10 ELEMENTS OF MURDER MYSTERY GENRE - lecture 

Popularity of genres (since you were wondering) Book Genres That Make the Most Money: Romance/Erotica ($1.44 billion). Crime/Mystery ($728.2 million). Religious/Inspirational ($720 million). Science Fiction/Fantasy ($590.2 million). Horror ($79.6 million). If you can write an erotic mystery thriller where the detective is a very religious elf from an alternate reality who also has to fight a supernatural monster, I don't see how you could sell anything less than one billion copies. Fun fact: Ebooks only comprise 9% of all book sales. People still like their books made out of dead trees.

I would read that book! What a fun lecture.

Enjoying hearing of this genre.

Loved your story! I was gripped! More please.

I love murder mysteries and I loved this. Thank you. Never stop your lessons, you are most engaging booktuber out there. You should have way more subscribers.

I know that English people like to claim Sherlock Holmes as the first rational detective, but actually that honor belongs to Auguste Dupin (Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt), created by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. Dupin even smoked a meerschaum pipe and his adventures were recounted by a friendly narrator who presaged Dr. Watson. The Dupin stories were wildly popular, but Poe refused to write more of them because copyright was so poorly enforced at the time that publishers were printing the Dupin mysteries and then refusing to pay Poe for them (a recurrent theme in his life). Poe created the detective genre all by himself, but Arthur Conan Doyle found a way to monetize it, since copyright was enforced in his day.

"Cabbage" Great. Loved it.

I especially liked the first line of your writing!!

What a hoot! Lots of good info coupled with a fun story beginning. Enjoyed everything. Thank you,

Raymond Chandler wrote a book about it, "Simple Art of Murder". A few suggestions for crime writers who have a recurring hero. Henning Mankell(Sweden), Matti Joensuu(Finland), Manuel Montalban(Spain), Paco Taibo II(Mexico), James Lee Burke(US), Kathy Reichs(US), Elizabeth George(US). They are all different, the one from another.

Oh, thanks for this, Tristan. Murder mysteries have always been my favorite genre for relaxation reading, and you’ve done a great job discussing their characteristics. The sudden solution based on information not available to the reader can be infuriating…the traditional mystery is almost a game between author and reader: the author sets the problem, and the reader tries to solve it. Without the complete disclosure of clues (however buried or misdirected), the game is spoiled. One of my favorite stories is by John Dickson Carr; he pauses the action in the middle to challenge the reader to find the solution. At the very end of the book, he points to his well-buried clues and how they lead to the conclusion. Great video, and very amusing beginning to your own murder mystery.

I’m obsessed with this genre and planning to write something on these lines. thanks a lot for your videos!! 🌹

A few random comments. Go see Charade with Cary Grant, for postage stamps. I think they also played a role in John Caldigate by Trollope which veers toward another kind of mystery. Second, I hate And Then There Wete None, mostly because it cheats. At the beginning of the book we get the interior monologues of several characters, and these monologues make it impossible for the murderer to be who it turns out to be. I worked on a movie where the situation with the two people remaining did not know who did it. Mostly because the screenwriter was too dumb to realize the obvious. Finally, I think what you have works well for the British drawing room mystery, but less well for American hard boiled mysteries. And finally (for real), by your criteria Hamlet works as a murder mystery, which I think is pretty cool.

Wonderful teaching and a great start to a murder mystery. This video came up on my feed, probably because I watched your recent 10 contemporary mysteries on your new channel. I love your detective. I may try my hand at spinning a tale. I think you're right that it helps your reading - and also gives new respect for the pros!

Postage stamp, Miss Marple's The Buried Treasure, a bit of research on Google working backward from Charade. Enjoyed your story.

I love your video. It has so much to think about and take care of. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Excellent 🎉👍

Just recently discovered your channel Tristan.Really enjoy your reviews and content.

Thank you for this. I love your videos. Murder mysteries are my favorite genre and I will be looking for these elements the next time I read one.❤

Loved this whole and entire thing! Completely awesome! Oh, and … well read!

Really enjoyed this video. I used to read a lot of Murder Mystery even though I like the genre I didn't find a really good one. Unfortunately, nowadays authors are tending to add clues even after the murder is solved, just to shock the reader and this ruin the book in my humble opinion. I really like Miss Marple, she is an old lady who everyone underestimate, she is seen a nuisance and just have too much free time on hand, but she hides a great potential. Her character makes me think of all those people who don't get a chance because how they look, without giving them the chance to express their qualities. Thanks for this interesting video 😊

This is fascinating as I did know all of this. However, I have just read a very modern novel which actually has all of these elements but would not necessarily be sold as a murder mystery. The only difference to your description is that in this novel another author, investigating over a period of time, takes on more of the detective role. I thought at one point the novel was becoming irritating as it was very repetitive in parts, however I can now see why. The red herrings weaved very cleverly into the story makes you accuse virtually everyone. In the end all is very cleverly revealed, slowly. Some of it I worked out but...at over 600 pages it takes you down so many blind alleys it's incredible. The novel is set in Australia, which I wasn't keen on at the start, but gave it more of an edge actually. It is called 'Homecoming' by Kate Morton. I thought the ending was brilliant.

Great video Tristan 👍 Really enjoy this series on literary genres 😊 Take care !

Very expensive postage stamps were a key element of the murder mystery movie, Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.

Great video, I am really liking all of them

Brilliantly enjoyable. Can I say that?

Wonderful, thank you. No I’m not interested in writing but I love being read to. And, about the stamp… you might watch ‘Charades’ with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant

Perfect timing. I always think you have access to my TBR list. The Sign of Four is my next book to begin. Hope to pick it up this week. Thanks for producing a great video on a fun topic!!!

never really explored mysteries...Where would you start with Agatha Christie? Thinking Miss Marple...

Enjoyed your first chapter! For one thing, it's suffused with a forensic approach, a fun exercise for readers. One under-read author - who is more of a detection procedure writer - is Dr. R. Austin Freeman. Dr. Freeman wrote from 1887 through the year he died, 1943. His main character was Dr. Thorndyke. In Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (he wanted his tombstone inscription to read "the author of The Woman in White) there's identity theft and yes, a murder, but murder isn't the main motif. So that's a mystery, not a murder mystery. There are so many motives that have nothing to do with the characteristics of the victim, though. The victim may simply stand in the way, may be a hurdle, an accidental obstacle to some unclear (at first) objective of the killer? Cheers.

I wish you would narrate audiobooks....

Reminds me of a British author who was loathe to include a straight up murder in a particular murder mystery series. Accident, sure. Suicide, OK. Self-defense, yep! And if someone was out-and-out murdered, you could bet everything on the troubled youth who'd already learned his lesson. The stories were pleasant enough to read, but the conclusions themselves usually induced a shrug.

Agatha Christie's "Spidrer's Web" was all about a postage stamp

[35:42] It's a mystery why readers of mysteries really hate a mystery :-)

11:50 I always hope its the detective. So far, I think I've been correct once.

Inspector Dover is hysterical. There were only six stories I believe but they are on RU-vid as a radio play. He is probably the most obnoxious detective I've seen so far.