Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Tonight I thought we might try something different. One of our BJ peeps is a cozy mystery writer, and I invited her to help start a conversation about cozy mysteries. You may recognize Vicki from the recent post on Shelock Holmes mysteries. The photo below is Vicki Delany on the occasion of publishing her 50th book!
So let’s see what Vicki has to say about cozy mysteries and then we can go from there.
What, exactly, is a cozy mystery?
by Vicki Delany
On one hand, that seems to be an easy question to answer. A cozy mystery is often described as a mystery novel or story containing no overt violence or sex on the page, or as a character-and-community based mystery featuring an amateur sleuth.
But I believe a cozy mystery is far more that than.
A crime or mystery novel without sex and violence is not necessarily a cozy. Plenty of intense psychological dramas have no sex and violence, but they can be very grim indeed. Books that are character-and-community based can also be dark and disturbing. Mysteries with a frightening supernatural or horror element, for example.
In my interpretation, to be a cozy, the story must have no sense of tragedy or impending doom.
People in cozies do not live tragic lives, and they don’t fear tragic happenings. They live in a very pleasant, close to idyllic, community, surround by good friends and close family. Not everything is perfect in their lives (how boring would that be?) but generally they are good and happy people.
Someone is murdered, and that’s never funny, but that person is (usually) not much liked by the community or strangers to it. Their death needs to be solved so that the perfect, orderly community can go back to the way it was – perfect and orderly. The characters live in an essentially good world that needs to be put back to rights. No human trafficking rings, child prostitutes, mob hit men, gangs, or assassins here.
A cozy mystery will never feature organized crime (unless handled with a humorous touch), child-endangerment or abuse, terrorists, or natural disaster. The murder is intimate and personal, and committed for personal reasons. There are no far-reaching or long-lasting implications. At the end of the book, order has been restored and all is once again right in their world.
This is dramatically opposite to a noir crime novel. In a noir the characters live in a dark and disturbing world. “Down these mean streets a man must walk who is not himself mean.” The criminal can be brought to justice, the crime solved, but the streets remain mean.
Cozy mysteries are not trying to make an important statement about the human condition, or hoping to change the world. A cozy mystery tells a story that attempts to be entertaining, that’s about people much like us (or like us if we were prettier, or smarter, or younger!) and our friends and family.
In terms of structure, cozy mysteries are very much ‘puzzle mysteries’: a game of wits between the author and the reader as to whether or not the astute reader can solve the crime before the amateur detective does (i.e. before the author reveals it). Clues must be laid down in such a way that the reader has a chance of reaching the conclusion on their own. The author lays red herrings in such a way as to hope to distract the reader from reaching the truth before all is revealed.
Cozy mysteries are about real people living real lives (except for that pesky murder bit), although writ large. Everything is exaggerated. The nosy neighbour is nosier, the ditzy friend is ditzier, the mean girl is meaner. And the handsome man is, well, handsomer. Even better if there are two of them.
Readers who enjoy cozies often tell me that they read them to escape from the real world. They get enough bad news on TV, and sometimes even in their own life. Cozy mysteries really are an escape. Most (but not all) cozies feature a female protagonist, but they are widely read by men too, and I love that about them.
I began my career writing gritty police procedurals and intense psychological thrillers and I switched to cozies about seven years ago. I’m having a lot of fun with them. Keep it light, keep it funny, and have a good time with it.
The word I often use for the cozies I write is FUN. They should be fun for the author and fun for the reader as well.
What’s wrong with that? I ask.
So pull up a pull up a comfortable armchair or get out your deck chair. Light a fire in the fireplace, or slap on that sunscreen, pour yourself a mug of hot tea or something icy and simply enjoy the adventures of a cozy heroine and her friends as they try to put their world back to rights.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a cozy mystery. If you have, chime in with your favorites. If you don’t read cozy mysteries, what is your favorite kind of mystery?
Anyway, I’m not sure where this is gonna go, or how this is gonna go. I guess we’ll find out!
Vicki Delany
I’m here. Do you love cozies? Do you think they’re ridiculous? Let’s talk. I’d love to know what sort of books the BJ community reads.
Alison Rose
I like cozies mainly because sometimes my anxiety just can’t take mainstream thrillers, many of which seem more like horror novels these days. Cozies won’t have anything gross or creepy or frightening, and the goal isn’t to leave you unable to sleep but rather just to have fun trying to solve the whodunnit alongside the main character. And you usually get a charming setting and a character with a fun or unusual job.
Plus, I love me a good pun and many of them have punny titles that I find cute. One of my favorite series is the Bakeshop Mysteries by Ellie Alexander, with titles like Meet Your Baker and On Thin Icing and such.
You can’t go into a cozy expecting Pulitzer-level writing, but you can get a good time from it.
Miss Bianca
I always find the concept of a “cozy (murder) mystery” to be a really weird and, if I think about it, kind of disturbing one, because there’s never, ever anything “cozy” about a murder.
That said, do I enjoy Agatha Christie? Oh, hell yeah. Do I enjoy Dorothy L. Sayers? Oh, even more, although she brings up pesky societal issues that do intrude on the insularity of the English villagey-ness.
I used to enjoy the Kelling-Bittersohn series by Charlotte MacLeod a lot back in the day, but haven’t read any of them lately. I also read the Goldy Bear series too, mostly because they featured cooking and were set in Colorado, but I haven’t read any of them lately either.
ETA: But all right! Maybe I’ll pick up a few hot cozy tips from the Jackaltariat!
Alison Rose
Another perk is that many cozies are mass market paperbacks, so they’re cheaper :)
Timill
Don’t forget the feisty grandmother…
Just been reading: the Mystery Bookshop series by VM Burns.
Now working on: Tea and Treachery, by someone or other…
Princess
I love cozies but they need to be very very well- written. Right now I’m reading “The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle” which is not a cozy but is very much playing around with the Agatha Christie locked-room country house model. Another author I love who messes with the genre a bit is Sarah Caudwell, whose main protagonist and viewpoint character is a law professor of undiscernable gender.
Mr. Prosser
I’m not sure these are cozies but I always enjoyed the Brother Cadfael mysteries and the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries for many of the reasons listed in what makes up the genre.
Almost Retired
Does Josephine Tey fit the cozy mystery genre? I was introduced to her here by Suburu Diane and loved Daughter of Time. Very genteel. The murders happened 500 years ago, so the Lancastrians and Yorkists have probably gotten over it.
(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans
I enjoy an atmosphere of coziness, and not just in mysteries. Cozy fantasies are also a thing. But I have a feeling that a *series* of cozies can run into a problem: If your small-town bookshop/tea shop/antique shop/diner/what-have-you is *continually* running into murders to be solved, how cozy, really, is it? I suppose that may be one of those things that the reader has to tacitly agree not to inquire into too closely.
I think maybe at least some of Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries are cozy, and one or two of Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey stories.
Phylllis
I enjoyed the first two or three of the Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley, Ellie Griffiths’ Brighton Mysteries, and the Lord Peter Wimsey books (do they count?). I haven’t read the Agatha Raisin books, but love the TV series. I’ve always enjoyed cozies. I never try to guess whodunnit, just read’em and find myself thinking ‘Huh, I’ll be darned’ when the villain is revealed.
Timill
@Alison Rose: Too expensive! Kindle Unlimited FTW!
Amazon have a strange attitude to KU: they offer cheap starter rates (2 months free, or whatever) and when you cancel, come straight back with a similar offer. Right now I canceled a 3-month free on 12/26, and on 12/28 the offer was 3 months for $0.99. Don’t mind if I do…
Alison Rose
In addition to the Bakeshop series I mentioned above, some others I’ve enjoyed that folks may want to check out:
The Book Retreat series by Ellery Adams
The Cookie House series by Eve Calder
The Black Cat Bookshop series by Ali Brandon
The Perveen Mistry series by Sujata Massey (not the typical mass market style, but IMO these definitely qualify as cozies)
The Lighthouse Library series by Eva Gates
JoyceH
I love classic cozies. Think Agatha Christie and others of that ilk. But hang around writing groups, and they try to create a very restrictive definition of what is a cozy. They’d have you believe that a cozy must have an amateur sleuth. I’m not buying that. Some of the coziest of the cozies feature law enforcement – Henry Tibbet of Scotland Yard perfectly illustrates that. Give me a constable in a quaint English village and don’t dare tell me that’s not a cozy!
Also modern cozies have developed all these sub-sub genres. There are cooking cozies (cupcakes is its own sub-sub!) and crafting cozies and cat cozies and magic cozies and magical cat cozies….
Phylllis
@(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans: How is there anyone left in Midsomer, or Crabapple Cove, for that matter?
billcinsd
I have read a lot of what, by the definition given, would be cozy mysteries. I don’t really care for crimes or sex scenes in books and want humor so I do read many of these books. I would probably include Charlotte MacLeod, both the Sarah Kelling and Peter Shandy series’. Donna Andrews and her Meg Langslow series. I just finished Dearly Departed in Deadwood by Anne Charles, which did have an easily skippable sex scene at the end but otherwise was pretty enjoyable. I would also put Phoebe Atwood Tylor writing as Alice Tilton and her Leonidas Witherall stories. Joyce Porter’s Dover books aren’t really about the common family but otherwise fit.
narya
Joan Hess’s Maggody mysteries are an excellent example, I think. I’ve been reading my way through Louise Penny’s Three Pines series, and I’ve just started William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Conner series; neither is quite “cozy,” but they’re also not Thomas Perry novels, either (which I like, but have to be in the mood to read).
Rachel Bakes
Not a big mystery fan but cozies fit my taste more than most. The world is dark enough. I do really enjoy Isaac Asimov’s Black Widower stories though. Might be time to pick up a volume of those from our shelves again.
narya
@Mr. Prosser: Then you might like the Sister Fidelma books, too.
billcinsd
@(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans:If your small-town bookshop/tea shop/antique shop/diner/what-have-you is *continually* running into murders to be solved, how cozy, really, is it?
Wasn’t this a major joke about “Murder She Wrote”?
Vicki Delany
@Alison Rose: Totally agree.
Alison Rose
@Timill: Not everything is on KU. Most books are not.
JoyceH
@billcinsd: for the plethora of murders you have to deploy your Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I like cozies. Sometimes I’m not up for cynicism or tragedy.
Vicki Delany
@Miss Bianca: About the first cozies I read were the Goldy books from Diane Mott Davidson. As a regular BJ reader, among others, I know it’s hard to keep optimistic . But you have to, sometimes.
Kristine
Can YA be cozy? Thinking of Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious series featuring a teenaged protag. The first few books take place at an elite school; the characters then go from a summer camp to a term in England. They’re current-day and discuss current-day teen concerns and stressors, so I’m not sure.
I’ve enjoyed Christie, Sayers, and Allingham. Not well-versed on current authors.
Awed by your output. Simply awed.
Vicki Delany
@Timill: By someone or other. My own mother turns 99 next week. Let me tell you, those women are strong. They might have kept it under the covers because they were expected to, but its coming out now.
Vicki Delany
@Princess: I have not read Cauldwell, but I loved the 7 deaths. Thanks for the recommendation.
eclare
I don’t think I have ever read a cozy mystery, but I am certainly open to them. My current fave mystery writer is Michael Connelly, he has been for years. I like the continuation of the characters and their development.
Come to think of it, would Sue Grafton’s books, A is for Alibi, etc. be considered a cozy mystery series? I loved those, and I was so sad that she died before she finished the book for Z.
Vicki Delany
@Almost Retired: Daughter of Time is an absolute classic. And a fabulous read. I’d place Tey among the classic cozies. Things have changed a lot since she was writing but her intelligent plots still stand out
Princess
Oh! Another cozy+ author is Boris Akunin. Try his Sister Pelagia series. Smartypants amateur detecting nun cozy on the surface, brilliant postmodern novel underneath. And if the second part is not your bag, you can just ignore it and enjoy the cozy mystery.
Timill
@billcinsd: It’s the theme for Mur Lafferty’s “The Midsolar Murders” series: Our Heroine has decamped to an alien space station in an attempt to avoid all the murders that follow her. A bunch of humans arrive. Hijinks ensue…
JoyceH
I do like cozies and I do read a lot of them. But I’ve found another genre recently that seems to scratch the same itch. It’s mid-century British women’s fiction. Not romance but the sort of “light” reading that’s not LITrachur from the 1930s through the 1960s. Typical story features a 40-something widow who finds an economical cottage in a quaint village, move in and meets the denizens of her new locale, and of course many of them are Characters etc. She will often have a couple adult or teen children. They’re like cozies without the murders. Much of them have been out of print but the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint is bringing them back in inexpensive ebook editions.
Obvious Russian Troll
I enjoy the occasional cozy, although I’m not entirely clear on the boundaries. I even have a reasonably well-developed idea for a cozy novel.
Looking at my works-in-progress, though, I may not be a great candidate to write a cozy. I’m also concerned that I don’t know the rules well enough to pull it off, but that just means I need to read more of them (and they’re generally brief).
I did put down Travis Baldree’s cozy fantasy (Legends and Lattes) part-way through. It’s well-regarded by my SFF writer friends, but there may not be enough in the way of stakes for me.
Vicki Delany
@(not actually a) Dr. Th0th Evans: Ah yes, the suspension of disbelief. You do have to stop wondering how many times small town xx and local librarian yy can get caught up in a murder case. On the other hand, I think it applies to a lot of fiction. My friendly police officers tell me they’ve never met a master criminal in their life and when a crime is committed in our small community they pretty much know exactly where to go
Vicki Delany
@Alison Rose: Thanks for the list. You do know, I’m Eva Gates?
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: You mean, like Barbara Pym? I used to enjoy reading her quite a bit!
Alison Rose
@Vicki Delany: Oh!! LOL I did not! I know a lot of cozy authors use various names, but I never really bother trying to connect them. Small world ;)
Vicki Delany
@Kristine: Thanks so much. YA can be cozy, but I can’t comment further as I haven’t read the books you mention, Although, come to think of it, most YA is about coming of age, and there’s nothing cozy, or light or funny, about any of that.
Alison Rose
@eclare: I think the Grafton series could qualify, although it’s maybe on the grittier side of cozy. Sometimes there are some pretty tense scenes, though usually not in a scary way. Come to think of it, I should read the next one soon. I’m on Q now.
Vicki Delany
@eclare: I would not classify Sue Grafton as cozy. Her books dealt with the tougher side of life.
billcinsd
@Princess: Sarah Caudwell books were very good
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kristine: I think many genres can be cozy. Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes is a cozy fantasy.
Miss Bianca
Another mid-20th-century British classic mystery writer who might be characterized as “cozy” would be Edmund Crispin and his Gervase Fen series. My father loved these and so I read them too. He also introduced me to Sayers, which I’ll always be grateful for!
Princess
@JoyceH: Those look right up my alley!
Vicki Delany
@JoyceH: Sounds really interesting. Thank you
Alison Rose
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Loved that book. I’ve got the prequel on hold on Libby.
karen marie
Not mysteries in a strict sense but I love the “Phule’s Company” series by Robert Asprin. (I listened to it on Audible where the whole series is a free listen for members.) It definitely qualifies as “cozy.”
While there is some tension – will Captain Jester straighten out the mess before his nemesis (General Blitzkrieg) can finally get him court martialed? – the focus is on solving problems with your brain rather than brute force, despite the military setting. The series is funny and very well written. The reader of the audiobooks is terrific.
The coziness factor is high. Overall it’s quick and smart writing.
Laura
I haven’t read cozy mysteries for a while but I did enjoy the Melanie Travis series by Laurien Berenson centering on dog shows. Also the Hitchcock Sewell books by Tim Cockey.
zhena gogolia
@Vicki Delany: I think I like cozies, if Christie qualifies. I’ve been reading Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne series, and that seems to qualify for cozy to me. They don’t upset me.
Ruth Rendell’s Wexford mysteries are cozy, but her psychological thrillers are not. Her Barbara Vine novels can fall into either category.
eclare
@Vicki Delany:
That makes sense. One of her books that stands out to me dealt with homelessness and medical testing (W is for Wasted), not cozy subjects.
I’ll see if my library has your Sherlock Holmes bookstore mysteries, I could use some fun!
Oh, should they be read in order?
zhena gogolia
@Princess: I love Erast Fandorin.
Vicki Delany
@zhena gogolia: I love those books by Horowitz. and I’d classify them as cozy.
Vicki Delany
@eclare: Its not necessary to read them in order because the plot of each stands along. But there is some character development,
Alison Rose
@eclare: @Vicki Delany: Yeah, I would say with most cozy series, the main plots are isolated to each book, but there are side plots and relationships and such that progress linearly, so if you jump in with a later book, you might not have all the background you’d need to understand some of those bits.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Alison Rose: I got it as a Christmas present. It’s on my shelf, waiting.
eclare
@Vicki Delany:
Thanks! I’ll start with the first as character development is one of the things I enjoy with a series.
Looks like Elementary, She Read is the first. I just reserved it at the library!
brantl
@Rachel Bakes: Loved Isaac Asimov’s Black Widowers, and Henry.
RSA
What an insightful description of cozy mysteries. Thanks, Vicki Delany.
I’m a fan, mainly because of their detachment: they tend to be light, popcorn efforts, which I can enjoy without very deep emotional investment.
Let’s see. Who do I like? Unfortunately the genre can be a little forgettable… On TV, I love Midsomer Murders (as has been mentioned), though Caroline Graham’s Midsomer novels were a little too scattered to carry the atmosphere. I’ve enjoyed the Wycliffe series, by W. J. Burley, set in Cornwall. Some of Louise Penny’s Three Pines novels, also mentioned, have a cozy flavor. Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series is my current favorite, which I’ll recommend without reservation.
TheOtherHank
I don’t read cozies, but I do like cozy TV shows. My current one is Brokenwood Mysteries which is set in a small town in New Zealand. It suffers (if it’s really suffering) from the same problem that the mysteries set in English villages have: the residents seem to be consumed with homicidal rage just beneath the surface. I know that, per capita, rural places are at least as dangerous as the big city, but so many people getting killed in these tiny communities has to be a problem.
Aunt Kathy
One author who I would consider cozy, and hasn’t received her deserved flowers (at least in the US) is Sally Andrew. She writes the Tannie Maria books, set in South Africa. I think it’s a series on Acorn now?
And while they aren’t technically in the cozy genre, I still consider the Thursday Murder Club bks by Richard Osman, and the Tuscan Mystery bks by Camilla Trinchieri as cozies, because I always feel good when I read them.
Vicki Delany
@Alison Rose: That is true. Characters come and go. Relationships are formed, and then they fall apart. And – big clue – if one person has a major role in a book and is never mentioned again in later books, they’re the baddie.
Annie
I enjoy cozies for the same reason lots of others have given, that there’s enough tragedy in the world and sometimes you just need a break.
to me the essence of a cozy is that the detective’s central relationships are not in jeopardy. I consider the Maigret books to be cozies because Maigret’s relationships with his wife and colleagues are all good and he just goes and figures out the mystery. I’m also enjoying the Inspector Littlejohn series by George Bellairs. I read a lot of mysteries in all genres and I have to admit that there are some standard devices that get old after a while. One is the detective confronting his past. Another is the detective making a special effort because of some personal connection to the case. Is that really the only reason a detective solves a mystery? Not saying those things don’t happen, but in fiction it’s repeated so often it’s no,longer interesting.
Vicki Delany
@eclare: Yes, it is. I hope you enjoy it.
Vicki Delany
@RSA: I love the Thursday Murder Club and he brings some genuine sadness into the books that I’d be afraid to emulate.
Vicki Delany
@TheOtherHank: Suspension of disbelief. I mean, how many times can your local bookshop owner or library stumble onto a murder.
Vicki Delany
@Aunt Kathy: I think the Thursday Murder Club mysteries are very cozy, and I love them. They have an added element, at least the last one did, of sadness which works for them. I have not heard of Sally Andrews, but i’ll look for her.
Groucho48
I love Loise Penny and her Inspector Gamache series but I wouldn’t describe them as cozies. The murders tend to more gruesome and have more of an effect on the community than a cozy and the overarching theme of Gamache against the corrupt police leadership is also not typically cosy.
My favorite cosy series is probably the Nero Wolf series by Rex Stout. Another writer that hasn’t been mentioned is john Dickson Carr, master of the locked room mystery. His style can be a bit too prolix, though. Wilkie Collins, Dick Francis and his numerous mysteries with a connection to horse racing,
A lot of current cosies add too much humor or fan service kinds of things. Cats! Recipes! Magic! for me. I do like the Thursday Murder Club series, though.
Anotherlurker
I’m not much for the cozy mysteries.
One of my absolute favorite authors in the mystery genre is Barbara Hambly. She is an amazingly skilled and prolific author. Her areas of expertise are fantasy, horror and historical mysteries.
I have been addicted to her Benjamin January series. The protagonist, Benjamin January, is a free person of color in 1830s New Orleans. The characters are believable and entertaining . The historical events and characters that are featured in the novels are accurate .
Vicki Delany
@Groucho48: Louise Penny has actually given interviews in which she’s said she does not write cozies and objects to being called such. For the very reasons you mention. I think there is a tendency by some to classify all any mystery books written by a woman, cozy.
Vicki Delany
@Anotherlurker: Benjamin January is a fabulous character. But be warned, some of the experiences he encounters as a free man of colour circa 1830 are not pleasant.
zhena gogolia
@Groucho48: Hmmm, Nero Wolfe borders on noir sometimes, doesn’t he? (not to make a pun)
zhena gogolia
I used to like non-cozies like Sara Paretsky and Robert Parker, and I loved Ruth Rendell’s more disturbing novels (I used to think Wexford was boring), but now I only want cozies. I guess it’s age!
Pussreboots
@Vicki Delany: I’ve read nearly every book of nearly every series you’ve written. The one exception being your Year Round Christmas shop series. So the easy answer, is your mysteries. Although my all time favorites of yours are the ones you write as Eva Gates.
SkyBluePink
@Aunt Kathy: I really enjoyed Recipes for Love and Murder (Tannie Maria) on Acorn and didn’t realize they were based on books. Thanks for the info.
I enjoy Horowitz and the Thursday Club. I can’t take blood and gore but some cozies are a bit too cozy for my tastes.
Great books to explore in this Medium Cool. Great idea, WaterGirl!
Anyway
Not sure where I stand with “cozies” – don’t care for Agatha Christie at all – books and TV. She’s held as the exemplar, I right? But I like Sarah Cauldwell who was mentioned earlier.
Sure Lurkalot
Recently read Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone which I think qualifies. I’m not surprised that it’s soon to be an HBO movie because it sometimes reads like a screenplay. May have too many murders to qualify.
I read all of the Thursday Murder Club series and I found them witty and entertaining with well drawn characters. I thought the last one was the weakest link.
Vicki Delany
@zhena gogolia: Age, or just wanting some relief from the trauma of the world.
eclare
@Anotherlurker:
I just looked up the Benjamin January books, sounds interesting!
Vicki Delany
@Pussreboots: Thank you so much!
Vicki Delany
@Anyway: Christie is somewhat dated, and some people say she’s not really cozy as she has things to say about the state of British society in the war and post-war years. But, yes, she’s usually held up as the example.
Vicki Delany
@Sure Lurkalot: I thought Everyone in my Family was great. Very original and exceptionally well plotted.
eclare
@zhena gogolia:
I have definitely become more violence averse as I have gotten older. I also think living alone during the pandemic added to my anxiety. So far that has just affected my tv and movie choices, stuff that I see. But I am sure it will affect my book choices as well, in time.
Barbara
I don’t generally care for cozies, for instance I didn’t really get into the Louise Penny mysteries. I do get the point about wanting a bit of a safe space, and I don’t read mysteries or thrillers that revel in violence or torture or threats to children. I also demand at least one main character with redeeming features. If everyone is a villain I don’t bite. I guess my biggest issue with cozies is that they are too removed from social currency. I feel like it’s all a game.
Vicki Delany
@Pussreboots: Hi, Sarah. Got ya’
Vicki Delany
@Barbara: That’s a fair comment. I do try hard to make my characters not engaging in the investigation for fun or as a game, as you put it. They need to have some reason to be involved. A friend is accused, the dead person spoke to them shortly before the murder, etc etc.
Groucho48
@zhena gogolia:
I wouldn’t say he borders on noir. The tone is much too light for noir and neither he nor Archie are flawed in the way noir protagonists are.
NotMax
The Shadow in any incarnation.
Would also argue for a hefty chunk of the prolific Arch Oboler’s output.
Also too, a heaping helping of the contents of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales.
In a lighter vein, DC Comics’ Detective Chimp and Rex the Winder Dog</em>. The latter of whom may or may not have served as some inspiration for the gentle European investigation series Inspector Rex
Vicki Delany
@Barbara: Being a Balloon Juice Lurker, you can guess my politics. I do struggle sometimes with wanting to make a political point but knowing it’s not quite acceptable in my genre. The police procedural series I wrote earlier (the Constable Molly Smith books) were much more up front about where I stand.
Barbara
@zhena gogolia: I find some Ruth Rendell books too disturbing. But, for instance, I generally like Denise Mina even though bad things happen to people. Her empathy with children and the clarity of her views on class determinism makes even her sad books worthwhile. Her last two have been really disappointing, however.
I liked the Wexfords, or most of them anyway. I also like the Rebus series, and many others. Basically, you’re sure the protagonist will survive but everyone else is at risk.
NotMax
Oh my. Gonna clean up that linakage.
The Shadow in any incarnation.
Would also argue for a hefty chunk of the prolific Arch Oboler’s output.
Also too, a heaping helping of the contents of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales.
In a lighter vein, DC Comics’ Detective Chimp and Rex the Winder Dog</em. The latter of whom may or may not have served as some inspiration for the gentle European investigation series Inspector Rex
NotMax
Oh my. Not my day at all. Third time’s the charm (fingers crossed).
The Shadow in any incarnation.
Would also argue for a hefty chunk of the prolific Arch Oboler’s output.
Also too, a heaping helping of the contents of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales.
In a lighter vein, DC Comics’ Detective Chimp and Rex the Winder Dog. The latter of whom may or may not have served as some inspiration for the gentle European investigation series Inspector Rex .
zhena gogolia
@Anyway: I met Sarah Caudwell once at a book signing. She smoked a pipe. She was very droll.
moonbat
Don’t know if she meets the technical definition of “cozy” mentioned above, but I love me some Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels mysteries. The author of these was in real life named Barbara Mertz. As Peters her books had a murder mystery surrounding an archaeological or art historical problem that was always fun. Her detective Vicky Bliss is an icon of the genre, if you ask me.
As Michaels her mysteries often had a supernatural element that needed solving, but that element was always tied to local history or lore that made them learning experiences as well as good clean, low stress fun.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara: You should try Horowitz (but NOT Moriarty). Any of the Hawthorne books, or Magpie Murders or Moonflower Murders.
I read one Louise Penny and didn’t like it much.
NotMax
Oh my. Not my day at all. Last try to fix all linkage. (Frightfully sorry ’bout all that.)
The Shadow in any incarnation.
Would also argue for a hefty chunk of the prolific Arch Oboler’s output.
Also too, a heaping helping of the contents of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales.
In a lighter vein, DC Comics’ Detective Chimp and Rex the Winder Dog. The latter of whom may or may not have served as some inspiration for the gentle European investigation series Inspector Rex .
Princess
@zhena gogolia: I haven’t read them yet but I am so full of joy that they await me.
billcinsd
Another ne I would add is Gillian Roberts’ Amanda Pepper series about a Philadelphia private school teacher
billcinsd
@moonbat: I quite liked the Elizabeth Peters books
billcinsd
Another I like is Aaron Elkins and Elkins working with his wife Charlotte but these might not be cozy
moonbat
@billcinsd: I was lucky enough to meet the author in Cairo around 2003 and she was an incredibly gracious and fun person with whom to hang out in the Khan el Khalili.
Tehanu
@Anotherlurker: In addition to the brilliant Benjamin January series, which are the only books I can stand to read about the antebellum South, Barbara Hambly also writes mysteries set in the Hollywood of the silent movies, in the 1920s — only two out so far but the 3rd is coming. Her vampire series, starting with Those Who Hunt the Night, are also the only vampire books I like, and they are mostly mysteries as well.
Groucho48
@moonbat:
I thought about mentioning Elizabeth Peters and her Amelia Peabody series but wasn’t sure if they quite qualified as cozies.
Similarly, I was thinking of mentioning Tony Hillerman and his Leaping Lieutenant series but wasn’t sure if they qualified as cozies. Both series are well worth reading, in any case.
Vicki Delany
@moonbat: I greatly enjoyed all those books. The Amelia Peabody books were never called cozies, but I think they really fit the description. I absolutely loved The Barbara Michaels books when I first read them. I read one recently and thought it was very dated. She was a feminist in her time, but somethings have not stood the test of time. Great stories though and marvellous use of atmosphere.
Vicki Delany
@moonbat: That must have been fabulous
Vicki Delany
@Groucho48: I would call the Amelia Peabody books cozies. That have such a great sense of fun.
Bill
Mma. Prescious Ramotswe No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency are awfully fun no pressure books. if you like quirky police procedurals I recommend the Amsterdam Cops series by Janwillen van de Wetering.
hagsrus
Perhaps the ultimate in cozy might be The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency – very rarely anything violent.
Endorsing Sara Caudwell whose prose is elegant.
I’m re-reading the Falco and Flavia Albia series set in Imperial Rome, though not at all cozy!
My favorite SF author is Sheri Tepper, and I love her mysteries under the name of B.J.Oliphant, starring Shirley McClintock who owns a ranch in Colorado and later moves on to run a guest ranch in New Mexico. Everything is set in everyday life context. Her other series, as A.J.Orde, follows Jason Lynx, an interior designer, and his police officer girlfriend Grace.
And I do enjoy Stephanie Plum and her rowdy Grandma!
moonbat
@Groucho48: Agreed. The Hillerman books are a great series, cozy or not.
The Utter Dregs
What are Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories if not cozy? Margery Allingham’s Campion. Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books, absolutely. Simenon’s Maigret. How about Robert Van Gulik’s Judge Dee? Not in the same class as the foregoing but Aaron Elkins’s intrepid anthropologist Gideon Oliver is always a charming read.
NotMax
For movies, must give a nod to the seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?, any of the Thin Man films, the mysteries starring Edna May Oliver as schoolteacher/sleuth Hildegarde Withers, and also Deathtrap.
Groucho48
@Vicki Delany:
They do! My concern was that the emphasis on history and geography and such in the two series I mentioned is not really in the scope of traditional cozies.
moonbat
@Groucho48: Her Peabody Mysteries like The Last Camel Died at Noon are more in the H. Rider Haggard tradition rather than the sleepy English village tradition, but so much fun!
Her librarian/detective Jacqueline Kirby was also a worthy detective of the genre, though I only think she appeared in two books.
Anotherlurker
@Tehanu: Thanks for the heads up regarding Ms. Hambly’s 1920s mysteries. I’ll give them a try.
I’m not a fan of the Vampire genre. I made the mistake of trying to watch one of the insipid, poorly written series. I think it was “Twilight”. What utter dreck and it destroyed any interest in the genre on my part.
MichiganderGail
@Vicki Delany: As a cozy devotee and a reader of many Graftins, I would agree.
NotMax
@Anotherlurker
Reminded of Lauren Bacall, whose niece (maybe granddaughter?) dragged her to see the first of the Twilight films, extolling it as the greatest thing to appear on a screen since Edison. Afterward Bacall’s comment was that she felt nothing so much as an urge to hit her with a shoe.
Steve in the ATL
Late to the party, but no love for Father Brown?
lgerard
Patricia Wentworth and her fussy Miss Maud Slver
Aris Merquoni
I think my definition of a cozy mystery series isn’t necessarily that the characters return to an undisturbed life, but that the evolution of those characters’ lives is a positive progression of choices that they are making while the murder/crime/mystery cases are taking the foreground in the plot. I think it’s a little more expansive than general “cozy” definitions but kind of gets at why a lot of mystery serieses that feel fairly different get grouped together under this umbrella.
I second Nero Wolfe as a great cozy series, even by the original definition – Nero and Archie change so little that in a later book they solve a case for the grown children of someone they solved an earlier case for. Nero Wolfe will always have his hours with his orchids and Archie will always have his sandwiches and glasses of milk in the kitchen with Fritz. But even then the outliers are so dramatic – In The Best Families, A Family Affair – that it’s easier to remember them as more noir than they usually were.
Any love for Kerry Greenwood? I ate up all of the Phryne Fisher and Corrina Chapman books. The former (1920s Melbourne! Flappers!) got made into a fun series with some great character work from all of the actors involved, and the latter is set in a bakery in contemporary Melbourne. If you’re reading cozies to avoid all sex and violence these may not be for you, but at least in Phryne’s case there is never any doubt she will come out on top.
sempronia
I never read mysteries, but thanks to a recommendation from someone here, I just finished the entire 20-volume Brother Cadfael series. Definitely qualifies as a cozy mystery. I’ll check out the Sister Fidelma series that someone else recommended upthread. I was sad that the Cadfael series had ended, but now there’s a new 34-volume set to go through! Thanks, Juicers!
Grover Gardner
Cozies can be great fun, even for someone one enjoys a gory Scandanavian thriller. ;-) I was privileged to produce the audio editions of The Callishire Chronicles by Catherine Aird, featuring Detective Inspector Sloan. Crisp and witty. A more delightful mystery series you couldn’t ask for. I got very absorbed in them and I think my favorite passage involved Sloan knocking on a strange door to interview possible witnesses to a murder. The knock was answered by two plump, elderly women, who introduced themselves thusly:
“I’m Miss Ivy Metford,” said one.
“I’m Miss Mable Metford,” said the other.
“We’re sisters,” said Miss Ivy superfluously.
“Two unclaimed treasures,” chimed in Miss Mable.
I laughed for days over that.
Sometimes they can get wearisome, but at their best they’re a refreshing read.
Grover Gardner
@Steve in the ATL: Oh, certainly! Thanks for bringing him up!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Late to the party, but I agree Agatha Christie (my gateway drug into mysteries in general) is cozy. I would submit the Burgular series by Lawrence Block are cozies also, even though they take place in NYC (whereas his other series are very good but definitely NOT cozy).
I’ve read a few Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mysteries by M.C. Beaton but got bored after a while. The Agatha Raisin books reminded me of a soap opera, with the story going on and on and on (35 books!), with none of the characters showing any character development or awareness.
I tried a few of the The Cat Who books, too (I’m a cat lady and love Siamese), but the same problem. I also love Josephine Tey, but I guess I mostly like things a little grittier
ETA: on the other hand, I don’t need to read about psychopaths torturing women either. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for example.
Aris Merquoni
Speaking of oddball fantasy recommendations, I am absolutely going to make the case for both the first season of 2010’s urban fantasy TV show Lost Girl and Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher’s Paladin romance novels as cozy, even though both of them have a lot more explicit (well, in the case of Lost Girl, television-explicit) sex than the name implies. Lost Girl even has mysteries that they need to solve every week!
I mean, the sex in the Paladin romance novels is still cozy. And there are, as Vernon herself will tell you, an awful lot of severed heads in the Paladin novels, and did I mention the Paladins of the titles are all berserkers, and I know I may not be doing a great job of selling these books as cozy necessarily, but I hope that by now you will have an idea of the general vibe. And if it sounds like a thing you like, by gum, pick up some bizarrely sweet novels about broken paladins and the people (and werebears) who love them back to some semblance of peaceful life.
(Oh did I mention that all of these berserker paladins are all incredibly noble and sad because something terrible happened to them? Something very tragic? Something that only a person of true and tender heart could get them to unburden in trying emotional circumstances? Oh yeah. If this is what you want out of a romance novel, you know. YOU KNOW.)
NotMax
@sempronia
IIRC, all four seasons of Derek Jacobi as Cadfael are streaming on Britbox and also on Freevee/Prime at this time. Good stuff.
kalakal
Late to the party but 3 writers of cozy mysteries I’m fond of are George Bellairs, Edmund Crispin, and Dorothy Simpson.
Simon Brett does some wonderful humorous mysteries, I particularly like the Charles Paris series, set around a not particularly successful actor.
And a wonderful set of parodies of the whole genre are James Anderson’s Inspector Wilkins books which are Agatha Christie meets P. G. Wodehouse
Miss Bianca
@moonbat: Oh, Elizabeth Peters! Yes, she’s awesome.
Sister Golden Bear
@billcinsd: Jessica Fletcher was a masterful serial killer, who repeatedly framed countless innocents for her own evil deeds
OK, so I prefer noirs, I admit it.
Grover Gardner
Here’s a series I brought to the attention of the audio publisher I work for, and they’ve done very well in audio. They’re “locked room” mysteries. The plots don’t always end with a bang, but my goodness they’re funny along the way:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L6LR7QW
Grover Gardner
@NotMax: LOL
Vicki Delany
@Aris Merquoni: I like that definition. Many cozy series are long-running and the characters can change slowly. In my Lighthouse Library series (by Eva Gates) now up to book 11, reviewers often comment how Lucy has matured and is far less impulsive. I liked the Kerry Greenwood books, partially the Corrina ?, I haven’t seen a book by her come out in a long time.
Helena Montana
Feathers
Reading this over breakfast. Realizing I find myself rejecting the limitation of “cozy” to how publishers currently define the term as a marketing category. Totally get why writers do it, wrote an unsold cozy myself back in the day. However, it’s really limiting and a disservice to readers. Hung out at Kate’s Mystery Books back in the 80s and 90s. Mostly a fan of classic noir and female PI novels, but certainly read a great deal from the cozy table. There’s a dissertation to be written about how after 9/11 the fiercely feminist woman PI got pushed aside in favor of the cozy proprietor of an inherited shop.
The recent books that scratched my 90s cozy itch were Rosalie Knecht’s Vera Kelly books. Set in the 60s, they are about Vera Kelly who gets kicked out of her home and sent to boarding school when her mother realizes she’s gay. She gets recruited by the CIA, but walks away from it and sets up a detective agency. So, not small town, but definitely lighter and fun.
Best non-cozy mystery – Dwyer Murphy’s The Stolen Coast. Set in Onset, a working class coastal community across the bridge from Cape Cod. On the gritty side, but not dark. Picked this up at the library because it was on several best of 2023 lists. And Massachusetts.
So… today’s publishers probably wouldn’t buy a novel with Miss Marple as the protagonist, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean she’s not cozy.
Mr. Prosser
@narya: Thanks for the tip on Sister Fidelma. I looked her up in Wikipedia and she exactly fits the type I like. It looks like I need to learn how to pronounce Gaelic names but that is part of the fun. Thanks again.
Nelson
Alexander McCall Smith
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series
Detective Varg series
I don’t think there are even any murders
Netto
I second the mention of Dick Francis. They aren’t Christie-level masterpieces of mystery and misdirection, but they make up for it with brisk pace and action. Perhaps even pushing the definition of cozy a bit.
Linda
Coming late to the cozy party…I don’t think anyone has mentioned Laurie King (Mary Russell) or Jaqueline Winspear(Maisie Dobbs). I don’t know if they would be considered cozies, but I love them. The Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton has no murders but always a mystery to solve. Some of my favorites have been mentioned: Patricia Wentworth (Miss Silver); Margery Allingham (Albert Campion)—and a writer named Mike Ripley has picked up the thread with mysteries involving the younger generation of Campions; Catherine Aird (CD Sloan). Joan Aiken has some good ones. And when I really need some cozy comfort, I go to my childhood bff, Trixie Belden.
WaterGirl
@Linda: Sorry to have noticed so late that your comment was in moderation. Now that I have manually approved this one, your next comments will show up for everyone right away.
Welcome!