Mystery International

From Steig Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, to Edgar Allen Poe’s The Murders in The Rue Morgue, the mystery genre spans centuries, and there is no doubt its success will continue on in the future. What is it that makes these stories so compelling though? Certainly there are timeless elements present in most stories, a hard-boiled detective or police officer, a seamy criminal underbelly in a city or town, an adventure fraught with danger. A mystery does not necessarily require most of these facets, however. The only necessary element needed to have an excellent mystery story is how well the author can immerse the reader in the mystery that needs to be solved, and have them turning the page, frantic for answers and a sound resolution.

Arthur Conan O’Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes may have been the first hero of the genre. The Scotland Yard detective’s popularity helped the mystery genre gain a foothold within the world of fiction, clearing the way for new authors ready to titillate their audiences. Later on in the 1930s and 40s, mystery swelled in popularity once more with the advent of the pulp magazine, introducing a new sub-genre into mystery fiction: Hard-Boiled fiction, which focused on crime within gritty urban environments. These small publications delivered monthly and weekly stories of criminals and lawmen matching wits and provided a quick and cheap thrill for a few cents.

In more recent times, the mystery has expanded to include all sorts of new sub-genres. Walk into any bookstore and you’ll find hundreds of mystery novels that could fit into dozens of categories, from crime thrillers to medical mysteries to historical suspense. Yet all encapsulate that one element of discovery and problem solving that makes the mystery genre so endearing and so timeless that its still as popular as it ever was.