Kristopher Zgorski debuted as the reviewer for EQMM’s Blog Bytes column (replacing Bill Crider) in our May/June 2018 issue, around the same time that he received the Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his review site BOLO Books. BOLO Books (www.bolobooks.com) remains under his direction. The site is designed to highlight new books on or just before their release dates and also features in-depth reviews, author interviews, guest posts, composite sketches (often of people in the publishing industry), and critiques of cover designs and trends in covers. Kristopher has also recently launched, in conjunction with author Shawn Reilly Simmons, the YouTube vlog, WE ARE WHAT WE READ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjGBcvh9gj0czjxlvxWueTg), in which authors talk about books they’ve read that have impacted them. (Be sure to tune in!) In 2024, in recognition of his contributions to the Malice Domestic community and the Malice Domestic genre, Kristopher will receive the Amelia Award from the Malice Domestic Convention. In this post he takes up an important topic not only for readers but for those of us who work in the publishing business. You can find more insights from Kristopher in each EQMM’s Blog Bytes department—a column that surveys and evaluates many different types of websites and blogs focused on crime and mystery fiction.  —Janet Hutchings

Let’s take a moment to contemplate the concept of sub-genres within crime fiction. The first thing readers need to remember is that there are logical reasons for placing books in categories. These are largely marketing decisions that serve several purposes: They help with bookstore placement; they aim to improve target advertising; and they help to manage reader expectations. But sub-genre classification is not meant to be any type of definitive statement. It is a guideline, just one of many tools designed to guide readers toward enjoyable reading experiences.

It is easy to tell it is not an exact science, because even within the industry and amongst readers (both sides of the equation) people don’t necessarily agree on the categories themselves. How many sub-genres are there? Too many to contemplate, given that if you can classify a handful of books by some similar characteristic, it may be valid to call that a sub-genre—even if you are the first person to make such a connection or claim. However, the reality is that a book can—and typically does—fit into more than one sub-genre.

For example:

The Police Procedural—This is likely a story in which some official investigation of a crime is the central driving force for the narrative. Readers are privy to how evidence is collected, clues are interpreted, and leads are followed until—usually—the culprit is uncovered and brought to justice.

The Serial Killer Novel—This is a narrative in which the central murder is part of a string of similar crimes, often perpetrated against victims with some common denominator such as physical or personality traits that may or may not be the root cause of the crime. Often the driving force propelling this type of narrative is the criminal’s preparation between crimes.

In this example, what happens when these two sub-genres are combined within one novel? Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs contains both procedural elements and some foundational components of the serial killer novel. This does not mean that every fan of police procedurals will enjoy the book. A reader simply might not relish the idea of serial crimes and would rather read about a different type of investigation. Similarly, a reader may find the mind of serial killers to be fascinating and yet have no interest in how the police investigate such cases. 

When we think about publishing in these terms, we begin to see how sub-genres can be useful tools but are not hard and fast rules.

There are even disagreements about what the core characteristics of a sub-genre really are. Let’s look deeper into one of these cases.

The Cozy Mystery—This is typically defined as a mystery novel that has an amateur citizen conducting an independent investigation that contains little to no on-page violence, bad language, or sex and most often takes place in a small, insular community.

But what happens if you break just one of those unofficial rules? Is a book that would otherwise have been classified as a cozy no longer a cozy? And if that is the case, then what is it? Fans of crime fiction will know that this leads to new artificial designations such as “an edgy cozy.” Or like Rob Osler recently proclaimed after Devil’s Chew Toy (his cozy mystery with a gay main character) was released, a “Quozy” (that is queer + cozy). These are useful qualifiers that help to join the right reader with the right book, but in the end aren’t they all still cozy mysteries at their core? (Let’s not even get into what’s so “cozy” about murder and/or whether Agatha Christie, the Grand Dame herself, wrote cozy [she didn’t].)

To complicate matters further, writers are now intentionally mixing genres in an effort to manifest something exciting and completely unique. This ability to craft cross-genre novels only works because there are genres (and sub-genres) in the first place. Here we see how a reader’s expectation going into a certain type of novel can be circumvented by an author who is then able to anticipate what a loyal reader assumes will happen and proceed to do something completely different.

But at what point do we see several similar cross-genre novels and then declare that style of book to be a new sub-genre of its own? Three, ten, a hundred?

These are artificial ways of categorizing books, but they are helpful. Right? Even that is debatable.

Anecdotally, I queried several of my friends who read way more than the average and each of them said that sub-genre rarely affects their decisions on what to read. They seem to be more interested in relatable characters and complex plots regardless of the particular crime fiction sub-genre a book most adheres to. The most often expressed caveat was some type of delineation between novels that are “too dark” or “too light,” but almost always with the qualifier that exceptions are possible on a case-by-case basis.

In contrast, when I asked individuals who are more likely to only consume one or two books a year, sub-genre seemed to be more prevalent in their thinking. If you are looking for a light beach read for your yearly vacation, it makes sense that if you previously enjoyed a cozy mystery, you might stick with that when the next opportunity presents itself. Why rock the boat when relaxation is the goal? (It’s worth noting that a common refrain with these more casual readers was “I look at the bestseller list,” which is a topic for another day.)

In the end, every single novel written is a combination of elements that already exist. Readers get to choose what they want to read based on any criteria they deem appropriate. The job of marketing teams at publishing houses is to make it easier for readers to make the most informed choices. Sub-genres are just one of those methods. A tool to be used—or not—as each individual reader sees fit. In many ways, it’s almost like magic that the right books reach the right readers at the right time—almost like an invisible thread links the two on some astral plane that controls the universe. Hey, wait a minute, has anyone ever written a book about that?