Many of the mystery readers we know have very specific tastes. To make it easier for you to find books that match your cravings, we’ve divided the Felony & Mayhem line into a number of different categories.  On the back cover and spine of every Felony & Mayhem book is an “icon” that identifies the category of the book in question. (We wish we could take credit for this idea, but in fact it’s a rip-off from the great old color-coded Penguin paperbacks.)  

Of course, there’s a fair amount of overlap among the various categories. (The best example of this is may be Spectres in the Smoke, by Tony Broadbent. In hardcover, it won the Bruce Alexander award as Best Historical Mystery of 2005. It was also named one of the best espionage novels of the year. So is it Historical or Espionage? You pick.) However, it’s a pretty good bet that if you like one book in a particular category, you’ll probably like others in that category as well.

We think of these as classy cozies. There is little gunplay or gore, but often a fair amount of humor and – always – an intrepid amateur sleuth.
Example:  Landscape of Lies, by Peter Watson
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From the Ancient World to the 1940s, and everything in between.
Example: Ovid, by David Wishart
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Mean streets and meaner bad guys, with a cop or a PI usually carrying the story and landing a few punches besides.
Example: Belshazzar’s Daughter, by Barbara Nadel
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Spies and conspiracies, from WWI to the present.
Example: The Cambridge Theorem, by Tony Cape
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Originally published prior to about 1965, these promise the kind of twisty, ingenious puzzles beloved by fans of Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
Example:The Case of the Gilded Fly, by Edmund Crispin
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