Well, still “tis the season”, so to speak, so I hope you aren’t all quite sick of the holiday yet, as  I felt like revisiting an old personal favorite, and it seemed particularly appropriate to discuss one that started with a Christmas entry. With that in mind, I decided to revisit Charlotte MacLeod‘s Peter Shandy Mystery Series, specifically the first book, Rest You Merry.

Peter Shandy, tenured professor of horticulture at Balaclava Agricultural College doesn’t have quite the same idea of holiday cheer as his neighbors, as the college regularly holds a large public tourist attraction in an attempt to raise money for the college’s regular operation, clashing with Shandy’s love of a quiet holiday with a few relatives or close friends. So when he’s once again asked to contribute to the festive atmosphere, he snaps, hiring a company to install a grand, gaudy display intended to annoy rather than entertain… then immediately leaving town for a holiday cruise. But when the ship breaks down unexpectedly, he returns early to find a local librarian (and busybody) dead in his living room, apparently of an accident after breaking in to dismantle parts of Shandy’s display. Naturally, the police take the accident at face value, but Shandy (a somewhat obsessive individual) thinks there are a few details that don’t add up, and decides to look into it on his own.

The setting of a small academic community is an interesting parallel to the traditional English village more common in Cozies, and shares a number of traits in common that make both excellent sites for a murder mystery. Both are small, insular communities, where everyone knows everyone else, and all too often know one another’s dark secrets. Likewise, big, vibrant characters seem natural encounters in both settings, and this series certainly has plenty of those to enjoy. Shandy himself proves to be a clever, detail-oriented investigator who reminds me in many ways of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot – always a good thing! Indeed, many details of the series remind me of the “classic” Cozies of old, though this is much later than most of the “golden age” Cozies, with this entry written in the late 1970s.

One particular interesting thing that came to mind was how a book can change as it ages. I originally read this book years ago (probably decades…), and many of the things that I likely took for granted as normal then now strike me as being more than a bit odd. The most obvious is that whenever Shandy goes into someone’s house, the host seems interested in plying him with hard alcohol, often quite early in the day. It seems like he can’t get through a visit to any of his neighbors without one of them thrusting a glass full of bourbon into his hands. Admittedly, it might be that it’s the holidays, so a bit more “festivity” is socially acceptable, but it still seems a bit out of place now!

It’s also worth noting how some things have changed, which might be good or bad depending on your perspective. Peter Shandy is investigating a crime. He doesn’t sit down to crochet, or bake a cake, or operate his small business for a day or two between interviewing potential suspects and witnesses. This might put some people off, considering the modern Cozy’s love of hobby activities (which I do also love!), but there’s also something to be said for a mystery novel that is first and foremost about the mystery.

All told, I remember this as being a great start to a classic series by an author I’ve pretty much always enjoyed, and this most recent re-read did not disappoint. If you’re looking for a Cozy with great setting and characters, and the mystery being the most important part of the book, Rest You Merry is a great book to pick up.

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This time around, I want to talk about one of my favorite series as part of my efforts to discuss some of the most popular and recommended Cozy Mysteries listed on the site. David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter Mystery Series starts out with a bang with Open and Shut, the first of many Andy Carpenter books. Published in 2002, the series will be up to book nineteen in 2019. For those of us who like series with a lot of books, this is a great one!

Before I get started, I must state for the record that this series does contain some non-cozy elements. There are some adult situations (nothing is explicitly described, though) and some adult language. I know that some of you all want to avoid books that contain these things. However, the stories do have a lot of Cozy components.

Andy Carpenter is a defense attorney who lives in Paterson, New Jersey. Andy is not afraid to rock the boat, so to speak, when trying to defend his clients. His courtroom antics do not endear himself to the judges he appears before and probably sometimes push the limits of legal ethics. However, they are often successful.

Andy has a beautiful private investigator, Laurie Collins, working for him. Laurie and Andy on occasion mix professional and personal business together. On the whole, they make a great team who I am sure I would want working for me if I were accused of a crime!

Also included prominently in the series are a number of dogs, first and foremost of which is Andy’s Golden Retriever, Tara. This series makes it very apparent that David Rosenfelt is definitely a lover of dogs. (I haven’t read Rosenfelt’s Lessons from Tara: Life Advice from the World’s Most Brilliant Dog , but I’m guessing that a lot of us dog parents would disagree with Rosenfelt saying that Tara is even more brilliant than our own pups!)

Open and Shut is the story of Andy’s defense of Willie Miller, a death row inmate who Andy’s father had prosecuted successfully for murder seven years before when Andy’s father had been State’s attorney. Andy took on the appeal at the request of Andy’s father who would not go into more detail as to why he wanted Andy to work on the appeal. Andy was reluctant to take on this apparent loser of a case until his father told him, “It would be important to me.”

Andy goes on to explain why he felt compelled to do as his father asked:

There it was, the sentence from which there was no defense. In my family, when you asked a favor of someone, it was acceptable to refuse. But once the person said that it was important to them, it crossed a line and became an absolute imperative. We did not use those words frivolously, and they carried an awesome weight.

Needless to say, the mystery that Andy investigates is complicated and involves a number of secrets which must be revealed with many threads that must be unraveled so that justice may be done.

Open and Shut is a page-turner. Along with the investigation of the mystery and the court room work, the book holds my interest because of the characters, Andy’s terrific sense of humor, and his Golden Retriever, Tara. (Ok, so maybe she is the world’s most brilliant dog!) If you like your mysteries with a bit of humor and more than a bit of an edge, the Andy Carpenter Mystery Series may well be for you too!

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