POV in Mysteries

[Elaine Margarett]

First person POV seems to be what I see most often in mysteries. I can understand the benefit of keeping the reader restricted to the crime-solver's view. Is this a genre expectaion? Do first person POV stories have a larger audience?

EM

[wombat]

I don't think it's an expectation, just a perfectly acceptable thing to do. There are certainly some extremely successful third person mystery writers - looking at my bookshelf, just the things that are not piled behind other things, I see at least two, Michael Connelly (most of them) and Laura Lippman.

I prefer first person. But, Lippman is one of my favorite authors. So, go figure.

[JJ Cooper]

I just can't read first person POV. Just me. Third person limited is just as effective in keeping the reader guessing.

JJ

[Snowberry]

It's kind of a convention in PI mysteries, that the lone investigator is telling his/her story in the first person. In police procedurals, equally it's a convention that they're related in the third person. In cozy mysteries, it can go either way.

Not to say the conventions can't be broken, but they're there.