By K.P. Gresham
Sara Paretsky created quite a stir in the mystery writing community with her recent letter to the editor. (New York Times June 14, 2019). This actually surprised me a little.
For years the majority of U.S. publishers, editors and booksellers have preferred male-authored novels in the mystery thriller genre. Let’s define our terms here. Thrillers are generally male-oriented in intended audience, protagonist sex, and author generation while cozy mysteries are intellectually gender-neutral and character- and puzzle-inclined) The New York Times published an op-ed that said female authors are finally breaking into this male-dominated genre.
Ms. Paretsky’s point is that women have been writing thrillers for decades. She should know. She’s one of them. Author of the V.I. Warshawski crime novels, the most recent of which is Shell Game, Paretsky and other authors helped start Sisters in Crime—an international organization that brings women’s voices into print, and those voices to the readers.
Ah. The reader. Please note, when I mentioned above who preferred thriller mysteries to be authored by males, I did NOT include the reader.
A Sisters in Crime article cited a 2015 Nielson study finding that more than two-thirds of the mystery/crime readership are women. Though a gender break has long been perceived in the mystery/thriller genre and the mystery/cozy genre, the fact is that women make up the majority of readers on the continuum between these two extremes. The 2015 Nielson study also found that another major factor in determining the mystery reader audience is age. 47 percent of the mystery/crime readers are 55 or older. Less than 20 percent of mystery/crime read by people under 30.
So more than 7 of 10 mystery buyers are women, and nearly 7 of 10 are over the age of 45.
Yet despite the likes of Sue Grafton, Nevada Barr, Gillian Flynn, J.D. Robb and Sara Paretsky, women authors are often passed over as “crime” writers. Why?
My theory is that thrillers are typically categorized as faster paced mysteries involving high stakes, using stronger language and/or a more sinister climactic event, a flawed heroine or hero, a sense of urgency and a threat level that never leaves high gear.
Women authors tend to include two added elements that slam them into the cozy category—and out of the publisher and bookseller consideration. We add well-rounded characters—folks you’d like to meet in person, or kill (whichever the case may be), and we allow the setting to become a character in the story.
From my perspective, adding these two elements to a book does not take it out of the thriller category, and the readers (the over 70 percent that are women and almost 70 percent that are over 45) understand that. It’s time USA booksellers should.
I recently read that booksellers in Japan have embraced marketing female-authored thrillers. Booksellers there are creating a “Four F” section in their stores. The four f’s stand for female author, female editor, female protagonist and female translator (into Japanese, obviously). Their marketing technique embraces the differences that women authors bring to the thriller table, and celebrates the appeal these writers have. Oh, by the way, the booksellers are making money.
Japan is known for setting new trends. How about we try this in the good ole U.S. of A?
Well-rounded thrillers? Who knew.
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Image of crime scene from Pixabay.com
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K.P. Gresham, author of the Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery series and Three Days at Wrigley Field, moved to Texas as quick as she could. Born Chicagoan, K.P. and her husband moved to Texas, fell in love with not shoveling show and are 30+ year Lone Star State residents. She finds that her dual country citizenship, the Midwest and Texas, provide deep fodder for her award-winning novels. Her varied careers as a media librarian and technical director, middle school literature teacher and theatre playwright and director add humor and truth to her stories. A graduate of Houston’s Rice University Novels Writing Colloquium, I.P. now resides in Austin, Texas, where life with her tolerant but supportive husband and narcissistic Chihuahua is acceptably weird.
We writers sit in front of computers or writing pads, or typewriters (LOL) for hours each day trying to convert into words the stories playing like movie reels in our brains to entertain others. We continue to study the craft – necessary to improve as writers—also done sitting—thus, we don’t usually get the exercise we need for good physical conditioning and creative thinking. 
get on that treadmill—which I hate—and force myself to move along at a respectable pace, or spend 15 hard minutes twice a day with an exercise hoop – which I hate even more. 
So, now that I’ve shared one of my methods of adapting exercise to the craft while fighting the writer’s battle of the bulge, I hope I’ve provided some inspiration. It certainly can’t hurt writers to stimulate the circulation of blood to the brain. 
Marcus Zusak published The Book Thief in 2005, and despite his initial personal misgivings, it was an instant success. It is a story of ordinary people trying to survive under extraordinary conditions, and a girl who loved books.
Liesel arrives in Molching, a fictional German village not far from Dachau and the setting of the novel. Both Liesel’s mother and father have been deported, and Liesel is left in the care of foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. A cast of characters appear, loving Rudy the next-door neighbor, and Max Vandenburg, a Jew seeking refuge in the Hubermann basement. Ultimately, it is Hans’ patient tutoring and encouragement that teaches Liesel how to read using the Gravedigger’s Handbook as a primer. At once, Liesel’s love of reading takes over her life and her desire for more books overtake caution.
Yet, the story of Liesel’s is not an isolated one, there are still many real-life stories that have not been told. What we do know, thanks to Antonio Iturbe, is the story of The Librarian of Auschwitz. Dita Kraus, was the actual Librarian of Auschwitz. At 14-years of age, Kraus risked her life to protect a scanty library – a collection of tattered and disintegrating books – mere pages—so that there could be a type of school for the children of Auschwitz. It was their only opportunity to learn and so they might hear a story before they too disappeared.
Other European Jews, while fleeing for their lives, managed to find the means to protect and preserve their books. In Aaron Lansky’s Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books (2004), hundreds of people did just that, and in doing so, preserved their history and saved a dying language, Yiddish.
Ink-Stained Wretches 