Crime / Noir
The case closes; the cost stays. Investigation as architecture, not a cozy restoration.
What is Crime / Noir?
Police procedural and literary crime (Connelly, Cosby, Locke) treat investigation as plot architecture. The reader is owed a fair-play close and a visible cost — to the investigator, the guilty, or the place. Warmth is not the register; competence and moral pressure are.
How Bespoke Books implements it
In The Composer, Crime / Noir is the default Mystery subgenre and a Writing Style on the Story tab (voice_id: crime_noir). Bare Mystery maps here. Cozy Mystery remains an explicit subgenre pick when you want warmth and restoration instead.