Mystery writing has various subgenres with unique characteristics, such as detective type, setting, and problem. Crime is a common theme, but not always illegal. Style also defines genres, with some stories crossing multiple genres.
The broad genre of mystery writing has a number of subgenres that have unique and independent characteristics. All mystery genres share at least the fundamental partial understanding of what is happening in the story, such that the full narrative must be discovered throughout the book. Some genres of detective stories can be divided by type of problem, others by setting, still others by who solves the problem. There are also some sub-genres that work by combining the mystery genre with another genre, such as romance. Occasionally there are genre-defying books, but once they become popular and oft-repeated storylines, those once-genreless books become their own genres as well.
One of the best ways to categorize mystery genres is by the type of detective who solves the case. Private detective novels, for example, are a popular mystery subgenre, as are amateur detective novels. Some people go as far as to specify the gender of the person solving the crime as an aspect of gender. In one sense, these categories naturally involve settings, but in the novel series the crime solver typically travels around to provide new challenges.
Even the time and place where the mystery occurs can be thought of as defining a subgenre. For example, historical crime novels are one of the most popular crime genres. Intimate mysteries, which are a very well-defined type of novel, are defined by both their female protagonist and their small-town setting. Mystery stories that take place in the distant future often take the form of science fiction mysteries, although the science fiction elements of the story often overshadow the mystery elements when defining the genre of the book.
While not all mystery stories involve a crime in the sense that the problem was against the law, most are about some sort of problem that is dealt with as a crime. Murder mysteries and caper stories, for example, are both commonly considered genres. In some cases, the crime itself may not be against the law, as is the case with many children’s mysteries involving child-level crimes. A borrowed toy or a lost dog may be the crime in a children’s mystery, but the child detectives in the novels just as frequently solve major crimes that stump local law officials.
Finally, many mystery genres are divided in terms of the style in which the story is told. Hard-boiled crime novels, commonly thought of as noir stories, are told in a very different way from historical mysteries. Different cultures also have different conventions for mystery novels, with the mystery and Japanese genres being somewhat different. In many cases, a mystery story crosses many genres and new terms have to be invented to cope with genre-defying stories.
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