The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

Aha! So That's Who He Is!

I continue to work on the Edgar Awards…. the Best First Novel category. Well, I am embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t know who Richard L. Fish is…. other than I know that there is a special Edgar Award which is given every year in his name. Well, imagine my surprise this afternoon when I discovered that he won the Best First Novel in 1963 (for a novel called The Fugitive.) He wrote many other books…. as Richard L. Fish and Robert L. Pike. Aha! Now I know….

And, I have to admit that there are many other names who don’t mean a thing to me on those lists. But, when I stumble on the names of authors who I do "follow" now….from years ago,  I am gently surprised about the ebb of time… I don’t even remember a time when these authors were not in my repertoire of authors…. but, doing the Best FIRST Novel category…. I am reminded that they weren’t always best selling authors.

Dell Shannon (Case Pending) won the Best First Novel in 1961… now I know I wasn’t reading mysteries back then… no matter how cozy they were!  And how about 1965’s roster of Best First Novel authors…. Harry Kemelman (Friday the Rabi Slept Late) and Amanda Cross (In the Last Analysis.) Tony Hillerman (The Blessing Way) in 1971, and The Thomas Berryman Numbers introduced James Patterson in 1977. A few years later, another Patterson came into the mystery book world with his first novel… In 1980, Richard North Patterson won the Best First Novel for The Lasko Tangent.  Five years later, Jane Haddam/Orania Papazoglou was nominated for her Sweet, Savage Death.

I have enjoyed seeing when different authors "pop up" on some of these award lists. It is always interesting to see how a first best novel leads to later best novels, and in some of the authors’ cases… many best novel awards.

Another author I haven't read… yet…

I just added a new author to my list:  Shirley Rousseau Murphy. I belong to a forum, and some of the posting members thought that her Joe Grey Cat Mystery series should have been on my cozy site. I haven’t read any of her books yet, but when I looked her up, yes indeed, her books look like they qualify as cozy.

I know that I have said this before, but I always enjoy hearing about a new author who has a lot of books out. By "new" I mean new to me. Isn’t it fun when you find an author who has… let’s say… seven books out already?

An example of this comes to my mind… When I "discovered"  M. C. Beaton, I started by reading her Agatha Raisin series. It took me a little while to "catch up" with the recently released, and I got a lot of enjoyment from reading those books.  When I read the synopsis of her Hamish Macbeth books, they simply didn’t interest me. I had found, in the past, that when I was a devoted fan of one of an author’s series, I generally didn’t like the other series that author wrote. That had happened on several occasions.

Anyway, I finally "made" myself read the first Hamish Macbeth book. I could NOT believe I had been putting that series off! I absolutely loved it! (And still do!) As a matter of fact, I have found that I much prefer the recent Hamish books over the recent Agatha books. 

Steve Allen… the mystery book author!?!

I have finally tracked down the first book of Steve Allen’s mystery book series! I used to enjoy seeing Steve Allen on his frequent visits to television talk shows. His mind was so quick… very funny, very bright. So, when I discovered that he also wrote a mystery series featuring Steve and his wife, actress Jayne Meadows, I knew that I would have to give his books a try.

I already own four of the seven books in the series, and am so happy that I finally found The Talk Show Murders, which is the first of the series. I just started reading it last night, and I must say that it is really a kick to "see" people who I remember from the 80s… Toni Tennille, Burt Reynolds, and a number of other people… who some of you may also remember.

Allen wrote the mystery novels between 1982 and 1999. I know that I have previously written about how I don’t like reading series out of chronological order, so my four books have just sat on my book shelf…. patiently awaiting the first of the series. And, now that I have it, I can’t wait to make my way through this series. The person who told me about the series loved it, and I have high hopes that I will love it, too. I mean, a book written by Steve Allen that is a mystery…… how couldn’t I love it!

I Couldn't Sleep, So I Thought I Would Read…..

Well, another one bites the dust! I am always very sad when I find that I absolutely cannot be faithful to an author who I have followed through several books. 

Tonight, I found that I could not sleep, so I got my current trusty cozy mystery novel out to read, in hopes that I would be able to get so interested in the mystery that I didn’t just lie there in bed worrying about things that are simply not big enough worries to worry about… As I read the book, I kept finding myself worrying about things that weren’t worth worrying about…. and then I found myself worrying about how I was going to get out of bed to go find another book to read… without waking my husband.

As any devoted cozy mystery reader knows……. we should be enjoying our novels, not wondering how we are going to be able to get another one easily…. (As I am writing this, I am thinking that I sound like an addict, wondering how I am going to get my next "fix" without attracting attention!) That’s not how our novels should make us feel…

So, before I go get another cozy from my "TBR" pile of books (TBR=To Be Read), I find myself at my computer, writing this blog, almost as an homage to one of my once-favorite-cozy series. I am truly sorry to take this author off of my favorite authors list, but I find that it’s time to do so. I know that I won’t be revisiting the books’ characters in the future and I will miss them, not so much as the characters they have become, but as the characters they were when I first got to know them… several books ago.

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