Winter Reading Program Information

How this works

1) Each week read a mystery book from any of the following categories.  You can turn in one entry a week, but only one entry from each type over the 8 weeks.
2) Pick up an entry slip at the circulation desk, starting January 14.
3) Read, and hopefully enjoy, your book.
4) Fill out your entry slip, and turn it in at the reference desk, by 5pm each Friday.  You*ll receive a small prize for each entry.  Each entry will go in the weekly drawing, and the grand prize drawing in March.
5) We’ll draw the winning entries for weekly prizes on Saturdays.  The final weekly prize, and the grand prize, will be drawn on Saturday, March 8th.

Mystery Genres

Agatha Christie: Books written by Agatha Christie
Adventure: These are as much about the action and the adventure as solving the mystery.
Amateur Sleuth: The amateur sleuth is neither a cop nor a PI, who tries to solve the murder of someone who is generally connected to them.  This is usually a personal quest.
Animal: These feature an animal, usually a cat or dog, as a primary character.
Caper: A caper is a comic crime story that typically chronicles the efforts of the lovable bungler.
Cozy:  Typically these contain a bloodless crime, a victim who won’t be missed, and are set in a small town, with an amateur sleuth who gathers evidence through official and gossipy connections.  Most are non-violent.
Culinary: These typically feature a professional chef as hero, victim, and/or villain, and are numerous enough to set them apart from other ‘amateur investigator’ tales.
Fantasy: These mysteries involve fantastical creatures and the characters may employ magic in order to solve and perpetrate the crime.
Female Authors: Look for mysteries written by women.
Graphic Novel: Mysteries of any subgenre that are told using the graphic novel format.
Hard-boiled (noir): Noir is a mood: gritty, bleak, and unforgiving. These are typically brutal and feature a gritty, cynical, male private investigator, in a violent and corrupt urban setting that suits his demeanor.
Historical: Any mystery set in the past, at the time it was written.
Holiday: These mysteries revolve around holidays.
International: Mysteries who*s setting and characters are not from the US.  Typically these are set in unfamiliar cultures.
Inverted or Howdunit: These begin with the reader witnessing the murder, thus the plot revolves around how the perpetrator will be caught.
Legal (courtroom): These typically take place through the justice system.
Medical: These usually take place in a hospital or clinic setting and often involve the illegal actions of doctors, nurses or bureaucrats.
Private Eye: Typically a victim hires the private eye. These are usually darker, more violent, and the crimes are often more horrific. These are sometimes crossed with a suspense or thriller to be more psychological.
Professional Sleuth: The professional sleuth is an amateur sleuth in a professional setting, preferably a setting which is unique and intriguing. Not only is inside information used, but solving the crime returns order to a cloistered environment. Historians, acheologists, etc*
Police Procedural: The protagonist is a police detective (or team of officers and technicians). Usually the story switches back and forth between the viewpoint of the investigator(s) and the criminal(s).
Romantic Suspense: Add a hefty dose of romance to a suspense and produce a romantic suspense. Not only does justice prevail, but love conquers all. Normally the crime solvers are in love or fall in love.
Science Fiction: These are based around advanced technology or the future.
Serials or Series: This is a descriptive category, in which a strong protagonist drives many novels.
Sherlock Holmes: Any book where the main character comes from Arthur Conon Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, but are not limited to his writings.
Sports:  These are set in and around sports.
Supernatural/Paranormal: These include a strange crime or murder, where the villain turns out to be an actual ghost (or other fantastic being).
Suspense/Thiller: Combining psychological motivations and heinous crimes, these usually have protagonists who are largely good at heart and facing a formidable adversary. In suspense the protagonist is the one being pursued. Here the mystery is often “How will the main character stay alive?”
Technical Thriller: These are set in a technological atmosphere. From military backgrounds to computer forensics, they expose the latest threats in technology.
True Crime: These mysteries have happened in the real world. Some have been solved, some are still mysteries. They range from murders to art theft to cons.  (Non-Fiction)
Whodunit: The classic story that focuses on the detective, who works through carefully hidden clues to solve the crime, usually a homicide. Most are written either in the first person or only from the point of view of one character, almost always the detective.