Tonight is my Reader Advisory class. Woooooooo! Okay, that was a scary Ric Flair moment there. Sorry about that.

Anyway, tonight the genre we will be discussing is Mystery. I read a type of mystery that I normally wouldn't read, so it has left me with a whole bunch of questions I normally wouldn't have. Funny how trying new things does that. For this week's discussion I read Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell, the first book in her Dr. Kay Scarpetta series. Because I'm the lazy blogger this morning, here's the blurb from the publisher:

Under cover of night in Richmond, Virginia, a human monster strikes, leaving a gruesome trail of stranglings that has paralyzed the city. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta suspects the worst: a deliberate campaign by a brilliant serial killer whose signature offers precious few clues. With an unerring eye, she calls on the latest advances in forensic research to unmask the madman. But this investigation will test Kay like no other, because it's being sabotaged from within and someone wants her dead.

For a forensic mystery it wasn't as gruesome as I was expecting it to be. There were lots of detailed descriptions, but none of them were stomach churning (so that was good). This book was originally published in 1990, and to me it hasn't aged well. Initially when I saw a mention of a floppy disk or new fangled technology called DNA I thought to myself, "How cute. Look how far we've come." But as the story went on and I got more involved in the book, every mention of the outdated science/technology they were using was jarring and took me out of the story (which is probably not the reading experience the author intended me to have).

Which leads me to my big question of the day (the one my students will be hit with later tonight): whenever we talk about genre fiction we normally talk about the conventions and definitions of that genre. Acknowledging this, are there certain genres or subgenres that will not stand the test of time because of the conventions placed on them? Publishers, booksellers, and librarians love to slap a genre label on a book because that is what helps us sell it. Are we doing these books (and subsequently our readers) a disservice by making books meet certain requirements to be considered a forensic mystery, a cozy mystery, etc.? Or maybe we should take those conventions into consideration when it comes to making a recommendation. For example, while I might recommend Patricia Cornwell to someone who enjoys watching CSI, after reading Postmortem I would probably suggest they start with her newer novels because of the aging factor (even though the books she writes are a series).

I've got questions people. Lots and lots of questions. And absolutely no answers.

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