The Outsider Protagonist

Are you a mystery writer? If so, do you write “Hard Boiled” or “Cozy?” Since I write in the genre, it’s important for me to know where my stories fit on the mystery spectrum. Yet these days that gradient is crowded and murky. It’s confusing, but I think my protagonist is the key to the answer.

In what was arguably mystery’s golden age when Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane and Ross Macdonald were making their marks, a clear partition separated the two types of storytelling. “Hard Boiled” was an American product featuring mean streets, violent death, shocking language, and tough, hard drinking, hard living detectives. Think Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon.

“Cozies,” on the other hand, were set in quaint villages or country manors. They featured, well dressed, polite people, neat murders (a single bloodless bullet hole or knife in the back) and mannerly detectives. Those distinctions have broken down. British writers are producing some very noir tales (Prime Suspect). Americans are just as likely to write mysteries with likeable amateur detectives who live in the suburbs as they are to write about the mean streets. Then there are all the other variations on the murder theme—police procedurals, historicals, tidy British villages where a truly violent crime happens once a week (Midsomer Murders).

Still, I think you can look to your protagonist to figure out the character of your mystery. Is your protagonist an upstanding member of the community, or even, possibly, an animal? Then you are probably writing a cozy. On the other hand, if your guy or gal is troubled, doesn’t play well with others, doesn’t care about fashion, has violent tendencies or is wracked with guilt, you are probably writing Hard Boiled. Of course there are exceptions. Hercule Poirot has peculiarities that make him seem like an outsider. He’s less of a cozy protagonist than Miss Marple. Still, he’s far too courteous, and far too well dressed to be Hard Boiled.

Consider the American Western. It seems to me that the noir detective is a descendant of the mythic gunslinger of the Wild West. We all know this character. Often played by stone-faced actors like Clint Eastwood, he comes in off the desert, chases the bad guys out of town, then rides off into the sunset. He’s a loner and not much of a talker. Motivated by some terrible event in his past, he wanders the earth meting out justice and seeking to right wrongs. Likewise, the Hard Boiled detective is born of personal tragedy. He, too, tends to be a loner who seeks justice for others out of his own mistakes or mistreatment. He may try to fit into society, but usually he or she fails to find real acceptance.

Which protagonist is most interesting? Which mystery type is most appealing? It seems to go in cycles. Right now cozies seem to be in the ascendancy. But who knows? Cycles go up and down. My protagonist  doesn’t fit the hard boiled profile entirely. In some respects he’s more “soft boiled.” Still, I don’t think I’m writing cozies. What does your protagonist tell you about what you’re writing?