Grab a Thanksgiving-Themed Cozy Mystery This Week

by
Scott D. Parker

If it seem like I just reviewed a Leslie Meier book last month, then you are absolutely correct. But the number of Thanksgiving-themed mysteries are rather small, so I read one of Meier’s two helpings.

Time Jumps and an Aging Protagonist

A more logical reader might read each book in a long-running series in order, but Turkey Trot Murder (2017) was the only audiobook available at the library. It is Meier’s 24th (out of 30 by next year). As a result, I had a bit of whiplash when I landed back in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, and our heroine, Lucy Stone.

She’s now a full-time report for the local weekly, but she and her husband, Bill, are now empty nesters. When I last left them in 1996’s Trick or Treat Murder, all the kids were, well, kids living at home. Lucy had to juggle all her various duties—mom, wife, reporter, friend—while still trying to solve that Halloween mystery.

Here, however, it’s just her and Bill, and she’s the catalyst for the entire story. It was Lucy, out running and training for the annual Turkey Trot race, who stumbled on the body of a young woman, face down in an icy pond.

I know that allowing characters to age in real time is nothing new, but I’ve actually read few long-running series so I found it rather refreshing. The youngest child is eighteen and in college while the oldest has already made grandparents out of Lucy and Bill.

Current American Trends Slip Into a Cozy Mystery

In the less-than-a-dozen cozy mysteries I’ve read to date, there is a common factor: despite the technology, many of these stories take place in a time you really can’t nail down (unless you read the copyright page and know what year it was published). Still, so many of these stories are timeless, in that they could land in almost any year of the last thirty or so years.

But Turkey Trot Murder lets in some things that were actually going on before 2017 and to this day. One of the characters is an American-born restaurateur whose heritage is from Spain. He appears Hispanic and nothing he says dissuades a certain subset of the population.

That subset are exemplified by a desire to make sure this restaurateur does not open his restaurant in Tinker’s Cove. “America for Americans” is the slogan these people chant over and over again, and it’s enough to make you cringe. It made Lucy and many of the the other characters cringe as well, and I appreciated the counter-arguments made to oppose this slogan. It was here the First Thanksgiving was referenced more than once, but it fell on deaf ears.

It’s Like General Fiction With Crimes Thrown In

Like I mentioned last month, Meier’s books are almost general fiction in that we spend a lot of time just in the everyday lives of Lucy and the other residents of Tinker’s Cove. It’s charming, to be honest, and it really makes you want to visit or, perhaps, look at your own town and see something similar.

There are crimes to be solved and Lucy, with her press badge, easily puts herself in the middle of everything. And, just like a good protagonist, she starts the story with the discovery and she ends it as well. Quite satisfactorily, I might add.


The mysteries of Lucy Stone by Leslie Meier have rapidly become comfort reading. I love visiting Tinker’s Cove, and I encourage you to plan a trip there. There are nearly 30 different novels, most surrounding a holiday. Pick one and dive in.

If It's Halloween Season, There's a Leslie Meier Mystery for You

by
Scott D. Parker

As I wrote last October, if there’s a holiday and you want to read a mystery featuring that holiday, Leslie Meier has you covered.

Starting in 1991, Meier has written 36 mysteries starring Lucy Stone, a mom, wife, and citizen of Tinker’s Cove, Maine. The first book I read, Back to School Murder (the 4th overall), Lucy fills in at the local newspaper and that’s what gets the crime on her radar. Trick or Treat Murder (1996) is the third book, but first of her Halloween stories and I reckoned I might as well start there.

It’s Almost All a Domestic Story…

A series is nothing if you don’t like the main character, and Lucy Stone is one of the most likable characters in mystery fiction. There were whole chapters where she baked cupcakes, helped her kids with Halloween costumes for the big Halloween party, and city council meetings about the historical society and renovations. It is super charming.

It’s domesticity, and it’s nice to be able to step into Tinker’s Cove and just forget about real life for a time. Even when there’s a bad car accident that has no bearing on the mystery, I felt for the victim as well as the driver.

…But There is a Mystery

There have been a series of arson events in the area. The police don’t have any good leads and the potential suspects they’ve got their eye on don’t pan out.

Unlike Back to School Murder, here, Lucy doesn’t actively work on the case. It’s kind of a low simmer. If you’re a writer, you know that even when you are not writing, you are thinking about your story. Same thing applies with Lucy. She asks a few questions, does some research, and keeps coming at the crimes from different angles.

When the villain is finally revealed, Lucy is put into some serious peril. I’m far from a cozy mystery expert, but in the ones I’ve read, there’s not a lot of dire threats. Not so this one. It made for a nice and dramatic ending.

I have written about David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter series as literary comfort food. Specifically there’s not a dang thing wrong with it. 

Same is true for Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone books. Love them. Love Lucy as a character and Tinker’s Cove as a location. And I will always read these books. There’s still time in October to get in one of her three Halloween books. 

Nothing Scary About How Fun Murder at the Pumpkin Pageant Is

by
Scott D. Parker

(It's about to be Spooky Season again so I thought I'd reshare this delightful book from last year.)

The hallmark of a good cozy mystery series is whether or not you’d want to live in the town with the characters that populate the book…despite all the murders. When it comes to Beacon Harbor, Michigan, this Houstonian gives a resounding yes.

The residents of Beacon Harbor are seen through the eyes of Lindsey Bakewell (yeah, that’s her name), a woman who moved back to her hometown, took up residence in a haunted lighthouse, and opened a bakeshop in that same building. I first read about these folks a couple of years ago in Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop, the first of the series. Pumpkin Pageant is the fourth book and, having enjoyed a seasonal Halloween-based mystery from Leslie Meier, I wanted to find another cozy centered on Halloween.

This novel opens the day before Halloween as the town prepares for the annual Pumpkin Pageant where dogs and their humans compete in a costume contest. Lindsey herself dreads the approaching spooky holiday. You see, some teenagers have been hanging scary decorations at the lighthouse. The goal is twofold: bring a sense of dread to the decidedly lighthearted decorations Lindsey puts up and hope to catch a glimpse of the ghost.

In an effort to out the perpetrators, Lindsey sponsors a pumpkin carving event and invites all the high schoolers. Lindsey befriends the teacher as well, and marvels how the educator can see the good in the kids.

Meanwhile, Lindsey’s bestie, Kennedy Kapoor, an online influencer, has invited the crew from a cable TV ghost hunter show to conduct an investigation of the lighthouse…on Halloween night. And it’s going to be live streamed. Lindsey isn’t too excited, but allows it. The broadcast goes by without much drama until something happens inside the lighthouse that sends Kennedy running outside. She’s scared of something inside, but what she finds outside is worse. A corpse hanging from one of the trees outside the lighthouse.

I’m not a cozy expert (but I’m getting there). I only started reading them in 2021 when I joined Murder by the Book’s Cozy Mystery subscription service, but the books I’ve read by Darci Hannah are the literary equivalent to the delightful baked goods Lindsey prepares in her bakeshop. As before, I listened to the audiobook narrated by Amy Melissa Bentley who does a wonderful with the different characters, especially Kennedy and her British accent. In fact, Kennedy is very much a co-star is this book. Her relationship with Lindsey is the kind you hope you have in your life, and her pseudo rivalry with Rory Campbell, Lindsey’s boyfriend, is just plain fun.

Like any good mystery, the suspect list is pretty decent and the trials and tribulations and baked treats the characters go through is fun. There are some genuinely harrowing moments as we hurtle to the ending, but it just helps the character development.

Reading Murder at the Pumpkin Pageant helps to remind me just how much I enjoy this small Michigan town and the people in it. And, in reviewing the other two books already published, I see that there is a Christmas installment. And Christmas Reading Season begins in just a few days.

Not All Turkeys Are On The Table in Turkey Trot Murder by Leslie Meier

by
Scott D. Parker

If it seem like I just reviewed a Leslie Meier book last month, then you are absolutely correct. But the number of Thanksgiving-themed mysteries are rather small, so I read one of Meier’s two helpings.

Time Jumps and an Aging Protagonist

A more logical reader might read each book in a long-running series in order, but Turkey Trot Murder (2017) was the only audiobook available at the library. It is Meier’s 24th (out of 30 by next year). As a result, I had a bit of whiplash when I landed back in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, and our heroine, Lucy Stone.

She’s now a full-time report for the local weekly, but she and her husband, Bill, are now empty nesters. When I last left them in 1996’s Trick or Treat Murder, all the kids were, well, kids living at home. Lucy had to juggle all her various duties—mom, wife, reporter, friend—while still trying to solve that Halloween mystery.

Here, however, it’s just her and Bill, and she’s the catalyst for the entire story. It was Lucy, out running and training for the annual Turkey Trot race, who stumbled on the body of a young woman, face down in an icy pond.

I know that allowing characters to age in real time is nothing new, but I’ve actually read few long-running series so I found it rather refreshing. The youngest child is eighteen and in college while the oldest has already made grandparents out of Lucy and Bill.

Current American Trends Slip Into a Cozy Mystery

In the less-than-a-dozen cozy mysteries I’ve read to date, there is a common factor: despite the technology, many of these stories take place in a time you really can’t nail down (unless you read the copyright page and know what year it was published). Still, so many of these stories are timeless, in that they could land in almost any year of the last thirty or so years.

But Turkey Trot Murder lets in some things that were actually going on before 2017 and to this day. One of the characters is an American-born restaurateur whose heritage is from Spain. He appears Hispanic and nothing he says dissuades a certain subset of the population.

That subset are exemplified by a desire to make sure this restaurateur does not open his restaurant in Tinker’s Cove. “America for Americans” is the slogan these people chant over and over again, and it’s enough to make you cringe. It made Lucy and many of the the other characters cringe as well, and I appreciated the counter-arguments made to oppose this slogan. It was here the First Thanksgiving was referenced more than once, but it fell on deaf ears.

It’s Like General Fiction With Crimes Thrown In

Like I mentioned last month, Meier’s books are almost general fiction in that we spend a lot of time just in the everyday lives of Lucy and the other residents of Tinker’s Cove. It’s charming, to be honest, and it really makes you want to visit or, perhaps, look at your own town and see something similar.

There are crimes to be solved and Lucy, with her press badge, easily puts herself in the middle of everything. And, just like a good protagonist, she starts the story with the discovery and she ends it as well. Quite satisfactorily, I might add.


The mysteries of Lucy Stone by Leslie Meier have rapidly become comfort reading. I love visiting Tinker’s Cove, and I encourage you to plan a trip there. There are nearly 30 different novels, most surrounding a holiday. Pick one and dive in.

I’m Not a Professional Bookseller But I Kinda Was Last Week

By

Scott D. Parker

I used to work in a bookstore back in the 1990s. It was a Bookstop and I enjoyed many days during my tenure as a professional seller of books.

In the late 2000s, I started a blog and began writing reviews of books I had. This included all the crime and mystery books I was introduced to as I started to see just how broad and deep the genre was. In the written word, I go into great detail about the authors’ style, the plots they developed, and how much I enjoyed the book. As an aside, I rarely write about a book I don’t like so if I’m reviewing it, chances are all but certain I loved it.

I received lots of comments over the years. Many agreed with my take while other thanked me for letting their authors know about a book that they could add to their To Be Read pile. It always made me feel good to connect readers with books.

But there’s something special about doing it in person.

Last Sunday, my church had their occasional book fair. These are all used books, most in boxes used to deliver reams of paper, and they run gamut of genres and styles. The folks who are in charge of laying out the books are readers themselves. They collect certain authors—James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, Clive Cussler—in the same box or rolling cart while other authors are collected by genre.

An older lady and I had struck up a conversation about mystery books. She already had a small pile she was moving around. Since we were standing right next to the Picoult box, I pointed out that my wife has read all of those books. She thanked me and we parted.

With my interest in cozy mysteries now—thanks Murder by the Book—I was delighted to see one of the rolling carts featured just those books. I happily knelt and started to read the titles. Having just finished my first Leslie Meier book, Back to School Murder, I was hoping I would find one of the Lucy Stone novels.

Well, I found one and only one: Back to School Murder. Seriously? I want a different book, something I hadn’t read. But then a lightbulb went off in my head. I grabbed the book and went back to the older lady. She had selected one of the Picoult titles as it was on top of her stack. I literally put Meier’s book in her hands and started to explain the story, the series, and how I had literally just finished reading it the prior week. The lady smiled, seemed pleased that Meier’s catalog was twenty-eight books deep, and added the novel to the top of her stack. She thanked me and I hustled back to the sanctuary to sit in with the orchestra for the second service.

That smile was worth me not finding a Meier book. That smile told me Leslie Meier just might have a new reader.

Telling people about books is a lifelong joy to me. Telling them in person is even better.

It's the Kitten's Fault in Furbidden Fatality by Deborah Blake

by

Scott D. Parker

You would think winning the lottery would solve all your problems, but if you've heard real-life stories of lottery winners ruining their lives, then you know money doesn't solve everything. Unless, that is, you have a purpose. Or a mystery to solve.

Kari Stuart, twenty-nine years old, is the lottery winner in question in Furbidden Fatality, the first in a new series by Deborah Blake, and it is the March 2021 selection in Murder by the Book's cozy mystery subscription service. What you don't see on page one is Kari extravagantly spending her money or doing the other things folks flush with new  cash do. Instead, she is driving a small black kitten she found to the local animal shelter. What she finds, however, is a run-down facility with no more room to take in the cute kitten. Turned away and wondering what to do with the cat, Kari impusively buys the shelter, giving her aimless life new focus.

As stories of this type do, we now get to meet all the supporting cast of Lakeview, the town in which she grew up. Suz, her best friend, who often serves as the Greek chorus, throwing reality at Kari at various times in the book, especially at the beginning when she first learns of Kari's purchase of Serenity Sanctuary. Sara Hanover, volunteer at the shelter, is a former English teacher who still knows everyone in town which comes in handy as the book goes on. You’ve got Bryn, a somewhat sulky twentysomething and Daisy, the older former owner.

Into this mix comes Bill Myers, the local dog warden, and the bane of the shelter’s existence. The latest Myers accusation is against a pit bull, Buster, who is accused of biting someone else. Myers is chomping at the bit to confiscate Buster and put him down. Well, good news: he doesn’t do that, mainly because he’s murdered. On the grounds of Serenity Sanctuary.

Guess who’s the number one suspect? You’re right. Kari, who has moved in and took up residence on the property. All the clues point to her. She had the motive (save Buster), the opportunity (her land), and the weapon (Myers was choked with a snare pole). The cops barely look elsewhere, despite additional clues and information along the way, so it’s up to Kari to clear her name (and those of her friends who get pulled into the investigation) while uncovering the real killer.

Blake moves the story along pretty quickly, adding in new wrinkles to the mystery and throwing a false leads along the way. Kari and her friends have a lot of pluck as they basically become detectives despite them not knowing how to really do it. There are a couple of jokes from the police about the reality of detective work versus what is seen on TV. All in all, I didn’t figure out the killer until the end, always the mark of a good book.

I’m early in my enrollment in what I call Cozy College, where I read cozy mysteries, a genre all but brand-new to me. Of the half dozen I’ve read this year (Bait and Witch, Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop, and four Andy Carpenter novels by David Rosenfelt), Forbidden Fatality is the first one written in third person. It doesn’t diminish the book at all, but I kind of have gotten used to a lead character in a cozy being the narrator. Maybe that isn’t the norm, but it was one of the stereotypical things I thought cozies were like—and those earlier books confirmed.

Interestingly, another trope I associate with cozies that involve pets is that the pets themselves help solve the crimes. The Andy Carpenter series has pets (and, ironically, a dog shelter) but they don’t help out. In this novel, Queenie (the black kitten that started the whole thing) actually does. Makes for quite a charming little addition to a fun book.

The First Taste of a New Series is Delightful: Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop by Darci Hannah

by

Scott D. Parker

As an outsider looking in, there appeared to be certain cliches associated with cozy mysteries. Up until now, just a few books into what I'm calling Cozy College, I had not encountered any of those cliches. Well, with Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop by Darci Hannah, they are all mostly here, and it started with the book description.

"After catching her celebrity chef fiancé sizzling in the arms of another woman, Lindsey Bakewell left big city Wall Street for small town Beacon Harbor, Michigan, to pursue her own passion as a pastry baker--and gets mixed up in someone's sweet taste of revenge."

The rest of the description is just as puntastic as that opener and it truly sets the stage for what I consider my first traditional cozy mystery. Even John McDougall, the curator of Murder by the Book's Cozy Corner subscription service--in which you get a new cozy mystery per month--comments on the cliches in his write-up. And I'll be honest: before enrolling in Cozy College, I would have rarely picked up this book and, if I had, the description would have made me roll my eyes. Now, however, It made me chuckle and I happily dove into the book.

Lindsey is a pretty fun narrator. She tells the story in first person so you get to hear her inner thoughts as she meets all the characters in Beacon Harbor. She buys an old lighthouse and she and her dog, Wellington, move in and set up shop. Her neighbor is Rory Campbell, a local hunk, ex-military, who is writing a book. The pair meet when Wellington takes a bite out of Rory's caught fish. Sparks ignite and the romantic sub-plot ensues. Betty Vanhoosen is the local realtor who sold the lighthouse to Lindsey yet neglected to mention a certain ghost that may or may not be haunting the lighthouse. Kennedy Kapoor is Lindsey's best friend. Kennedy is an uppity fashion and food blogger with her own podcast who stands out in small town Michigan just like Lindsey did when she moved there. Not only does Kennedy have Lindsey's back, but she also is at odds with Sir Hancelot, her pet name for Rory.

Something struck me as I was reading the chapters in the first section of the book: wasn't this supposed to be a murder mystery? I got lost in all the ins and outs of setting up the bakery and meeting the characters that I actually forgot. Finally, when the death occurs--it's her ex-fiance's new girlfriend who arrived in town to disrupt the bakeshop's opening day--it came out of the blue. (Yes, it's on the back cover description, but I hadn't read it since I started the book. One of my little quirks in reading a story is not to go back to the description time and again while I'm reading the actual book. It helps me with the verisimilitude.) But the dead woman is an outsider. If this book follows the true traditional mystery pattern, there will be more bodies.

And there are.

I read and watch so many mysteries with professional detectives that I'd forgotten what it was like to have an amateur sleuth be the lead. Absent is Lindsey with a badge, but present is Lindsey with intuition and a nose for asking the right questions. In fact, there is a little taste from the Sherlock Holmes stories here, with a police force slightly behind our lead character. It added a bit of spice to the mix and I enjoyed it.

The resolution I found nicely surprising and satisfying. Perhaps I wasn't reading closely, but it came out of the blue for me. Other readers might pick up on clues better than I did. What I also appreciated was the supporting cast. Another assumption I made about cozies was that they were populated by over-the-top, eccentric characters. In Hannah's book, I didn't find that. Sure there were some character tropes in play--especially with British-accented Kennedy and snobby Betty in the audio version* narrated by Amy Melissa Bentley--but all the folks in this story came across as real people. It was refreshing and fun.

The best thing about the Cozy Corner subscription service via Murder by the Book** is that you don't know what book you're receiving. It's like a birthday present each month. Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop was the February 2021 selection. As I mentioned before, it was a book with a style and a tone I likely would have just passed over earlier in my reading life. Now that I've read it, I happily look forward to the next book in charming series.


*Interestingly, the audio version has a different image for its cover.

 

**I highly recommend the Cozy Corner subscription service. It's only $99 (slightly more if you want to have the books shipped to you). There are two other subscription options available. Check the website for details.

How Long Until the Murder?

by Scott D. Parker

It's funny how various things show up at around the same time.

I'm reading the February book from Murder by the Book's Cozy Corner, MURDER AT THE BEACON BAKESHOP by Darci Hannah. It is the kind of book I expected when I thought of cozy mysteries: a woman discovers her cheating fiancee, leaves her cushy New York financial job, moves to Michigan, buys a lighthouse, and opens a bakery in a small town. 

The story is good and there is a lot of talk about the buying of things needed for the bakeshop, the meeting of the side characters, the preparing for opening day, and things like that. But there was a thought in the back of my mind: this is a mystery, right? Isn't there supposed to be a murder?

There is, of course, and it came more or less around the two-hour mark (I also checked out the audiobook from the library and listen to it when I'm doing home things and return to the physical book at night). I remember frowning. The murder didn't take place until the one-quarter mark? That's interesting, especially in light of the seeming penchant for modern novels to kill off a character really quickly, usually in chapter one. 

Compare that with your average Perry Mason TV episode. After I read a great article about the joy of Perry Mason, I ended up watching a few. Instead of laboriously reading all the descriptions over the nine seasons and the twenty-five plus episodes per season, I let the random number generator help me. It spit out a random number between one and nine to get the season, and then another random number between one and thirty to get the episode number. And I didn't even read the description. I just let the chosen episode play.

I watched three Perry Mason episodes this past week, all from the latter part of the series. In each, Perry barely, if at all, showed up in the beginning. Instead, we get what amounts to a twenty-minute build-up to the murder with all of the new characters. Only after the murder occurred does Perry swoop in and defend the accused. Heck, these episodes don't even bother with the hiring process. It's just a fade-in to the courtroom. 

So, by reading this one book and watching a trio of Perry Mason episodes, I discovered something new to me: the murder doesn't have to occur on page/chapter one. It's perfectly acceptable to introduce the characters and show their interactions before things get dire. In fact, in some styles of books, it might even be preferred.

All of this played into my current manuscript. I reached a natural stopping point and I printed it out. I gave it to a pair of early readers and asked them to read strictly for flow. It seemed like the story was flowing well, but the exciting parts, while the legwork was being built, were still a little bit in the future. Did the slow build work?

One of the early readers came back with a question: where was the next chapter? "Not written yet," was my reply. Well, get to it then was her last remark. She enjoyed the story so far and she understood the flow. We talked over my outline and I realized many of the next few scenes really didn't have to occur on screen. My main character--and reader--can experience those scenes from afar.

It was a huge boost of confidence for the manuscript and a coincidental bit of learning from Perry Mason and Darci Hannah. A new wrinkle in my ongoing and never-ending writer's education. 

What about y'all? Do you hold off killing off characters until deeper into the book or do you have them early in the book?

Enrolling in Cozy College

By

Scott D. Parker

I’m going to school again, and I couldn’t be more excited. I call it Cozy College, a year-long look into cozy and traditional mysteries. And I even have a professor.

My Preconceptions

Even though I spent my youth reading novels featuring The Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys, I didn’t truly become introduced to mystery and crime fiction as an adult until 2001 when I read Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I liked the harder-edged material and started to amass a list of like authors. Couple this reading with my discovery of pulp novels and authors of the past and I was firmly in the realm of the hard stuff.

When it came to traditional mysteries—the kind whose Golden Age was between the world wars, usually featuring a quirky detective with violence largely off-screen—I just never got into them. Throw in cozy mysteries with their cutesy titles and eccentric hooks and I dismissed them out of hand.

But something changed over the past few years and it all started with television. Masterpiece Mysteries and online streaming services showcase fantastic programs from around the world and many of them, while not cozy, are certainly firmly ensconced in the traditional mystery field. I’m thinking Unforgotten, Broadchurch, The Killing, Hinterland, Elementary, and, most recently, Knives Out and Before We Die. What they showed me was there didn’t have to be a lot of violence, blood, and language to create some rich characters and stories.

These shows were traditional mysteries, but not cozies, so something else needed to be added to the mix.

The other thing that helped change my mind also involved television. It begins with the word “Hall” and ends with the word “Mark.” Yes, I’m talking Hallmark, specifically Hallmark Christmas movies. In past years, I’d kinda sorta check the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas lineup and watch barely a handful, many of them unmemorable. In 2020, I went the opposite direction. I actively sought out and watched as many of them as I could. I would earmark certain movies and make sure to watch them or tape them. I’d set the VCR (yeah, really) to record the ones I wanted to finished if I had to go to bed on work nights. I started to recognize the actors, where they showed up in other movies, and basically had a field day in the coziness of a Hallmark Christmas.

That’s when I basically looked over at the mystery genre again with a decidedly open mind about cozy mysteries. Maybe they weren’t all that I thought they were.

The First Step

In December, seeking to merge my love of Christmas, Hallmark, and mysteries together, I went over to Houston’s Murder by the Book bookstore and picked up a couple of cozy Christmas mysteries. I finished one during the season, Dachshund in the Snow by David Rosenfelt. With a title like that, my preconceived ideas were all cutesy things where the titular hound solves the case. I was prepared for saccharine.

Didn’t get it.

I got a darn good book with a good mystery and a likeable narrator who is a chip off the block of past detectives like Donald Lam and Archie Goodwin. The novel was traditional but not necessarily cozy. Nonetheless, I was definitely intrigued, so much so that I went to my Libby app (for public libraries) and downloaded another audiobook in the series. And I decided to spend 2021 reading a lot more traditional and cozy mysteries. But I would need a guide to help chart my course.

Tthat’s when I got the email.

Murder by the Box’s Subscription Service

Just in time for Christmas, the owner of the bookstore, McKenna Jordan, sent an email describing the new Murder by the Box subscription service. In either 3-month or 12-month choices, readers can choose one of three themes and receive books. There is Best of the Month (a new hardcover), Crime Fiction Legends (two trade paperbacks) and—yes, I literally scanned the email quickly to make sure it would be a choice—Cozy Corner.

Bingo!

I was set. One mass market paperback in the cozy/traditional genre per month. I eagerly signed up in December—it was my Christmas gift to myself—and waited for January.

The book was brand-new: Bait and Witch by Angela M. Sanders. With the book came a postcard with a welcome message, the reason the book was selected, and immediate recommendations for similarly themed stories. Like Rosenfelt’s book, Batch and Witch was a good mystery but definitely more on the cozier side. I enjoyed it and am definitely looking forward to each month’s selections.

Maybe all those preconceived ideas I had about cozy mysteries were wrong from the jump. I hope this reading list of 2021—and the jumping off points—prove me wrong. It’s already started.

The Professor Is In

But what makes the Cozy Corner special is the person selecting the books, the Professor at Cozy College. John McDougall is the Event Coordinator at Murder by the Book. If you’ve seen the many author talks via the store’s YouTube channel since 2020, you’ll recognize him. He is the resident cozy expert. I reached out to John this week to ask him a few questions, including how this subscription idea came about and what drew him to cozies.

“A few years ago when Helen Ellis (author of American Housewife) signed at the store, she said she wished I could send her a cozy every month, and that's what unofficially started it. As subscription boxes became more popular, McKenna started playing with the idea of starting one for the store, but we never got all the logistics nailed down. In one of those weird coincidences, I mentioned to McKenna that I wanted to start something more official for the Cozy of the Month and she told me that she had also been thinking about wanting to start a subscription service. We were both really excited to get the program started for the holidays and offer the three different options.”

The genesis of his love for cozies stemmed from him reading Posted to Death by Dean James. “At that point I was just a customer at the store and David [Thompson] gave me a copy because he knew I liked other paranormal mysteries. After that I devoured the Ghost Hunter books by Victoria Laurie and I was hooked.”

“The thing that draws me to cozies is the character development. Cozy authors have to quickly create a main character you'll fall in love with, and a community that you'll want to return to over and again. But there's also depth there that people might not expect based on the covers or by calling them cozies. A prominent trope in the cozy genre is the main character going through a bad breakup or divorce and returning to her hometown to start over. A lot of times, that breakup is the thing that allows her to follow her dream, and the dream is usually starting her own business and rebuilding her life on her own terms. The genre has a lot of heart to it, in addition to some really stellar plots.”

In light of the chain of events and mindset shifts I had experienced, John’s words in this last paragraph really hit home for me. Here I was, having a predefined idea of what a cozy was, and basically, I was wrong. And the two books I’ve read so far have proven John’s point. I have already returned to the Andy Carpenter series and the second book in the Witch Way Librarian series will be published in September.

I haven’t been this excited about “reading assignments” in a long time. I am eager to learn more about the cozy genre, and I’m happy to have Professor John McDougall as a guide.

And it’s not too late to join Cozy College for 2021. The February book hasn’t been released yet. If you subscribe now, you’d have to buy Bait and Witch on your own, but you’d get every book from here on out on your 3- or 12-month subscription. If you’re in Houston, a full year is only $99. For twelve books! It’s only $135 if you're out of town and need the books shipped to you. The other themes have different prices, so I encourage you to head over to their website and have a look for yourself. 

You never know. Maybe one of your preconceived notions will disappear just like mine did.

Why Louise Penny’s Cozies Are Creepier Than My Noirs

by
John McFetridge

I guess this is a sub-category of Dave’s terrific One Stop Blog Shop “Literary vs. Genre,” topic, the Cozy vs. Noir. Or really, this is about how I learned to stop worrying and love cozies.

People have all kinds of reasons why they like those small village, quirky character, brilliant detective stories we call cozies. They can be like comfort food, spending time with “old friends,” seeing justice served, bad guys (or bad women, oh so may bad women) arrested and sometimes you get a good recipe for scones – whatever they are.

A few years ago Louise Penny burst onto the scene and I seemed to be running into her everywhere – Arthur Ellis Awards in Toronto (she won Best First Novel for Still Life), Bouchercon in Madison, BookExpo Canada – and she was always, as you would expect from a cozy writer, so nice.

Except her books aren’t nice. No cozy is nice. They’re creepy. Way creepier than my urban crime books.

Still Life is a terrific book. The setting is great, it’s a small village called Three Pines in an area of Quebec southeast of Montreal called the Eastern Townships. Pretty much the only rural part of Quebec with a history of English-speaking residents, though nowadays the majority is likely French. Three Pines is a great place to spend time. The people are so wonderfully... quirky.

Oh, and they’re also all cold-blooded, calculating murderers.

Okay, they’re not all murderers, but every single one of them could be. Think about that for a minute.

People keep getting murdered in this small town and the brilliant police detective Armand Gamache has to look at everyone as a suspect.

And that’s where cozies creep me out. Every one of these people, every relative of the deceased, every friend (ha!), acquaintance, neighbour, employer, employee -- everyone could reasonably have committed the murder. Everyone had a possible motive, possible means and apparently, the ability to do it.

And often the murder itself is creepy. Crossbow? Electrocution?

In my urban crime novels murder is the last resort of a business deal. Really, we’ve tried everything, bribery, negotation, compromise, everything, and it just didn’t work so someone had to be killed. And they were just shot. In the head. No one gets strung up in the woods or posed to look like they worship the Devil or anything like that. Characters in my novels would never stop to think about how someone was going to be killed. Oh, maybe they would want them killed in their own home or in their place of business to make the point that they’re always vulnerable because what’s really at stake is power and sometimes people have to prove they hold the more powerful position but if they can't manage that easily enough, anywhere will do really. And the police know pretty much right away who did it – at least which group did it, if not the specific triggerman.

In my urban crime novels the only people who kill someone to solve a problem are professional criminals, people who spend all day everyday breaking the law in one way or another. Even these criminals would be shocked if someone they knew killed a family member in order to inherit an old house.

But that happens all the time in cozies.

So, what do you think? Are cozies creepy?