I don't have an answer, but readers seem to equate "Mystery" with "Murder Mystery." One of my Mapleton mysteries has no dead bodies, and I felt obligated to point that out in the book description rather than have people wondering when the murder would take place. The book I'm currently working on has a homicide, but it's a sub plot rather than the focus of the book.
It's so crazy that people equate the mystery genre with murders. It's rather sad, in some ways, too. Good for you for writing a mystery that has no dead bodies; I'm going to challenge myself to do that. :)
Great inquiry! The genre is impoverished by being limited to certain plot structures that are repeated over and over. In crazy times like these it’s much more interesting to question everything: what is a crime? Whose interests are served? What’s the larger meaning? Etc.
Those are great questions. Is a crime always a crime, or sometimes justified? Sometimes the person who commits the crime isn't the one (or at least not the only one) whose interests are being served. This makes the concept of "justice" more difficult to pin down. I like it when mysteries/thrillers/crime novels grapple with this aspect and not exclusively with the standard Clue-type aspects of who, where, how, why. (Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the knife because, um ... who knows?!) And where does all of this fit in larger societal structures, philosophical concepts, and contemporary worldviews? As you say, the genre is impoverished if books only rehash the same-old, same-old structures.
I don't have an answer, but readers seem to equate "Mystery" with "Murder Mystery." One of my Mapleton mysteries has no dead bodies, and I felt obligated to point that out in the book description rather than have people wondering when the murder would take place. The book I'm currently working on has a homicide, but it's a sub plot rather than the focus of the book.
It's so crazy that people equate the mystery genre with murders. It's rather sad, in some ways, too. Good for you for writing a mystery that has no dead bodies; I'm going to challenge myself to do that. :)
Great inquiry! The genre is impoverished by being limited to certain plot structures that are repeated over and over. In crazy times like these it’s much more interesting to question everything: what is a crime? Whose interests are served? What’s the larger meaning? Etc.
Those are great questions. Is a crime always a crime, or sometimes justified? Sometimes the person who commits the crime isn't the one (or at least not the only one) whose interests are being served. This makes the concept of "justice" more difficult to pin down. I like it when mysteries/thrillers/crime novels grapple with this aspect and not exclusively with the standard Clue-type aspects of who, where, how, why. (Colonel Mustard, in the conservatory, with the knife because, um ... who knows?!) And where does all of this fit in larger societal structures, philosophical concepts, and contemporary worldviews? As you say, the genre is impoverished if books only rehash the same-old, same-old structures.