Mystery Fiction...It's Elementary My Dear Watson

I Just Love Me Some Mystery Fiction

You would never believe how excited I am to sit down and write this page.I just love mysteries and mystery fiction. Yes, I know the URL for the website is www.horror-fiction.info but that doesn’t diminish my love for mystery fiction.

As a teenager and young man, I read a lot of horror fiction. But as I grew older and matured, I kinda left horror behind and started reading more mystery fiction. So most of the books I’ve read as an adult were mysteries. These have been some of my favorite pages to write. Mystery fiction, suspense, and thrillers are absolutely fantastic.

Mystery in Fiction

Edgar Allen Poe is credited as the father of mystery fiction. Even though I discussed his works in the horror section, he is probably better known for his works of mystery. His short story the Purloined Letter could be considered one of the first police procedurals ever written.

Another short story by Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, is the first detective story ever written. Agatha Christie was a famous mystery writer as well. Her famous detective Poirot has become an icon of detective fiction.

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However, the detective’s legacy goes much further than that. Besides the four novels and fifty-six short stories written by Doyle, there have also been several movies, films, television shows, and even video games based on Sherlock Holmes.

Another famous detective is the superhero Batman. In the comics, Batman uses both his fighting skill and intelligence to protect his city, Gotham, from crime.

While mystery fiction and detective stories generally focus on the criminal aspects of a story, the legal thriller is a branch that focuses on the legal aspects. Legal thrillers have been popular for years in both television and film. More recently, the author John Grisham has revitalized the legal thriller sparking a chain of best-selling novels and films. A Time to Kill and The Runaway Jury were two popular legal thriller novels by John Grisham. Perry Mason and Matlock were two popular television series. Michael Clayton was a popular legal thriller movie.

Speaking of movies, mystery fiction has made quite a mark there as well. Most of the fictional detectives and stories mentioned so far have been portrayed in mystery movies. But when it comes to movies, the mystery fiction genre begins to warp somewhat. Not only does mystery fiction blend with other genres like science fiction to create films like The X-Files. But mystery fiction also has morphed into the suspense and thriller sub-genres. For that reason, movies that may be classified as suspense or thrillers will be covered under the Mystery Fiction section of this site.

True Crime

Now I know the banner at the top of this page says Fiction in Books and Movies. But there are some instances where the line between mystery fiction and non-fiction is blurred. The sub-genre known as True Crime is such an instance. True Crime is the dramatization of actual criminal events. Sometimes these crimes may have been solved, and sometimes they haven’t been. When the crime is still unsolved, very often the author of these True Crime stories engage in heavy speculation as what really happened. For this reason, I have decided to also discuss True Crime within the Mystery Fiction pages as well.

Here are some examples of mystery fiction in several forms. Click on the links to purchase any of these products from Amazon.com.

Books

Television

Film