The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Necessity is the Mother of Invention…

I remember when my husband first joined audible.com several years ago. He kept trying to get me to buy some of the audio books. Every three or four months I would go into their site and take a look to see if any of my favorite authors’ books were included in their very big library of books. I was always disappointed to see that they had very few authors who I would actually "choose to choose." So, I stayed with my local library, preferring to get my audio books on their book cassettes… since my library carried a lot of my favorite authors. 

At one point, I decided to expand my horizons (mostly because I was running out of library audio books) and I found that I actually enjoyed listening to "regular" mysteries. While they wouldn’t have been my first choices, I discovered that I actually enjoyed them a lot! If I had been provided a large menu of authors like M. C. Beaton, P. D. James, Agatha Christie,  and Ngaio Marsh at audible.com I never would have tried what they had to offer…. authors like Jeffery Deaver, John Grisham,  and James Patterson… all authors who I enjoy…. now.

Hmmm…. the cozy authors who I listed in the above paragraph just happen to all be women, and the authors audible.com carried just happened to all be men. (That is not to say that to be a cozy mystery author you must be a woman. But I have to admit that the majority of my favorite cozy authors are women… and I’m not talking about a 70% type of majority…. I would venture to say that I am talking about somewhere around 90%!)

Of course, if you have spent any time on my alphabetical authors’ pages, you have seen that I also enjoy reading a lot of non-cozy mystery books…. Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter, and Harlan Coben just to name a few.  But, when choosing my next book to read, I usually want to go with a tried and true cozy mystery.

Oh, and almost as an aside…….. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I recently checked and found that Ann Granger is now being carried by audible. I wonder if the purchasing agent mistook Ann as Andy when contracting for those audible books. Either way, although I have read most of her books, I have all of the available titles on my queue to purchase!

 

What Happened to Gold Medal?

As I was getting together the list of Edgar Awards in the Best Paperback Originals category, I was surprised to see several publishing companies that I simply did not recognize. What a surprise that Playboy actually published books… and not just their monthly magazines… In 1981, Thomas H. Cook’s Blood Innocents was up for the Edgar’s Best Paperback Original prize, with Playboy being his publisher. Who’d have known!?! I had no idea that Playboy published anything without glossy pictures!

And, ending in 1978, there were several books that were put out by the Gold Medal publishing house…  Who’d have known that not only cake-bakers and Olympiads would strive for the Gold Medal?

Whatever happened to some of the "old" publishing houses? Several years ago, when I was still very active in my mystery reading groups and forums, I "heard" cozy mystery readers complain that some of their favorite authors were being dropped by the very same publishing houses that the authors had helped finance.  (I wish I could remember some of the authors’ names…. but one thing I do remember…. the authors were famous cozy mystery authors.) But, I think that there lies the problem. Are cozy mysteries given the same amount of "legitimacy" as other types of fiction?

I remember on one particular reading forum board, a woman from the non-mystery fiction group referred to mysteries as mind "candy"…. apparently, she thought of mysteries as just being something sweet and frothy, frosting (on top of frosting) on a cake, summer beach-time books… nothing of any importance.  I am sure she didn’t mean to label our mystery reading group as a mindless group of twits, but let’s face it, that is certainly what she inferred with her "candy" comment.

I have to admit, though, that I didn’t take it personally…. I enjoy good non-mystery fiction, but I just happen to enjoy mysteries more. I particularly enjoy cozy mysteries, but that’s just me!

 And oh, by the way, I happen to enjoy candy, too!

 

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.

Derringers for Hire!?!

Well, I finally found the Derringer Award winners for 2006. I have posted them on the Derringer Award pages. As, I have said before, I think that ALL of the nominated authors are WINNERS…

Coming up, at the end of May, the Bouchercon nominations will be announced  for their 2007 awards. (I will write more on the different awards that are presented at the Bouchercon in a future blog.)

Isn’t it great that there are so many wonderful ways "our mystery authors" get the recognition they so rightfully deserve?

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