Behind The Genre Of Mystery

 

My genre is Mystery. The definition I found most appropriate was “Anything that is kept secret or remains unexplained or unknown” I got this off of Dictionary.com and it was very helpful for me to better understand what mystery is. I also found that the 10 most popular mystery authors were, James Patterson, John Grisham, Lee Child, David Baldacchi, Charles Rosenberg, Bobby Cole, Michael Connelly, Johnathan Kellerman, Janet Evanovich, and Tom Clancy. The top 10 most popular mystery books are Ghostman By: Roger Hobbs, Perfect Hatred By: Leighton Gage, The Golden Egg By: Donna Leon, Murder as a Fine Art By: David Morrell, A Delicate Truth By: John le Carré, The Abomination By: Johnathan Holt, How the Light Gets In By: Louise Penny, Tatiana By: Martin Cruz Smith, Death of a Nightingale By: Lene Kaaberol and Agente Friis. Mystery genres, have different protagonists ranging from police to private detectives, witches to faeries, and bakers to little old ladies, always have some characteristics in common. The main character is looking to solve a problem. Clues, are obvious and subtle, and are left behind and everyone in the story is a suspect. There are foreshadowing hints to keep the audience interested, suspenseful scenes, and often a red herring, or false suspect, to keep the audience guessing. Some awards given to this genre that I found on omnimystery.com are, The Edgar Awards, The Swedish Crime Novel Awards, The Glass Key Award, The Thriller Awards, The Best First Crime Novel Contest, and more. There are some interesting information about the mystery genre like that it has been around since the “Golden Ages”, there was a formula made to help establish classic English mystery, and there are other factual things I found on pbs.org.

So far my book is more on the romantic side but Im not at all surprised since it is a Nicholas Sparks book. I like it so far and I hoping for more of a twist to happen like something surprising or have the book be clingy like making me what to keep reading. Although I would have picked a more mysterious book I just like Nicholas Sparks so much I couldn’t resist a romantic-mystery!