Mysteries always in the Thriller aisle?

[Ess]

I'm interested in your thoughts:

The kind of smaller bookshops I frequent tend to offer just a handful of fairly generic labels - e.g. Science Fiction, Classics, Thrillers.

My question is - do retailers always in practice classify under 'Thriller' books that are far more Mysteries than thrilling, or do they tend to crop up elsewhere (too?)

[Lance]

B&N stores have a "Mystery" section that's mostly mysteries. Thrillers go into the "Fiction and Literature" section. That means you can get Stephen King and Sophie Kinsella on the same shelf. The problem crops up when the two genres cross over; you end up having to look in two different places.

Borders used to have a section called "Mysteries and Thrillers." At least it was easy to figure out where to look for books in those genres.

[Ess]

Yes, I think it was that issue of how bookshops tend to deal with genre crossover whenever they don't have a section specifically referencing Mysteries ...