Genre Spotlight 2004 "Mystery": Out of the Genre Ghetto

"If there is a trend," says Bantam Dell Publishing VP and executive editor Kate Miciak, "it's that mysteries have become novels." Mystery's adherents have always believed them to be true novels in every sense of the word and bristle at the snobbery in the expression "transcends the genre." Still, the literary elite has long condemned crime fiction to obscurity in the genre ghetto. That tide may be turning. On mystery's role, Miciak notes, "We were raised on stories of the 'loner' facing terrible odds, and we were taught to believe that you can somehow change things. This is what mystery fiction continues to offer." And this is what critics are beginning to recognize. Just recently, the august New York Times Book Review devoted a full-page review to Ian Rankin's latest Inspector Rebus procedural, A Question of Blood (Little, Brown), instead of pitching it to the converted in Marilyn Stasio's Crime column.

Tying in with the acknowledgment of the mystery as a valid literary form is the rise of "standalone" novels, books that are not part of an author's popular series but that stand out as separate, unique works of fiction.

"This is the age of the thriller, of the standalone that can be sold in chain bookshops and to the movies," comments Poisoned Pen publisher and bookseller Barbara Peters. The most notable examples last year were Lawrence Block's Small Town (Morrow), a dark thriller about the aftermath of 9/11, and Laura Lippman's Every Secret Thing (Morrow), a widely praised foray into psychological suspense by the author of the popular Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan series.

More will arrive this summer and fall. From Robert Parker, the creator of the legendary Spenser series, comes Double Play (Putnam, Jun.), a suspense novel about baseball great Jackie Robinson. In August, Morrow's new Dark Alley imprint is publishing The First Cut by Peter Robinson, the author of the acclaimed Inspector Banks procedurals. Originally published in Canada in 1990 under the title Caedmon's Song, this psychological thriller revolves around an author's bizarre quest for new material.

Other August standalones include Flesh and Blood (Carroll & Graf) by England's John Harvey, the author of the popular Charlie Resnick series, and The Fall (Minotaur) by Michael Allen Dymmoch, who steps away from her John Thinnes/Jack Caleb series with this thriller about a professional photographer who witnesses a mob hit. However, the most highly anticipated standalone debut this fall is S. J. Rozan's Absent Friends (Delacorte, Sept.). In what the publisher describes as "a haunting literary thriller," Rozan, whose Lydia Chin/Bill Smith private investigator series have won Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony awards, tackles the aftershocks of 9/11 as experienced by a group of friends. (For more details, see Q&A with Rozan, p. 39.)

For writers, the standalone is a creative way to move beyond the confines of a series format. Robinson chose the standalone, he says, "because the idea was too good to resist, and it isn't appropriate for a Banks story because there's no police presence." Rozan notes that Absent Friends "needed a very different voice, different sensibility, different approach."

For publishers, standalones are an opportunity to reposition their authors in the market. According to St. Martin's senior editor Keith Kahla, a series writer might not be given the same attention for book 15 in a series, no matter how solid a base that series has. A standalone, he says, allows "a writer who may have grown as an artist" to attract new readers "who don't read mysteries." Former Walker & Co. mystery editor Michael Seidman concurs, pointing out that the standalone can be marketed as a novel and released as general fiction rather than mystery.

Bantam's Miciak also sees artistic advantages. She notes that authors who have written outside their series often bring something from that experience back to their series, breathing new life into their work. But Jim Huang, editor and publisher of The Drood Review of Mystery and its book publishing affiliate, Crum Creek Publishing, takes a darker view.

"Right now, the 'conventional wisdom' is that it's easier to sell a standalone instead of a series book," he says. Huang feels that too often standalones reflect a "sameness" and that publishers take writers who develop these "wonderful, distinctive, quirky series," and then try to cram them all into one mold for that "breakout" book.

Will the trend continue? St. Martin's Kahla thinks the standalone "will likely settle down somewhat in the future—there really are only a limited number of writers whose career and artistic ambitions coincide with the advantages and desire to write a one-time-only novel."

New mysteries increasingly emphasize character. Although the Drood Review's Huang believes plot is shortchanged as a result ("mysteries should be about detectives solving problems, not just about the detectives"), Bantam's Miciak sees the growth of "characters you fall in love with" as a plus for the genre.

One of last summer's most surprising debuts was Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs (Soho Press). Picked by independent booksellers as a top ten Booksense selection, it has also been nominated for a 2004 Edgar Award as Best Novel. (The awards will be announced April 29.) While there is an intriguing mystery, it is the delightful lead character that appeals most to readers: Maisie is a bright young housemaid who, with the assistance of progressive, wealthy patrons, climbs the British social ladder by attending Cambridge University, becoming a nurse during World War I, and eventually setting out her shingle as a private investigator. This June, Winspear continues Maisie's adventures in Birds of a Feather (Soho). (See Q&A with Winspear.)

Joining Maisie Dobbs as the new kid on the mystery block is a more contemporary kind of sleuth: the "chick" dick. She's young (but not always), she's single, she's hip, and she's looking for love while tracking down killers. "Think Sex and the City collides with Murder, She Wrote," says Morrow/Avon editor Susan Durand. Spurred by the success of Harley Jane Kozak's Dating Dead Men (Doubleday, Jan. 2004), the summer and fall seasons herald more mysteries revolving around quirky, independent women who dress and behave in freespirited ways that might raise the eyebrows of their more mature "sisters in crime."

Meet Cece Caruso, a Los Angeles vintage clothing collector and biographer of deceased mystery authors. In Susan Kandel's I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason (Morrow, Jun.), Cece stumbles onto an old murder case from the 1950s while researching the life of Erle Stanley Gardner. Morrow editor Durand describes this new "cozy" series as "hip, sexy, smart…with a great hook."

Then there is Chicago police lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels, star of J.A. Konrath's Whiskey Sour (Hyperion, Jun.). At 46 she is more seasoned than her younger fictional counterparts, but a self-deprecating wit as she deals with a serial killer and a muddled love life sets her squarely among the chick dicks.

Favorite chick dicks returning this season include: irrepressible hairdresser/reporter Bubbles Yablonksy in Sarah Strohmeyer's Bubbles A Broad (Dutton, Jun.); intrepid Kentucky journalist Kate Kelly who poses as the fiancée of a man she barely knows in Laura Young's Otherwise Engaged (Silver Dagger: Overmountain, Jun.); and feisty radio talk show host Shauna J. Bogart in Joyce Krieg's Slip Cue (Minotaur, Aug.).

Despite some talk about its demise, the traditional private eye novel remains alive and well. Reappearing this summer are sleuths Bubba Mabry in Steve Brewer's End Run (Corvus, Jul.); Easy Rawlins in Walter Mosley's Little Scarlet (Little, Brown, Jul.) and Alex McKnight in Shamus award-winner Steve Hamilton's Ice Run (Minotaur, Jun.).

The appeal of historical mysteries continues to be strong. While the more traditional periods—ancient Rome, Victorian London—have not faded in popularity, the subgenre is expanding to incorporate a wider range of historical eras (the 20th century, for example) and more exotic locations. "Some of the newer authors who are doing well write historicals or offer a different culture as key features," explains Kate Mattes of Kate's Mystery, an imprint from publisher Justin, Charles & Co. Drood's Huang adds, "Pretty soon there won't be a historical era without a mystery, and every historical figure will be a detective."

Some of Poisoned Pen's best-received mysteries have been historicals like Michael Pearce's Mamu Zapt series, set in 1908 Cairo (Death of an Effendi, Jun.; A Cold Touch of Ice, Sept.). Publisher Robert Rosenwald is particularly enthusiastic about the U.S. launch in June of a "delightful" series set in 1920s Australia by Kerry Greenwood, who was recently awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Crime Writers Association. The first title to be released (although not the first in the series), Murder in Montparnasse stars Phryne Fisher, a wealthy, vivacious, independent-minded young woman who investigates the mysterious deaths of two Australian soldiers who may have witnessed a murder in Paris ten years earlier. Poisoned Pen plans to issue all 14 titles in the series on a quarterly basis.

Soho Press, which began its SohoCrime imprint only ten years ago, specializes in contemporaries and historicals set in foreign locations and featuring unusual investigators. Fascist Spain in the 1930s is the backdrop for Rebecca Pawal's Death of a Nationalist (nominated this year for an Edgar Award as Best First Novel) and the recent Law of Return, both of which highlight Carlos Tejada, a sergeant in the nationalist Gardia Civil. Communist China comes to the fore in Anthony-award winning Ziu Xiolong's third Inspecter Chen Cao mystery, When Red Is Black (Aug.).

While big houses like Mysterious Press and St. Martin's Minotaur imprint dominate the field, much of the most interesting publishing comes from smaller presses, which continue to grow in number and variety. Doug Greene, publisher of Crippen & Landru, remarks, "Oddly enough, when C&L started, there were no small presses in the mystery field." Since 1994 the Norfolk, VA-based house has staked out a unique niche: publishing single-author short story anthologies. Upcoming 2004 titles include Erle Stanley Gardner's The Danger Zone and Other Stories, edited by crime writer Bill Pronzini, and Kathy Lee Emerson's Murders and Confessions, an anthology of Elizabethan detective stories.

In 1996 Barbara Peters, a librarian-turned-bookseller, and her husband Robert Rosenwald created Poisoned Pen Press. Today it claims to be the second largest mystery publisher after St. Martin's (in terms of the number of titles published, not revenue). "We do about 40 a year, about three books a month," says Rosenwald.

Another notable small press is the Kate's Mystery imprint of independent publisher Justin, Charles & Co. This partnership between longtime Boston bookseller Kate Mattes and the publisher was established two years ago to import British crime fiction and publish original thrillers, police procedurals, and mystery series. "It is a great time to be a small publisher," says Mattes. "The big houses are all looking for the more of the same thing. It means there are authors available to us who are high-quality writers." Among the authors Justin, Charles is pushing are Teddy Hayes, whose forthcoming Blood Red Blues (Jun.) is a hard-edged Harlem noir, and Richard Marinick, whose hard-boiled debut Boyos (Sept.) is being compared to the best of Dennis Lehane.

Tennessee publisher Overmountain Press initiated its Silver Dagger imprint in 2000 to present the best authors of Southern mystery (among them, Mignon Ballard, Jeffrey Marks, and Kit Erhman). This May Silver Dagger is moving into the gay mystery market with the publication of Death by Dissertation by Dean James, author of a popular series featuring gay vampire Simon Kirby-Jones. Marketing director Karin O'Brien says the company sees an increased demand for books with gay lead characters.

In August, Silver Dagger returns to the suspense/thriller category with Daniel Bailey's Execute the Office. O'Brien notes his first book, Justice Betrayed, was a great success for the firm. The author, who has been described as "Michael Connelly with a Southern drawl" is Chief Deputy Sheriff of Mecklenburg County, NC.

This fall marks the birth of Hard Case Crime, a collaborative effort between Dorchester Publishing and Winterfall LLC. With lurid covers designed by famed pulp artist Robert McGinnis, this new line of mass-market paperbacks by classic and contemporary crime writers is intended to revive the look and feel of the old "golden age" pulps.

"Hard-boiled crime fiction is more popular today than ever, " says publisher Charles Ardai. "However, it's been ages since anyone has produced a mass-market paperback line aimed at capturing this audience with compelling visuals and can't-put-it-down storytelling." The first two titles, Lawrence Block's Grifter's Game and Max Phillips's Fade to Blonde, will debut in September.

Another new member of the group is University Press of New England, whose Hardscrabble Books imprint has successfully published literary fiction. The mystery genre is a "bit of a an experiment for us," says editor John Landrigan. "[But] like many university presses, we saw an opportunity in the creeping blockbuster mentality of New York publishers to pick up worthwhile books that didn't necessarily fit their 'more is more' paradigm." Released last month, Hardscrabble Crime's first title, a golfing mystery entitled Snap Hook by John Corrigan, will be followed by the sequel, Center Cut, in the fall.

Another publisher of literary fiction making a foray into the mystery world is Bridge Works of Bridgehampton, NY. In its first ten years until mid-2003, the company published only one mystery author (Toronto crimonologist Rosemary Aubert). "Since then," says co-publisher Warren Phillips, "we've expanded into mysteries explosively, in relation to our small-press size, with three titles by three authors last fall, three more by three additional authors this year."

Phillips's wife Barbara, editorial director, makes all the manuscript selection decisions. A longtime admirer of P.D. James, she always wanted Bridge Works to publish intelligent mysteries, with appealing, distinctive protagonists. However, relatively few of these came her way until she discovered Aubert's award-winning Ellis Portal mysteries—whose sleuth is a disgraced former judge. Since then she's looked for mysteries that live up to the Aubert standard. High on the fall list is Stephen Schwandt's Siren Song (Sept.), a suspense novel by a successful young-adult author, and Melissa Clark's Find Courtney (Oct.), a psychological thriller by a prize-winning poet.

Rather than feeling threatened by the competition, many large publishers believe that small presses perform a useful service. They "help fill a real need since there are more good mysteries being written than can be published by the major houses," affirms Berkley Prime Crime executive editor Natalee Rosenstein. Several editors at big houses see small press publishing as a way of finding new writers whose work they can later acquire. And Bantam's Miciak finds that small houses can do special projects that larger publishers can't afford to do.

One such area is reprints. Crippen & Landru recently began a "Lost Classics" line of previously uncollected detective short fiction. Colorado-based Rue Morgue Press, founded by booksellers Tom and Enid Schantz, specializes in bringing classics from mystery's "Golden Age" back into print. Even the legendary Otto Penzler, proprietor of New York City's Mysterious Bookshop, is starting a program this year with Forge Books. "Otto Penzler Presents" will reprint three out-of-print Edgar Award winners per year. "Too many of today's writers," says former Walker editor Michael Seidman, "have only a passing knowledge of what's gone before."

Despite the trend talk each season, some editors still spurn the idea of predicting what will be "hot," believing that to even consider this hurts publishing. "Thinking in terms of trends is the death of intelligent publishing," comments St. Martin's Kahla. "It's a simplistic way of trying to find a marketing hook without thinking about readers who might actually want to read the book."

Kahla would rather see his company publish books that it believes "are simply the best at what they are trying to be" and not merely some spurious definition of what is hot. In the end, editors agree that what matters for both large and small mystery houses is good publishing. Citing Soho Press as a prime example, Seidman states, "What I like about them...is that they don't limit themselves to any one kind or style. They simply do what a publisher should do: release the absolute best of what they can acquire and not worry about labels or a corner of the market."