What Kind of Mystery Are You Writing? A Subgenre Guide

By Michelle Barker and David Griffin Brown

It might seem pedantic to specify the subgenre of your novel, but when it comes to mysteries, it’s more important than you realize. There are several subgenres, and they each come with expectations that an author ignores at their peril. 

First of all, is it even a mystery?

Are you sure it’s not actually a thriller? A combination of mystery and thriller? Or a novel that employs elements of mystery without actually qualifying as a mystery? This post will help you decide, but the quickest way to tell the difference between a mystery and a thriller is: mysteries look backward, while thrillers look forward. A mystery is about trying to figure out what happened in the past. A thriller is about trying to stop something bad from happening in the future. And if your novel doesn’t follow the typical mystery structure—in other words, if it isn’t primarily about solving a puzzle—then it probably isn’t a mystery at all.

A mystery novel generally involves a protagonist who investigates a crime that often (though not always) involves murder. This protagonist might be a detective or in law enforcement, or they might be an amateur sleuth who uses their own particular skills to solve the crime. Because there’s a crime, there will also be suspects and witnesses, clues and evidence, red herrings and misdirects. That’s the general landscape of all mystery novels.

But here is where things get interesting. A mystery novel can come in many shapes and sizes.

The Mystery Subgenres

Let’s have a look at the main mystery subgenres: what they are, which rules or expectations they come with, and where you can find examples that fit the mold.

Classic mystery

Also known as traditional or whodunnit, in these novels a crime has been committed (most often a murder), and the detective must figure out who did it. While there are no hard and fast rules to writing a mystery, there are certain conventions an author is expected to follow:

• The reader should be given a fair chance to solve the crime. That means, no purposeful withholding of information is allowed.
• The detective shouldn’t solve the crime by chance. The story should involve an intentional gathering of evidence and scrutiny of suspects.
• Red herrings and misdirects are expected to keep readers guessing.
• The various suspects should each have a believable means, motive, or opportunity for committing the crime.
• At the end, the answer should be revealed and all loose ends tied up.

An example of a classic whodunnit includes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Locked-room mystery

This is an offshoot of the classic whodunnit and involves a crime happening under conditions that seem impossible. A good example of this is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, where the crime occurs in a room locked from the inside with no way for the killer to escape.

Closed-circle mystery

Slightly different from a locked-room mystery, in a closed-circle mystery the crime occurs among a limited, isolated group of people, with no one else coming or going—which means one of them must be the murderer. It also means everyone is a suspect. Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express are both good examples of this subgenre.

Noir & Hardboiled

Noir grew out of the hardboiled tradition. Hardboiled is exactly what it sounds like: tough prose, a tortured and self-destructive detective, and a case solved by persistence and nerve rather than drawing-room deduction. Noir takes that foundation into a darker worldview: the system is corrupt, and the protagonist operates on the margins—even outside the law when necessary. The struggle is more about adhering to a personal code than about solving the case.

Classic examples include The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

As a dominant form, classic noir peaked in the mid-20th century, but its core elements persist. Contemporary crime fiction often incorporates a noir code or a hardboiled tone. In particular, the traits of a hardboiled detective cross into many other subgenres: the lone operator, the laconic voice, the unnecessary risk-taking, the self-destructive tendencies. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone in A Is for Alibi (and the rest of that series) is a good example—a female private investigator working in the 1980s and 90s but cut from the classic hardboiled lone-wolf cloth.

Police Procedural

In a police procedural, the protagonist is in law enforcement in some form. There are many variations on this theme. You’ll see standard homicide detectives like Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, while Patricia Cornwell’s Postmortem adapts the police procedural to forensic science. The defining feature is the process: evidence handling, chain of custody, interdepartmental dynamics, and the slow build of a case through documented steps rather than lone-wolf intuition.

Cozy mystery

If you’re looking for the opposite of noir, it’s the cozy mystery. The protagonist in these novels is often an amateur sleuth (bookshop owner, elderly villager, chemist, you name it). What’s key here is the tone. Where noir and police procedurals are graphic and unsentimental, in these novels the sex and violence happen offstage, and the voice is softer and lighter. The cozy mystery is usually set in a small community where people gossip over coffee. A good example is The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.

Legal/courtroom mystery

In these novels, many of which fall more into thriller territory, the focus is on the legal system, and the protagonist is an attorney. Scott Turow is the master of this approach where the key drama unfolds in the courtroom. While he is often billed as a thriller writer, several of his books, including Presumed Innocent, fit the bill for a legal mystery.

Psychological suspense

If you’re hoping to delve into the darker inclinations of human nature, this hybrid subgenre might be for you. These are often standalone novels that feature dysfunctional relationships, lots of manipulation and gaslighting, and unreliable narrators that keep the reader on their toes. Think Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl or Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train.

Supernatural/paranormal mystery

Whereas classic mysteries don’t generally allow for supernatural elements, here is where you can break that rule with impunity. Haunted houses, psychics, vampires—anything goes. And of course, you can mix and match to create a speculative noir mystery-thriller hybrid such as Jim Butcher’s Storm Front.

Historical mystery

As the subgenre suggests, these are mystery novels set in another era. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco is a good example of historical mystery, but be warned: when you’re writing historical fiction, you need a convincing reason for choosing the era you’re writing in. It has to serve the story in an appreciable way.

Romantic mystery

Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb, has published a series of novels that combine romance with mystery—Naked in Death is one example. As in historical mystery, if you’re going to do a mashup like this, romance has to be a central feature of the story. There is romance in A is for Alibi, but no one would call that a romantic mystery.

In Conclusion

The only limit to the possibilities of mystery subgenres is your imagination. Anything can be done if it’s done well, but it has to serve the story. If you’re going to call your novel a dystopian supernatural courtroom mystery (and who says you can’t?), every one of those elements needs to be essential to the story.

Michelle Barker is an award-winning author and poet. She is the co-author of two craft books: Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling and Story Skeleton: The Classics. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in literary reviews worldwide. She has published three YA novels (one fantasy and two historical fiction), a historical picture book, and a chapbook of poetry. Michelle holds a BA in English literature (UBC) and an MFA in creative writing (UBC). Many of the writers she’s worked with have gone on to win publishing contracts and honours for their work. Michelle lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.

David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling and Story Skeleton: The Classics. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his writing has been published in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review and Grain. In 2022, he was the recipient of a New Artist grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. He lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.