Sub-Genres

 The world of entertainment is growing ever more stratified. TV, music, films and books all seem to have split into serving niche audiences with increasingly narrow sub-genres. Like rock music? What kind: Hard rock? Prog rock? Indie rock? Punk rock? It goes on.

In the wide-ranging genre of Crime Fiction novels we can sub-divide by Noir, cozy, police procedural, spy thrillers, domestic suspense, serial killer, historical, and many more. In thinking about my own tastes, I’ve always leaned toward stories often described as Noir and Hard-boiled. I also like straight-up thrillers and taut suspense tales.

But we’re talking sub-genres. Tiny slivers of the crime fiction pie. For that we get to perhaps my favorite little slice. While I certainly do love stories set in confined spaces like on a train or a submarine, for my favorite sub-genre I will read anything you put in front of me that starts with an ordinary person stumbling over a bag of money.

Don’t know why, but I love it. You’ve got classics like The Red Scarf from Gil Brewer, Murder Money by Jay Bennet and Too Late For Tears by Roy Huggins. Then maybe the best of the genre, A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. Another contender for that ‘best of’ title is The Cold Kiss by John Rector. Then we have Good People by Marcus Sakey and more recently, Heaven’s A Lie by Wallace Stroby.

Something about this plot fascinates me. I think it is because it does what the best fiction does in that it makes me think “What would I do?” Maybe this says a lot about me and shows where my easy temptations lie, but for most readers if you can put yourself into a story as you’re reading, you are instantly hooked.

Got any that I didn’t mention? I want to read them!

I often feel like I have too narrow of a reading bandwidth. There are many sub-genres I don’t read and tend to dismiss out of hand, even if I get annoyed when other people do the same thing. I grumble when people say Noir is “too bleak” or “too dark for my taste”. I think you just haven’t read the right stories.

Then I’ll go and dismiss all serial killer novels because I think they don’t interest me. Now and then I’ll get brave and try one and find myself enthralled by a book like Unsub by Meg Gardiner and think, have I been missing out?

I’m not usually a Police Procedural guy but then I read Sweet Thing by David Swinson this year and enjoyed it quite a lot. It makes me turn to the massive 87th precinct series and wonder if maybe I’d love it.

Same with probably the most divisive genre for crime fiction fans – cozy. It’s not my thing, not by a mile. Then again, I’ve read books by friends like Erica Ruth Neubauer’s Jane Wunderly books and find them charming and engaging. (she did sucker me by setting Danger On The Atlantic aboard a ship at sea. Confined spaces. Anyone want to psychoanalyze that one for me?) Susanna Calkins’ historical novels have snuck up on me when I didn’t think they fit into “what I read”.

Sub-genre’s are an effective tool to find the exact story you might be in the mood for, or one that, like me, you just have an inexplicable soft spot for. But we all, as readers, need to be wary of letting a narrow label warn us off a book we might end up loving. For every sub-genre I say I don’t like, I’m sure I can dig up a few examples of books I’ve enjoyed. My go-to novels will always be on the darker side of Noir Alley, but that doesn’t mean I won’t venture out from time to time to explore other avenues.

P.S. As this is my first post let say thank you to the crew for welcoming me aboard. Looking forward to many discussions with you all!