So, What Sub-Genre Should My Mysteries Fall Under?
This is a question I’ve pondered for a long time and frankly, I don’t really have an answer.
There are the straight mysteries (and I don’t mean as opposed to ones with gay detectives though I don’t have any gay detectives and so far not even any gay characters) and these are the ones where there is a puzzle to solve and it’s pretty straight forward. The clues are there for both the reader and the sleuth to find.
Remember, the sleuth can be most anyone these days from a cook to a Werewolf, a ghost or a vampire. In my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries, the sleuth obviously is a deputy. She’s much more than that though, she’s a wife to a minister, a mother of a college age son, and she’s Native American.
Since she’s a deputy maybe my books should fall into the police procedural genre. Maybe, but in Tulare county, California, where the book is set (though Bear Creek where Tempe is the resident deputy is a fictional mountain community in Tulare county) the deputies are also deputy coroners though if there’s a violent crime, detectives would investigate. (Now how do you like that run-on sentence? My critique group would scream.)
My
latest book, Bears With Us, is more about what goes on in Tempe’s life, both private and in her job as a deputy. Like most people in law-enforcement, she has a lot going on every day. When bears invade Bear Creek, Tempe has her hands full. Not only is she chasing bears off the school grounds, out of people’s houses, and other places, she’s called to a home where a teen has committed suicide. The parents’ strange behavior piques her curiosity. A prominent female citizen makes a complaint against Tempe and her husband. An old romance comes to light, and a woman with dementia is missing from her home.
This story doesn’t fit in any of the mystery sub-genres. Usually people think of them as cozies since I don’t use bad language and I shut the bedroom door, but once in awhile some pretty gory things happen.
What I suppose I’ll do is wait until people have had a chance to read Bears With Us and let me know what sub-genre they think it should fall in.
Bears With Us can be ordered directly from the publisher http://www.mundania.com and all the usual places.
Marilyn Meredith
Bio: Marilyn is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Bears With Us from Mundania Press. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel is Angel Lost, the third from Oak Tree Press. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Central Coast chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/
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