The Mystery Genre

Mysteries fall into the broad category of popular fiction ("popular/commercial/genre" as opposed to "literary"), along with science fiction, horror/paranormal, Western, romance and inspirational. But, like so many other things that people love to categorize, the mystery genre can further be divided into numerous subgenre. Some of the subgenre, themselves have subgenre, creating a whole hierarchy of types. The major subgenres are:

Cozy

By far the most common and popular of all the subgenre, cozies usually take place in a peacefull setting, such as a quiet English village. The victim usually doesn't meet their untimely demise until about chapter 3 and all the violence occurs "off screen". The case is usually solved by an amature sleuth. Some examples of cozies are:

• The Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie    (Amazon.com)
• The Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie (Poirot is not an amatuer, but the stories are cozies);   (Amazon.com)

Some further subgenre of cozies are:

Academic Cozy

Cozies that take place in or arround a college or university, rather than a village or small town or where the amature sleuth is a professor.

• The Emma Fielding Mysteries series by Dana Cameron;   (Amazon.com)

Niche Cozy

There are dozens of different niche cozies: wine lovers, home improvement, horse racing...

• The The Wine Lover's Mystery series by Michele Scott;   (Amazon.com)
• The Home Improvement Can Be Homicide series by Sarah Graves;   (Amazon.com)

Private Investigator

Crimes are solved by professional investigators who are not sworn police officers.

• The Kinsey Millhone Mysteries by Sue Grafton;   (Amazon.com)

Police Procedural

Crimes solved by sworn offices of a city, county, state/provincial or national law enforcement agency. They use standard police proceedures, embelished with a bit of fictional license, to apprehend the perpetrator(s). There is frequently a body on the floor by the end of the first chapter, if not the first page. Examples:

• The Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly;   (Amazon.com)
• The 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain;   (Amazon.com)
• Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh;   (Amazon.com)

Legal

The protagonist is an attorney, usually a prosecutor or public defender who becomes involved in solving a crime beacuse of their position in the legal system.

• The Cass Jameson by Carolyn Wheat;   (Amazon.com)
• The Alexandra Cooper by Linda Fairstein;   (Amazon.com)