Mystery Story

Mystery Story, umbrella term for a type of fiction with several subgenres, including the detective story, the police procedural, and romantic suspense, a derivative of the gothic novel. All of these types of fiction deal with crime, usually murder, and its successful solution. Suspense arises in the course of seeking that solution, which places the detective, or others in pursuit of the villain, in danger, and often places innocent victims in jeopardy. The element of mystery/suspense also heightens much science fiction.

Mysteries also include spy stories such as the classic World War I thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), by the Scottish writer and statesman John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir; the fast-paced, sexually charged works of Ian Fleming, who created the character of the British secret service agent James Bond; and the complicated novels of intrigue and counterintrigue by the English writer John Le Carré (pseudonym of David John Cornwell), including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), and The Night Manager (1993).

Another subgenre is the adventure novel, such as The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956) or Atlantic Fury (1962) by the English writer Hammond Innes. Still another type of mystery story is based on events never fully accounted for, the most famous being Edgar Allan Poe's “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842-1843), based on the unsolved murder of a woman near Hoboken, New Jersey, in about 1842. A later example is The Daughter of Time (1951), by Josephine Tey (pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh), which speculates on the role played by Richard III, King of England, in the murder of his nephews.