High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term that is often used as a synonym for detective fiction in other words a novel or short story in which a detective (either professional or amateur) investigates and solves a crime. The term "mystery fiction" may sometimes be limited to the subset of detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle element and its logical solution (cf. whodunit), as a contrast to hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. However, in more general usage "mystery" may be used to describe any form of crime fiction, even if there is no mystery to be solved. For example, the Mystery Writers of America describes itself as "the premier organization for mystery writers, professionals allied to the crime writing field, aspiring crime writers, and those who are devoted to the genre." However, a mystery story can also be a story that has a villain that is ghostly and unknown. In this type of mystery story it is just word of mouth that passes on the story from one person to another and the being that is the villain may never be found by the reader or detective in the story, hence the name mystery fiction.