While some people might consider cozy mysteries the red-headed stepchild of the mystery genre, their appeal continues to endure nonetheless. Not everyone delights in blood and gore and that’s where cozies come in.
Opinions vary, but the first cozy mysteries are generally considered to be Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Series. Whether you agree or not, her series certainly embodies many of the charxacteristics of the modern-day cozy.
Cozies are the hygge of the mystery genre. They evoke the same warm, fuzzy feelings as the song My Favorite Things from the Sound of Music—whiskers on kittens and bright copper kettles (especially if those kettles are brewing tea.)
Do you remember the Calgon commercial? “Calgon, take me away….” Cozies are like Calgon bath salts. They carry the reader away from this world to an idyllic one, a place the reader would love to visit. In A Deadly Dedication, book number four in my Open Book Series written as Margaret Loudon, I created a fictional quintessential English country town, Upper Chumley-on-Stoke. It has quaint cobblestone streets, half-timbered stucco buildings, stores with names like the Icing on the Cake and the Pig in a Poke and darling thatch-roofed cottages. What I left out (and what the reader doesn’t want to know about) are the less-than-ideal aspects like traffic jams, lack of central heating, sketchy electricity, unreliable WiFi and wonky plumbing.
Cozies bring order to a world that is currently very chaotic. In cozies, crooked politicians always get their just rewards and there are no mass shootings or serial killers. That’s not to say that social issues aren’t touched upon in cozies—they are—but with a light hand.
Allison Brook deals with the issue of homelessness in Buried in the Stacks, the latest in her Haunted Library Series. The book is light-hearted and cozy in tone but in the library, which is the setting for much of the book, homeless people gather, often disturbing the patrons. Some of them are on drugs and some of them have mental problems. Ultimately a local group creates Haven House where they can receive food and shelter.
In my Cranberry Cove Series, Jeff, the protagonist’s half-brother, is struggling with the physical and mental challenges stemming from an injury to his arm sustained while on duty in Afghanistan and in A Deadly Dedication, homosexuality and cross-dressing figure into the plot.
In the tenth Bookmobile Cat mystery, Crime That Binds, by Laurie Cass, there is a subplot that revolves around the housing crisis—the high cost of housing, dearth of available units and limited economic development.
In my historical series, Murder, She Reported, I touched, however lightly, on the polio epidemic, mental illness and the plight of immigrants and female factory workers in the nineteen-thirties.
There is an educational aspect to cozies as well. Many contain recipes or directions for needlework or crafts. Some take place in foreign settings, introducing the reader to different cultures as the protagonist explores new territory. It’s a bit of armchair travel without the hassle of lost suitcases, flight delays and cramped hotel rooms. My Open Book series takes place in England and there are others with settings in France, Italy, Botswana and various parts of the United States as well as around the world.
In real life, numerous crimes, including murders, go unsolved. There is no guarantee the perpetrator will face punishment for their misdeeds. In a cozy mystery however, justice is never ambiguous. The reader can relax and enjoy the book knowing that in the end, justice will prevail and they will have the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator apprehended and declared guilty.
Cozy mysteries also pose a puzzle—who did it? Was it the butler in the library with a candlestick or someone else? Just as people have enjoyed doing crossword puzzles since the first one was published in December 1913, they enjoy solving the puzzles in cozies, where the solution involves more brain work than forensic work. There are clues to unravel, red herrings to dodge, and the chance to outwit the police and nail the identity of the perpetrator before the end of the book.
With everything happening in the world today, is it any wonder that after watching the nightly news or reading the day’s newspaper, a reader might choose to bury themselves in a nice cozy mystery?
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