Writing: Deadly Webs

So there's this contest where you send in your mystery novel manuscript (by July 1) and you can win a publication contract and a nice fat advance (not so different from trying to get published in the regular way, really, except the contest is limited to first novels).

I figure, I can write a novel by July 1. Or a draft of one, at least. With sufficient motivation (and if a chance at $10,000 isn't sufficient motivation . . . ). The problem is, can I write a mystery novel? I can read them, but that's rather different. But I've come up with a character--a zooarchaeologist. I'm thinking maybe she solves some mystery from the past (maybe recent past, to give it more immediacy). Something that someone else doesn't want solved. Murder, probably. Or else she debunks some pseudoscience that is somehow tangled up with a murder.

Or I could have a folklorist who solves crimes that copycat contemporary legends (that's urban myths for any non-folklorists out there). Now I just need a plot . . .