of violence and the protagonist's fear of guns (and yet somehow the protagonist always knows enough about guns to identify them and speak knowledgeably about them).
The moral: if you have a friend (who is not a cop) who is often around when people are murdered and this friend seems to enjoy the lime-light earned from solving the crime, find a new friend.
Most European mysteries are soft-boiled, except that European authors seem to enjoy using exotic poisons for murder weapons. And it just so happens that the protagonist is an expert in rare poisons from the Far East.
The soft-boiled protagonist obeys the law, but is not above snooping around an office or apartment while the owner's back is turned, but would never dream of breaking and entering.
These stories are like Westerns in that the story is thin and they tend to be formulaic. The trite but true phrase, "The butler did it," is evidence of this.
(Once on a long road trip, my wife and I were listening to an audio book by a famous soft-boiled author'whose daughter is also an author. The book was eight tapes long and we were so bored after the first tape that we skipped to the last tape and didn't miss a thing, except a nice long nap.)
Examples of soft-boiled mysteries abound, but if you are reading a book with a cat as a main character or there are recipes at the end of the book, chances are, you are reading a soft-boiled mystery.




The medium-boiled protagonist is usually, but not always, a male private eye. He has been through the grinder that is the street and he is much the worse for the wear. Despite this, he keeps plugging away, and that is part of his appeal. He is cynical, yet retains a measure of hope. He does not trust his fellow man, yet he spends his life looking for proof that he aught to.
The medium-boiled hero rarely resorts to violence. Instead he fights the world with a cutting tongue, which gets him in trouble as often as it gets him out.
Because the medium-boiled hero is constantly searching for the good in humanity, he can be an easy mark for a sob story. The protagonist has enough street smarts to know when he is being lied to, but that does not stop him from helping when he can.
This is especially true of the male protagonists when the sob story comes from an attractive woman. This is probably a manifestation of their search for the beauty in life. Or it could be a desire to protect that beauty from the ugly world the protagonist lives in.
Because they do not like violence, they rarely carry a gun, but do not be fooled: these guys will fight back if cornered.
The protagonist often has contacts with either local law enforcement or the district attorney's office, whom he depends on to run background checks, license plate checks or gather other legal information that would otherwise be unavailable to him.
In a medium-boiled story, the mystery does not always start with a murder. The protagonist is sometimes hired to retrieve stolen property or find a missing person or solve some other crime. But once they become involved, murder is sure to follow.
The medium-boiled hero is more likely than his soft-boiled counterpart to break the law, though these activities are usually confined to breaking and entering.
Examples of the medium-boiled hero include Gregory McDonald's Irwin Fletcher (a journalist), Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer (a private investigator) and Howard Engel's Benny Cooperman (a private investigator).




At the end of the private citizen continuum is the hard-boiled mystery. Sometimes, this type of story is mistakenly called Noir. The mistake is an honest one and easy to understand. Noir refers primarily to a style of movie that portrays a dark world bereft of hope and populated with shady people who try to do unto others before others do unto them. Many Noir movies came out in the 50s, but one of the best contemporary examples of a Noir flick is Blade Runner staring Harrison Ford.
The term Noir has been lifted from its movie origins to describe a similar style of writing. But Noir (either as a movie or book) does not necessarily mean mystery. To further confuse matters, hard-boiled heroes do not necessarily live in a Noir type world, but the two are often found together.
The hard-boiled hero is almost exclusively male. He is a tough guy walking tough streets. The hard-boiled hero does not see himself as cynical or even pessimistic. He sees himself as a realist, a pragmatist. His wit is sharp and he is not afraid to unleash it on anyone. Positions of power do not impress him because the person in power probably got where they are through thuggery, toadying and graft.
The hard-boiled hero holds little or no hope for humanity, his job is simply to pick up the pieces and if possible, put them back together.
He is much like J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield in one important way. Holden wanted to stand in a field of rye and catch people as they fall off a cliff. Unfortunately for the hard-boiled hero, the person didn't fall off the cliff, she (the victim is almost always female) was pushed off the cliff. Pushed by the same hand that thrust a knife in her back. To catch the dame, the hero has to dodge gunsels who are spitting lead at him and avoid the flames devouring the field.
The protagonist sees himself as living in a world without morals so devises his own moral code, and refuses to deviate from it's to do so would be to let the bastards win and he can't let that happen. The code is never spelled out, but is defined through the protagonist's actions. The code will involve breaking a few laws to see that justice is done. Do not be mistaken, a hard-boiled hero is not just a gun toting thug who smashes heads; he sees the system as broken and corrupt. His actions are the only way for the guilty to be caught.
Most hard-boiled heroes at one time worked for the cops or the DA's office, but for one reason or another has gone private, but they maintain contacts in at least one of these agencies.
One of the best examples of the hard-boiled hero comes from Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, but it is not Spencer himself. (A tough guy does not sit around discussing his feelings. And if he does, he most certainly does not do it with a shrink. And he sure as hell doesn't date a shrink. When Spenser started dating Susan, he had to turn his tough guy card for a nice sweater. When Spencer was introduced in The Godwulf Manuscipt, he was a hard-boiled tough guy, but over time, he migrated closer to medium-boiled.)
The real hard-boiled hero in that series is Hawk. His attitude, his style, the way he talks, everything about Hawk typifies the hard-boiled protagonist.
Other examples of the hard-boiled hero include Loren D. Estleman's Amos Walker, and of course the Masters of this field, Dashiell Hammett's heroes, Sam Spade and The Continental Op and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.




A curious variation of the medium- and hard-boiled mysteries is the criminal protagonist story. These stories are not the tale of a crime solved, but a crime committed.
The reader follows along as the protagonist plans, commits and gets away with a crime'usually a robbery or payroll job or safe cracking, etc. The protagonist does tangle with cops, but the confrontation is rarely violent. They do tangle violently with other criminals. The protagonist tangles with his partners in crime (remember the phrase: there is no honor among thieves), with criminals whose turf they invaded and with the criminals they stole from.
The most popular author of this type is Donald Westlake who writes the Parker series (under the pseudonym Richard Stark) and the Dortmunder series.



The next category of mystery is the Police Procedural. This type of mystery is easy to identify. If the protagonist(s) is a cop, then the story is a police procedural. The cop can be a uniformed patrolman or plain clothed detective; a sheriff's deputy or a city cop, it does not matter. So long as the protagonist is a commissioned peace officer, it's a police procedural.
Some try to label certain police procedurals as medium- or hard-boiled. While a police detective may exhibit some of these characteristics, the mystery is still a police procedural.
Trying to define the police procedural beyond this simple definition would be pointless as they run the gamut from comedies to dramas with most stories being a little of both.
Joseph Wambaugh (a retired cop) and Ed McBain are among the best Police Procedurals authors.




This brings us to the Courtroom Drama or Legal Thriller. These have become popular over the past decade, and are usually centered on the trial of someone who wrongly accused. It is up to a crafty lawyer to navigate the legal system to prove the accused's innocence.
Some of these mysteries are well written and a good read, but after three or four, one begins to wonder if there are any guilty people in prison.
Another problem with this type of mystery: it can become formulaic. One particular writer came on the scene about ten years ago, who is partly responsible for the Courtroom Drama's resurgence. He fell from grace however when readers realized that his protagonist was always a young idealistic lawyer who struggles to change the system. At the end of each book, the protagonist triumphs and saves some relative from legal trouble.
There are many examples of this type of story, but one of the pioneers (and still one of the best) is Earl Stanley Gardner and his Perry Mason series.



The Medical Thriller is gaining popularity. The protagonist of these stories is usually a medical examiner, pathologist or coroner.
These stories are an interesting change of pace, but not for those with weak stomachs as the author often describes the autopsy and other gory aspects of the job in great detail.
The biggest strike against this type of mystery that is the fact that MEs, coroners and pathologists are too busy doing their jobs to be concerned about solving crimes; just as cops are too busy solving crimes to perform autopsies. These medical professionals conduct autopsies, run tests on organs, and sometimes collect evidence. Their job is to determine the cause of death and other pertinent details. Write a report detailing their findings. Hand the report over to the police. Then perform the next autopsy. They are not an extension of law enforcement. They don't care who committed the murder, only the cause of death.
One of the better-known author's of the Medical Thriller is Patricia Cornwall.




The last category of mystery began in the late 1980s (and thankfully is dying away). The Profiler practices a field of criminology started by the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit.
Profiler's have been called hindsight expert's and with good reason. They most often pop up during serial killer investigations. They often tell us that the killer is a white male between the ages of 20 and 45. Grew up in a broken home, with at least one alcoholic/drug using parent. As an adult, this individual has probably gone through several divorces of his own and probably has a job that allows him to travel. The victims are often people he feels society will not miss and he may think that he is performing a public service. (This incidentally, is the profile of a typical serial killer. You will notice however that the profile leaves out the killer's use of three names. John Wayne Gacy for example.)
Somehow, the above information is supposed to help police solve the crime. I guess the cops should just start pulling over all white truckers, traveling salesmen and birthday party clowns, between the ages of 20 and 45 and ask them if their parents were alcoholics.
If you ask an honest profiler about his job, he will tell you that the profile is a tool and on it's own will not solve the crime. In one criminology textbook about profiling, the profiler describes how he generated a profile that fit the killer perfectly down to the last detail. Unfortunately, the killer was captured during a routine traffic stop when the arresting officer (who had not seen the profile) noticed something wrong with the driver, searched the car and found the evidence needed to tie the driver to the crimes.
I will not offer an example of this type of mystery as I would be offering the best of a bad lot. Instead, I will suggest a book that gives a more realistic view of the profiler's role in a serial homicide investigation: Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter.




As I wrote earlier, this list is not comprehensive, but it does touch on the major types of mysteries, and hopefully it will help you better understand the genre.