🔎 From Miss Marple to Modern Cozies: A Guide to Amateur Sleuth Mysteries

🧶 What’s an amateur sleuth mystery? One of the most beloved subgenres in mystery fiction! They're stories of an ordinary person, not a professional detective, who solves a crime. 

📚 If you love cozy mysteries, classic whodunits, or Golden Age detective fiction, this episode is your guide to the amateur sleuth.

🕵️ The amateur sleuth has a long, rich history that spans from Agatha Christie's Miss Marple to Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey to modern cozy mystery series. 

⚡️ I also tackle what I call the "special problems" of writing amateur sleuth mysteries, and I break down how the Polish mystery film In for a Murder solves each of the challenges.

🔗 For a twice-a-month update on newly released historical mystery books, sign up HERE.

Podcasts Mentioned:

• S1E6 Her Royal Spyness
• Bonus: Murder on the S.S. Cleopatra by Sara Rosett
• S6E1 Agatha Christie
• S6E6 Dorothy L. Sayers
• S2 E5 - The Mimosa Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
• S4E5 Crime TV Shows for Cozy Mystery Readers
• S2E4 Mystery in Translation
• S2 E1 - Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• S2 E3 A Peculiar Combination

Books on Writing Fiction:

• Trope Thesaurus: Mystery and Thriller by Sara Rosett and Jennifer Hilt: https://books2read.com/mysteryandthriller/
• How to Outline a Cozy Mystery by Sara Roset: https://books2read.com/howtocozy

Transcript

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Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast. I'm Mystery Mikher Sarah Rosette, and this is season seven, episode three, and it's all about the amateur sleuth mystery. Amateur sleuth is one of my favorite types of mysteries. So I'm going to take this episode to take a little bit closer look at it and pull it apart, look at the pieces, and put it back together and talk about some amateur sleuth mysteries that do this really well. First up, let's talk about what is an amateur sleuth mystery. So the hallmark of this type of story is that the main character is an outsider. She's an ordinary Jane or Joe who is not a professionally trained detective. So that I think is one of the main things that draws me to this because I am not interested as much in police procedural type stories, not interested in pursuing serial killers, which seems to be what so many of the police detectives' stories are about. I do like cold case stories, and sometimes I get really interested in those. But for me, the one that I almost will always pick up is the amateur sleuth mystery. And it has a couple of key tropes. The first one that comes to mind for me is the underdog. The amateur sleuth does not have official resources. They don't have technology. They might have some interest in technology if it's part of their hobbies or their work life. But generally speaking, your amateur sleuth isn't whipping out a fingerprint kit to check for fingerprints or bloodstains or something like that. And they don't have the authority of the police. So they've got to be really scrappy and determined. And I think that makes the amateur sleuth interesting and attractive, is that most of them are interested in the truth and in justice and they want to see justice done. A lot of stories, that's what drives the amateur sleuth is finding out what really happened. They may not believe the surface story that's put out. They may not believe the way things initially appear. And they're willing to dig a little bit deeper and maybe go against some officialdom to get to the correct answer. Another key trope of this amateur sleuth type story is often there's an incompetent police department or police officer. And this is one of my least favorite tropes about this genre. I don't like this because I feel like it to me is just not that interesting. I would rather use an overworked police department or a situation where there's no government to go to. A situation, like in my most recent book, Murder on This, as Cleopatra, the death happens on a Nile steamer. And because of certain situations, they're quarantined. I won't give away too much of the plot, but they're quarantined on the steamer and they can't leave. And so they can't have anybody else in. So it falls to them to solve the case. Now, this is the setup for uh murder on the Orion Express. So many mysteries now, you know, if you've got the snowed in country house, or you know, you're isolated in the Alps and you have to solve the case yourself because no one is coming to help you do it. You know, that's a great setup. And you avoid the incompetent police trope. And I think the reason I don't like that is a lot of times it becomes a cliche. And so I don't want to do things that are, you know, reliant on a cliche. I would rather make it a little more interesting if I can. But oftentimes the amateur sleuth does get involved because the professionals aren't doing the job right. Their motto is if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, a lot of times. And this may be a case where the conclusion seems so obvious that the investigation is cursory and the amateur sleuth gets involved because she, oftentimes she, figures out that there's more to it than meets the eye. The amateur sleuth genre has a rich and long history. It I would say probably the earliest and most well-known author of amateur sleuth stories is Agatha Christie with Miss Marple, and also Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes. And these two popularize this genre. Uh, Sherlock Holmes was first, of course. And the Sherlock Holmes stories, he is associated with the police. He's a consulting detective. If you're interested in the classics, then I do have a couple episodes about uh Agatha Christie, season six, episode one. There's one all about Agatha Christie. And then I also did one on Dorothy L. Sayers, also season six, episode six, because Dorothy L. Sayers uh was a contemporary of Agatha Christie's, and Lord Peter Whimsey is an aristocrat. If you enjoy books like the Royal Spinus series or My High Society series, where you're getting a look at the upper class, then Lord Peter Whimsey is one of the first, or one of the most popular, I should say, aristocrat aristocratic sleuth who is an amateur sleuth. And these people in these stories, they're operating where the police could not. So that's um one of the interesting things about this is that this type of story, the amateur sleuth sort of has a secret weapon and it's unique knowledge and or relationships. So a lot of times your sleuth, the amateur sleuth, will have something special that sets them apart from the police. It sort of gives them an inside lane. It's a distinctive feature, this special quality or unique knowledge that makes them the perfect person to unlock the mystery. Olive Belgrave in the High Society Lady Detective series is inside the posh set. She's part of that world and knows the language, she knows the people. She can get into places that you know other people can't, that people that would be reluctant to talk to the police will talk to her. And that's just her unique skill set and uh knowledge that she brings is the knowledge of this upper crust society. There's another episode that I did about Avidia Yu's Crown Colony series, and that straddles two worlds. The well, the sleuth in that, Sue Lynde, she uh straddles two worlds. She's a native of Singapore, but she knows English and works for the British. It's set in the 1930s. And so because she has knowledge of both worlds and can cross back and forth to each place, she's uniquely positioned to solve the mysteries in that series. And because of her sort of special position kind of straddling both worlds, it also makes her an outcast. So she's not really accepted in either culture 100% because she's kind of got this dichotomy in her upbringing. And so that makes her sort of an underdog. So that's one reason I enjoy that series so much. Another example of you know specialized knowledge would be in the TV show Darby and Joan. She has nursing and medical experience, and she often uses that to figure out what has happened to people. And I talk about that one in uh season four, episode five: Crime TV shows for cozy mystery readers. This is very common in TV, like in Castle, his mystery writing knowledge comes in quite handy in solving the crime since he's a consultant to the police. Another case of this I talked about in an episode in season two called Mystery and Translation. And that was a deeper look at a couple of French, I think both of them were French crime shows. One of them definitely in French. I know this one for sure was in French, called The Art of Crime. And it was about a woman who works in the Louvre, and she assists the art crime unit in Paris. I love these types of stories where you incorporate someone's special knowledge in their field and you cross that with the police officer who has their own special knowledge. It lends itself to very interesting stories, and I love it that both people have a specialty and they're both really good at what they do usually. Now, another aspect of the amateur sleuth that I really like is the connections that you get between the characters. These stories really lean heavily on relationships, best friends, oftentimes a sidekick for the sleuth, and found family tropes. So I really enjoy watching these relationship arcs flow from book to book and see how the characters change over time. And that's one of the reasons that I like these stories. A good example of this is the Thursday Murder Club. So I talked about that in season two. And it is a story about four people who live in a retirement community and they're very different. They have very different personalities and very different backgrounds, but they come together to look at a cold case and see if they can figure out what happened. It's more an intellectual puzzle to begin with, but then of course, things kind of take on a life of their own and they end up being involved in solving this actual mystery. But I love to see throughout that series how their relationships change and how each character grows and how their friendship grows and deepens. The amateur sleuth mystery also has what I think of as special problems of the amateur sleuth genre. Writing this amateur sleuth can be very difficult. There's a couple of technical problems that you have in plotting. And these I think make it really challenging to write a long series about an amateur sleuth. A couple of these are one is motivation. Why doesn't the amateur sleuth just walk away? That's a big question you have to answer. So you've got to get them involved in the mystery in some way. And then if it's a series, which most often these are, how do you keep getting them involved in the investigation book after book? And I think that's why the consultant role is popular. It's a way to keep your sleuth involved, but not have your sleuth continually finding dead bodies, which after a while does seem a little unlikely. Although I'm a fan of this genre, so I'm willing to overlook the impossibility of that happening so that I can enjoy the story. I don't mind if it seems a little absurd because I do want to see the sleuth investigate and see the sleuth solve another crime, usually. Another problem that an author has to overcome with this is access to information. How is the amateur sleuth going to get important things like time of death or the toxicity screen results when they don't have a police badge and aren't part of CSI? So it helps to have a connection to the investigation some way. Oftentimes that is because the amateur sleuth is dating the detective, which that's a tried and true setup. Not my favorite, but that is one way to get that done. Your amateur sleuth has to have some details so that they can continue their investigation, usually in parallel with the official investigation. So they have to figure out some way to get those critical details. Another challenge for this type of sleuth is getting suspects to talk. Why would a murderer, murderer or a witness talk to a private citizen? You really have to figure out the connections and the motivations. You have to figure out what leverage your sleuth has to get people to talk to her. And maybe it's friendship. Maybe it's as simple as that. But if your sleuth is talking to, you know, five or six different people, not all of them will probably be her friends, and some of them may be hostile and not want to talk to her. So you have to kind of be creative and figure out how to make that work. I love it when I'm reading a book and I have and I come across a scene where the sleuth gets a witness to speak to them and it's somehow they convince them to do it, and it's maybe something new or different that I haven't seen before. I love it when those are creative. Now, if you're interested in more of sort of this behind the scenes and these special problems in the amateur sleuth genre, you could check out the mystery and thriller trope thesaurus that I co-authored with another author named Jennifer Hilt. We wrote this book together, and it is all about the different tropes that you find in mystery and thriller and how certain tropes can sort of be dialed in to fit in the mystery and thriller genre. So there's a whole section on the amateur sleuth that I wrote. We each took different sections of the book to write. And so I wrote the one about the amateur sleuth, and I go into these different problems and how you can solve them as an author. And then I also break down a Polish movie called In for a Murder. Now, you guys know I like my movies and TV shows in translation, and this one is a Who Done It, and it's a great example of an amateur sleuth story. When I was watching it, I kept thinking, oh my goodness, this is this lines up so perfectly with an amateur sleuth. It's a woman who's just an average mom. She has a quirky best friend, she's works with animals. It's so, so cozy. It's a lot of fun. So I really enjoyed it, and the mystery was good. So if you're interested in that, you can look for the Trope Thesaurus to get sort of a behind-the-scenes look at this. And in there, I show you how that show specifically handled or solved these special problems in an amateur sleuth mystery. So, why do we love amateur sleuth mysteries, or why do I love them? I think it is all about the amateur sleuth representing just an average ordinary person thrown into these extraordinary circumstances. So we can vicariously work out this puzzle along with the main character. We can solve a murder, we can be an armchair investigator and figure out if we can solve it before the sleuth. And I think that the longevity of many of these series is another thing that's really attractive. I love seeing, as we, as I mentioned earlier, the characters and how they change and grow and how their family dynamics and relationships. Some of these characters start off with no family. And by book four or five, they've gathered this little troupe of friends around them. Maybe they're, you know, dating, maybe on their way to being engaged. And um, it's just interesting to see their personal relationships evolve along with their skills as a detective. So if you're interested in the continuity of a story of a character over a series, there are a couple of series that I would recommend. The Lord Peter series from Dorothy Elsayers. Talked about that in season six. And Lord Peter, he does change quite a bit throughout the series. He meets Marriott Vane, they develop a friendship and a relationship, and you really get to see the changes in his life. Another one that does that is the Royal Spinus series. It's a long series, too, so there's plenty to delve into there with her changes, and she does go through a big growth arc. And then there's another one called A Peculiar Combination. I talked about that in season two, and it's set during World War II, and it's about a female safe cracker. And she starts out with family connections, but develops a deeper romantic relationship in that book. And then her family relationships change over time throughout that series. Those are a couple to check out if you're interested, particularly in a series that has very definite relationship arcs and characters that grow and change over the course of the stories. So that's a quick overview of the amateur sleuth mystery and why I think it's so beloved. I hope this podcast has given you a behind-the-scenes look at the amateur sleuth genre and maybe enticed you to give it a try if you haven't read any of these. If you've enjoyed this podcast, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader. And if you can't get enough of the 1920s Who Done It, check out my High Society Lady Detective series. It's out in ebook, audio, and print. And you can find that at SarahRosetteBooks.com. And also, if you'd like a twice-monthly update about newly released historical mystery books, tap the link in the show notes to sign up for my new release update list. So happy scooping, and I'll see you next time.