So not for the first time, there’s clamor out there about “when a mystery isn’t a mystery”. And I’m not sure I care or not when it comes to awards (I have so many issues about so many awards as it is) but I sort of, kind of guess I do. If only because believing a book is a mystery, I’ll read it differently. If I’m 100 pages into it, and there’s no sense, hint, feeling of crime-solving, it’s confusing. Not wrong, not bad, just baffling. I don’t need The Body in the first chapter and despise those airbrains who insist that “all readers require” the murder in the first 2 pages, first chapter, whatEVER. But given that a good number of the books I open I am planning to review, well frankly, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of complaints because I reviewed a book that wasn’t a mystery and why did I?

Case in point. Book received by Barb F and listed with all the stuff she gets for RTE. Now she can’t possibly know, pre-check, vet everything. Like me, I’m sure anyone who gets books to review assumes that the publicists know their stuff. This of course does not explain why I received a pb copy of Letters to Penthouse XXX recently. It doesn’t even necessarily explain why I get SOME of the books I get. I recently got a book that required a short conversation with a publicist and we got to talking a bit about her house’s Big Love of Fantasy Tomes. And she promised to try to send me fewer of them. Bless her! I just assume that’s not possible but it saves trees and if she can individualize what gets sent to me, that’s good for everyone.

But yeah, I read THE HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill and called in one of the best mysteries of 2007. I don’t remember how I got it, but I think I was from the publisher. I don’t know if the publisher sent it to “Andi Shechter, the mystery reviewer” or not. After all, I do review fantasy/sf for Linda on January Magazine.

It’s as much a mystery as it is anything else, I think. It’s hugely suspenseful at any rate. I don’t quite know what “horror” means, to be honest, and I guess I sort of assume I don’t read I bu well, apparently I do. Some. A little. I mean I don’t/didn’t think I did but I guess I do. I don’t like/read Stephen King. I don’t buy/believe in many/most conceits of horror and I don’ like being scared. I read some vampire stuff, yeah, and some supernatural stuff, yeah, but dunno if hat’s horror. Gods help me I went to he horror writers’ association website to get a definition and even they fudged, using the old hoary “let’s look up the word in the dictionary, shall we?” gag. And they complicate it by quoting an author who 25 years ago claimed “horror is not a genre, like he mystery or science fiction.” Oh good. The “we’re better than those tacky ‘genre’ writers” crap again. The “we’re more sophisticated” stuff. It makes my ass tired especially when they go on to talk about how horror’s “identity” was stolen by King copycats and how it hid as other things and oh, maaaannnnnn. All I wanted was a definition, boys and girls.

I don’t believe in and am not afraid of ghosts. I appreciated Joe Hill’s book because it was seamlessly written, portraying character very much by showing and doing very little telling, it was layered and smart, with good guys being not so good and bad guys not always being irredeemably bad. It would make a great 47 verse spooky ballad. It was a very good book. My review is on RTE. Don’t ask me to “justify” it.

I’ve recently finished a book sent to me by Barb Franchi that is not a mystery. Some time back, I wrote a review wherein I mentioned that the author was ending his series and I got back an email giving me grief – how dare I say this and why would I do this and and and….it ws in the pr stuff with the book and I was sorry to read the news. I did not make it up, nor did I have an explanation to give to the distraught reader who somehow held me accountable for the news. I don’t want to get one of those this time. I don’t want Shaz, or Barbara or me to get a complaint that we reviewed a non-mystery. The think is labeled “fiction” It’s from a major house that does put out some mystery, I think. It’s the author’s first work of written fiction (background in screenwriting). But I read the whole damn book, after realizing only about 1/3 of the way that hmmmm, maybe I wasn’t going to get a mystery here. But I was in too deep. Oh, and I’m not really sure why I finished it because I’m not really too big on the book after all. But I did. Finish it that is.

But then the Edgars came out and I am making an effort to get some nominees from the library at least, and to go through the piles to see if there’s anything nominated. There’s two and one I tried and didn’t get 5 pages into. The other is up for best first, and I’ll be DAMNED if in can find the teensiest, tiniest trace of mystery – or frankly even suspense in it. Sorry, and I’m not sure I want to name names. It’s from a small press and I think the publisher for sending me review copies but boy, we are not clicking. I haven’t liked one thing he’s sent me. And this one REALLY – for me – sucked huge moss-covered slimy rocks. There was lots of testosterone in it. A far-from-believable plot, a wasted mess of a human being as protagonist and no suspense at all. Nothing. Lots of blood. Lots of quoting of Hemingway. Lots of politically incorrect behavior and language. Swagger swagger – we don’t gotta be PC is tiresome to me. Yes, it was set in a different time, but I don’t want to be there either. It’s not necessary to be offensive, unless you’re really trying to make sure that readers don’t like the speaker. And okay, that sure worked. But it got nominated. So hell, if the Edgar judges can go outside the genre, I sure can, right?

Do you care if a book labeled a mystery ends up not having a true mystery in it? Do you think it’s the fault of publicists or publishers, or would you consider that maybe it’s your definition and you should maybe broaden that definition? Do you ever stop reading because you realize bzzzzzt, no body, no crime, no mystery here? And do you think I should review the non-mystery I just read?