So you've just bought a new novel from your favorite author. You've read every book thus far, and are outright giddy about this new book. You pop onto your couch and open it up, and... hey! This doesn't look like anything before it from this author, or, as you will learn later, after it. You've discovered the outlier; the author has committed Genre Adultery. Perhaps the sausage machine producer of crime novels has shifted from a light hearted Great Detective to a hard boiled Dirty Cop or even as extreme as writing in a completely different genre, but not often. Keep in mind that just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad.