I just finished another mystery by one of my favorite mystery authors, and I’m not sure I am very happy about it. Actually, if I hadn’t been happy about reading it, I would have not finished it, but I am unhappy about the setting.
Let me use this example to demonstrate what I am talking about:
In the very popular Murder, She Wrote television show, Cabot Cove was a little haven of friends and “regulars” who we all grew to enjoy spending time with. Doc might have been grumpy, but he was “our” Doc. Amos might not have been the best sheriff, but he was “our” sheriff. As much as we enjoyed our “regulars”>>> we didn’t begrudge Jessica as she occasionally globe-trotted. OK, some of the globe-trotting shows seemed a little more like boondoggles, but we knew that the next week, we would be back with “our friends.” An occasional week without Amos and Doc was OK. But, what about when Jessica moved away from Cabot Cove? Hmmmm…..
Now that it is taking me longer and longer to make it through one book, do I really enjoy it when my favorite sleuths head out of town for the entire book, and leave behind some of my other favorite characters? No, I do not!
I just finished a Cozy Mystery where the main sleuth left the “village type setting” and took with her, my LEAST favorite regular character in the series. YIKES!!! I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad if my sleuth had taken her little vacation with my very favorite character in the series >>> and by that I mean that I like a secondary character even more than the sleuth! This meant that I didn’t get to “spend time” with a well-developed character who I really enjoy.
I know that places like Cabot Cove might have started with a population of less than a thousand at the beginning, and that after all of the shows, the population probably dwindled down to less than one hundred, with the cemetery having to buy up more and more land parcels for all of the victims Jessica sought justice for. But, when an author spends time developing her/his characters, why “drop” those characters for an entire book?
This type of “let’s take a vacation from the very same village the readers love” switcheroo has me as grumpy as Cabot Cove’s Doc!
What about you? Do you miss the “regular” characters in your favorite mystery series when the sleuth leaves town in order to do her/his sleuthing with a whole new group of characters?
Edie Dykeman says
Susan Wittig Albert did that once or twice in the China Bayles series and I did not enjoy the book at all. If she had not at least sprinkled a little bit about what was going on back home, I probably would have skipped the book entirely.
I remember watching Murder, She Wrote and hated it when Jessica went to New York and other places. We read and love these books (and TV shows) and don’t want them messed with, even if the author is trying to branch out or make it more interesting for them to write, and supposedly for us to read.
I’m with you all the way!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Edie, my husband and I are making our way through all of the Murder, She Wrote episodes, and we have skipped several. So far, the only ones we have been skipping are the ones where another sleuth comes in and does the show for that week. But, some of the shows where Jessica went to visit one of her MANY, MANY, MANY friends, we have watched and then wondered why we watched them…
Denise says
I agree. If JB Fletcher was not in Cabot Cove often I didn’t bother to watch.There have been books by authors I like and if they have their main character leave home without friends and family I don’t even bother to read it. I think that the townsfolk/friends and the town are part of what makes me keep coming back for more.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Denise, I totally agree with your statement about “the townsfolk/friends and the town are part of what makes me keep coming back for more.” Since that is part of what makes a Cozy a Cozy, I always feel a little “cheated” when my favorite sleuths leave home without my favorite secondary characters.
Maria (BearMountainBooks) says
Gosh, what an interesting post! I suspect an author moves regions and characters to have a chance to make the suspects less obvious. If a book is written in a given area and a new character or two is introduced it automatically makes the newbies … possible suspects! So you throw more characters in to confuse matters and before you know it, you’re juggling 6 or 10 characters, none of whom are developed well…the readers hate them all…egads! It’s a mess…
I don’t mind a change of setting, but I do get attached to side characters. I like to see at least one or two of them repeated in each book or given a special task or pertinent part. The setting can be of comfort as well, especially if it happens back at the ending of the book where things are coming together–a sense of coming home.
Maria
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Maria, you’re right about the newbies being pretty obvious possible suspects. In the case of the Cozy I just finished, I wondered why my sleuth took the character I least liked with her. I missed the other secondary characters, and the sleuth had absolutely no contact with them after the first chapter.
linda says
Danna, I think this is what bothered me so much about Neveda Barr’s last book ” The Burn.” To me this storyline was so out of character for Anna Pigeon. Anna was taken out of her National Parks in order to recuperate but why, oh why have her recuperate in New Orleans? And, why oh why, have the book ‘s storyline subject be child kidnapping and prostitution?
This was such a dark story for me. I really can’t say why this bothered me so much, but it did!
I would have thought Anna could have recuperated being with her sister who is supposed to be a psychiatrist, for goodness sake! Who would have been better for Anna than to be with her own sister, with family after suffering a horrible experience that Anna did in the previous book?
If I were to have experienced such a tramatic time as Anna did in that previous book, don’t send me into such a situation as Anna got thrown into in “Burn.”
By-the-way, yes I do realize these story lines are fiction. And yes I do know what happened in “Burn” does happen in real life.
Also, I don’t like it when an author “forgets” some of her regulars. I see on Nevada Barr’s web page that Anna does indeed get to go back to her nationa parks. Thank goodness. Can hardly wait to see Anna back where she belongs!
Marja says
Ha-ha, I agree with you 100% on Anna. I would have loved for her to recuperate with Molly and Fred the Fed. Her memories of NY, touched by the memory of her first husband, could have healed over some more, and I’m sure she could have gotten involved in some mystery in NY!
“Burn” did give Barr a chance to change up and write a story that wasn’t entirely from Anna’s POV, but I wasn’t wild about it either, for the “dark” reasons you cite. And I missed Barr’s deep love of nature.
Ann Philipp says
I agree, I get very attached to characters and I’m disappointed if I don’t see them.
Danna, you are too funny! – the population of Cabot Cove “probably dwindled down to less than one hundred, with the cemetery having to buy up more and more land parcels”!
But, underneath that joke, I wonder if the author thinks about the odds – this many murders can’t happen in this small of a population – so they get creative and send their characters out-of-town.
Another reason I think this happens is that the author goes on vacation and discovers someplace they’d like to write about. Researching another book is a good excuse to travel!
Laura says
Ann, here is another thing to consider: No matter where the main character travels, there is a murder. I would think there was something suspicious about that!
Ann Philipp says
You’re right! Suspicious indeed!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ann, I have actually thought about authors… and wondered if they take tax deductible trips to scout out new locations their sleuths could go to.
Laura, your comment about death following our sleuths no matter where they go made me think of the 1968 Rosalind Russell movie “Where Angels Go… Trouble Follows“>>> I guess we could substitute the “Angel” for “Jessica”!
linda says
I read so many of these series books that sometimes(1) I forget these people are fictional and (2) these characters become almost like family or friends in real life!
Ann Philipp says
Linda – I think that’s a sign of a really good writer. Plus it also shows that you have a really good imagination – when you can experience the characters in such a way that you forget someone made them up.
linda says
Ann, I love to read . Even by reading a mystery, people can still learn alot and be entertained at the same time.
Ricky says
The first author I remember doing that was John MacDonald (remember him?). Whenever he wrote a book without his wonderful main series characters, it bombed, in my opinion.
Ricky
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ricky, I never have read a Travis McGee mystery…
Eva says
Ai, yai, yai! You guys hit the nail. This is just the kind of thing that I absolutely hate — a nice lady sleuth (Jessica, of course) who lives in a nice village with all kinds of nice quirky people, and where everything is happening, but then she ups and goes to New York, got an apartment there, travels to all sorts of places and leaving all the regulars behind. I hate it! I hate it! I miss all the familiar people in the village. And, whenever she’s not in Cabot Cove, I do not enjoy the movie. Sometimes, I just do not even bother to watch it.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Eva, my husband and I were talking about the nice-lady-who-leaves-her-village scenario. We were trying to think of all of the Cozy Mystery series where that actually works. We came up with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, but couldn’t think of any others that we enjoyed equally when she was at home VS when she left her village.
Deahna says
Well, I have never seen Murder She Wrote on TV but I have read a number of books where she has left her home. I liked those where all the characters I knew had their own role to play, like lots of phoning back for information or some of them turning up at her destination. I did not like the ones where she was headed somewhere alone or with a secondary character I knew little of. The plot might have been interesting but I did miss ‘seeing’ the people I loved.
I think this applies to most cozys I’ve read unless there wasn’t a big ‘home base’ anyway like with Hercule Poirot. Neither his friend Captain Hastings nor Inspector Japp turn up in every London-based book so I didn’t really miss them when he went elsewhere.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Deahna, oh my goodness! I think you are probably the first person I have “met” who has never seen a Murder, She Wrote television episode!
I am sure I would have enjoyed the book I was talking about in the entry>>> if the sleuth had called home and had some interaction with the other characters who I have become attached to.
You’re so right about Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp not always being around. But, I have to admit that I love the relationship between Hastings and Poirot and, in my case, that relationship makes the books all the better.
Ginger Blymyer says
Having been a world traveler much of my life, I love to read the cozys that stay in the same place with the same characters. The same goes for the English tv shows, I love to be acquainted with all the people and know they will be there. That was why I moved to New Hampshire, Snowville in 1978 and bought an inn. I wanted to live that “cozy” life and I did for 30 years in the little town on the lake, with the white church and the little store with a lunch counter. I still miss it.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ginger, Snowville sounds like a great place for a Cozy Mystery series and an even greater place for a “cozy” life!
Andie says
I have to agree but with a couple of exceptions – when there is a very good “one-off” book that takes place away from home base.
Two that come to mind, that I consider excellent stories, are Rita Lakin’s Getting Old Is To Die For, which takes the main character and her sister to New York. (An earlier episode was on a cruise ship but that fit well with the Florida base location.)
The second is Maggody in Manhattan by Joan Hess – I love the Maggody series – and some of the scenes with the secondary characters interacting with people in the big city are absolutely hilarious.
I recently re-read this book and found it just as funny as when I first read it and picked up on a couple of things that I must have missed the first time through.
It was certainly worth revisiting.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Andie, good examples of exceptions to the rule…
linda says
Didn’t the Maggody crowd go to Memphis to visit Graceland in one book? Seems to me they did! But didn’t this crowd also go to Las Vegas one time? I read so much and so many mystery series that I do sometimes get these people and the books mixed up.. But I love them all!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Linda, I don’t remember if Maggody visited Memphis, but I sort of recall that it might have been a movie about Elvis… I can’t remember…
(That was a wild and crazy crowd!!!)
linda says
Danna, So many of these mystery series have been around for so long that I too just cannot remember some of the plots. So, this week none of my local libraries had any new releases that I wanted to read, so I just picked out some of my favorites’ first book in the series.
I have read the “Harry Potter” books over and over and I discover something new each time I read these. I do the same with “The Thorn Birds” and “Gone With the Wind”. I shouldn’t have any trouble rereading any of these others.
Kris says
What a great post! Murder, She wrote is one of my favorite shows of all times. But, when the series headed to the big city with different characters, it lost it’s dynamic. Gone was the familiarity that made it so endearing. You don’t “tweak” a good thing!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Kris, I remember when Jessica left Cabot Cove and took an apartment in New York. She said that it would only be for short intervals, and that she would return to Cabot Cove often. I wonder if Doc got tired of taking care of her home “while she was away…” I don’t remember her doing a lot of commuting back to her home base.
Angela says
I don’t mind a change in location as long as it’s not a permanent change, unless of course that is an established premise of the series. Sometimes I kind of like the change of pace and the chance to get to know more about the main sleuth’s background or a secondary character’s back story. Someone mentioned China Bayles going off in one of the books and I actually liked that story. I felt that it allowed us to get some history on China’s family and let us get to know her mother a little better. As long as I know that the sleuth will be back in her own environment with the people I’ve come to care about by the next book, a change of scene and a chance to get to know some new people doesn’t bother me at all.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Angela, thanks for sharing the other point of view with us. There’s something to be said about knowing your sleuth will return to the home-base which made the series successful. Also, it probably energizes the author when he/she is able to introduce a whole new slew of characters.
Deborah says
I mostly do miss having the regular supporting cast around when the main character goes off somewhere else. Definitely in the “Murder She Wrote” series this was a problem! No coziness in NYC! I stopped watching. However, some mystery authors seem to handle it better than others to the point that sometimes it doesn’t bother me. For instance, in Mary Daheim’s bed and breakfast series, the main character sometimes travels with her side-kick cousin and their husbands, and that has worked pretty well for me a couple of times. On the other hand, Jeanne M. Dams’ Dorothy Martin travels with her second husband back to the US where she lived with her first husband, and that did not go so well to me. I wished they were back in England where they belonged! I think like so many other things it depends on the plot of the mystery itself, and maybe the mood I’m in when I read it influences my reaction, too.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Deborah, I think that taking along three of the regular characters is something that works VS taking along a very minor (and not liked by me!) secondary character. (Of course, I very well could be the only person not to like this know-it-all secondary character!)
linda says
The only thing I see about characters like Jessica and her group on “Murder, She Wrote” is that whenever there would be “new” people, or guest stars in that week’s episode, we could be certain that one of those new people were either the person who was going to get the axe, or they were the people welding the axe. That sort of ‘killed’ the suspense for me. Roddy McDowell was the killed and the killer a few times, if I remember right!
On the daytime soaps, it seemed the person getting killed was a person who either wanted off the show, or was fired. The obvious person doing the killing was a person whose contract was about up and one the producers couldn’t decide to rehire.
I hated it when the person, the muderer or the mudered was a favorite character. But then, I remember the character Roger Thorpe, of the “Guilding Light” was killed off 5 times!!!!!
I loved “Murder, She Wrote.” Too bad there isn’t a show like that to take it’s place. I always thought it would be neat to go on one of those “Mystery cruises.”
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Linda, I read somewhere, a long time ago, that Angela Lansbury liked to employ actors on her show who needed to make guest starring roles in order to be allowed to qualify for their medical insurances. I always appreciated that (unsubstantiated!) fact…
linda says
This was a very nice and decent thing for Angela Lansbury to do Danna. Maybe I will think differently about these guest stars while I am watching the reruns again and again.
Have any of you ever watched the Christmas movie ‘Mrs. Santa Claus” with Angela Lansbury? This movie is a musical. I didn’t even know that she was a dancer and a singer! This is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies. I have to watch this at least once every Christmas season. Great movie. The only thing, I have a terrible time getting the song “Avenue A” out of my head for several days!
Judith says
One of the first things I ever saw Angela Lansbury in was a Judy Garland movie where she was a rival singer, so I have always thought of her as a musical performer. She was the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast – and she is still performing! I saw her a couple years ago on Broadway in A Little Night Music. She was fantastic!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Judith, I remember The Harvey Girls with Lansbury being the “bad girl with a heart of gold”… Also, wasn’t she on Broadway in Sweeney Todd? Judith, how lucky that you got to see her on Broadway!
Mary Joy says
I’m just reading this whole post Of October 1 ’11 on Cozy Sleuths who leave their Villages, etc. My question really was redundant and I don’t know how I ever missed this original post. I was glad for all the feedback on both times and see the majority of people agree that we like our sleuths at home or at least with their “peeps” around.
Funny, being the mystery lover that I am, I never really watched the Murder She Wrote TV series. I caught pieces of the shows here and there, but did not view steadily. This may be a great series to buy and watch NOW, during the dire reruns, nothing to watch period we are in at this time.
I also wanted to tag on to this post because I saw Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta Jones in A Little Night Music also. She was wonderful!
One more thought – I wish some network would do a cozy series. My sister gave me an English series for my birthday a couple of years ago called Murder in Suburbia. It had two seasons, but was great and ticked off so many of the boxes of criteria we love in our cozies. I hope I did not post previously on this series.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Mary Joy, your question wasn’t at all “redundant”!
As many times as they re-air Murder, She Wrote, you shouldn’t have any problem finding the show on a channel (or two!) IF you’re interested in catching a show.
I love Murder in Suburbia! I have my entry all written up (I write them long-hand before posting) and really should get it posted.
Sheila says
Angela Lansbury had a long career in Hollywood and movies before she became Jessica Fletcher – she started as a ‘starlet’ . My favourite film of hers though is probably Bedknobs and Broomsticks!
SALLY says
I liked the Susan Wittig Albert book where she went to her mother’s old home WITH HER MOTHER but didn’t care much for the Shaker village one. The first one was more interesting because she learned more about her mother and her family. I think it is better if the sleuth takes other regular characters along or keeps in touch with them. I do like to see interesting locations. Also, we usually know that the regular characters DIDN’T DO IT so the killer has to be the new people.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sally, I thought that the regular characters never committed the crimes, but have been caught off-guard a few times. Rita Mae Brown had the culprit be the husband of one of her regular characters one time, which totally surprised me.
Anna H. says
I remember watching the Murder She Wrote series with my mom while I was growing up. Like other readers, I didn’t like it when she took off to NY or London. But recently I’ve read the Donald Bain/Jessica Fletcher novels, a couple which took place in England and another one set in my area, Washington DC. I must admit that I liked them because they give a lot of details about the surroundings, scenery, restaurants, tourist sites, etc. They are sort of like travelogues. Lately I have been reading the latest in a series of cozy murders set in a small Southern town. I must admit that I was getting bored with the story because it was so repetitive of the earlier books! Same town, same people, same pets, same relationships going nowhere, etc. But I plodded through the books because I paid for them and I felt that I had to get my money’s worth out of them. Pure torture! I kept falling asleep after reading for 5 minutes. I won’t name the author, but I think I’m done with her books. Maybe her detective should head off to the big city in a future book–it would be something different and maybe more interesting! Recently, I picked up another book recommended by other mystery book sites, but I immediately didn’t like the characters. Everyone seemed so mean and snarky. Do I want to stay with these characters for 300 pages? But again I said to myself: I paid for this and darn it, I WILL finish it! I put the book down a week ago and will take it up again someday. But is it worth more torture to read a book I don’t really like? Is there something wrong with my attitude?
Danna - cozy mystery list says
There you go, Anna H. A great way for an author to get out of a writing rut would be to change the location… hopefully. But, I am a firm believer that some authors should simply quit writing their mystery series when their books get stale and repetitive. I have such an awful time “abandoning” my favorite authors. I keep thinking that if I read just one more of their mysteries, I’ll see that they got back on track. Unfortunately, that is usually not the case, and then I find myself asking “Why did I just read that doggone, crummy mystery?”
I have my fifty page rule>>> If I don’t get involved with a book by page 50, I’m out of there! I just wish I could stick to that rule with my favorite authors. It usually takes me three or four mysteries before I finally pull the plug.
linda says
When I first starting reading the “Murder,She Wrote” novels, I couldn’t find these books on the library shelves because I kept looking under the F’s for Jessica Fletcher. When I asked the librarian about this she looked at me funny and told me to try looking under the B’s for Bain! Sometimes I can’t understand why God gave me a brain when I sometimes forget to use it!!!
Sherri says
This is a very interesting post topic. I think we generally like that familiarity in a book as we feel we are connecting with old friends.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
I totally agree with you, Sherri. Our favorite characters become like old friends…
Marja says
I think the most successful cozy series have a main or secondary character involved with something that brings events to their town, e.g., Benni Harper works with a museum that brings various exhibits to their town. We have all the lovely characters, and usually a fairly varied and well-created set of “new” characters, with complicated motivations, so we can’t instantly guess who the murderer is.
I’ll follow a character out of their “cozy” environment if one or two of her “regulars” is along with her for the adventure. Sometimes if it’s someone who rubs her the wrong way, that makes it more interesting; sometimes, more irritating. And yes, I like it when the main character calls home to reassure her friends or to seek information or keep in touch with a situation developing on the home front.
If I really love characters (and they do seem like family, don’t they?) I’ll follow them to keep posted on the new developments in their lives!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Marja, I find myself disappointed when my sleuths leave town and don’t take their regulars along with them, but I feel like I have to read the mysteries where they leave for the very thing you mentioned: I want to “keep up” with them.
susie says
This is a great question, and one I’ve wondered about a lot. I imagine sometimes authors change “the world” just to keep themselves from becoming bored with their characters, or in the case of amateur sleuths, to make it plausible when they keep stumbling across dead bodies. I am in the interesting position of thinking about the third book I am writing in a cozy series, with the first two contracted, but not yet published. I have no reader base at this point, so I have no idea if readers will be annoyed if I switch up the setting in this third book. Before I saw this post, I thought readers might enjoy the change of pace, but now I’m rethinking this completely! Thanks!!! 🙂
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Susie, it does look like the majority of us want our Cozy Mystery sleuths to stay in their “villages” with the same well-developed characters, doesn’t it? It seems that if our sleuths do leave town (which, let’s face it, we all do) we want them to take along the other “regulars” we enjoy reading about…
Maria (BearMountainBooks) says
I’m taking notes!
I read one series where I liked the secondary character better–and the author finally started writing a series with the character. It’s not cozy, it’s more thriller: Robert Crais. His original series is about Elvis Cole, but his Joe Pike character is…more compelling somehow. So now I tend to follow the Joe Pike ones!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Maria, I have one Cozy series in which I wouldn’t mind “following” one of the secondary characters to his own series. The main character is a little bland, but he makes up for it.
Jackie says
Agreed, a long change of scenery is annoying. The MOST annoying thing is when an author “tricks” the reader. Mary Daheim had a character trying to solve a murder in Scotland – she brought along all the main characters – but at the end we find out there was no murder at all; it had all been set-up to keep the main character “busy” while traveling. Not amused. I do like it when the mystery is not always a murder – there are lots of mysterious things out there to delve into!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Jackie, that sounds an awful lot like the “lost year” on the television show called Dallas. I didn’t watch the show, but I have heard about the shower scene where one of the characters (who I think was supposed to be dead) comes out.
linda says
PAM was just dreaming, Danna!
MJ says
It’s fine if authors on occasion chose different locations, but take their main characters with them. I didn’t care for Susan Wittig Albert’s different locale ones, either. One author I like a lot is Kathryn Hall Page. She has done several different locations. HOWEVER, one time the story was set in Norway and the main characters were her neighbor (Pix) and Pix’s daughter. That was really weird because it didn’t involve the usual main character (Faith Fairchild) at all!!
What I really don’t like is when the storyline involves a boyfriend/significant other/husband and then in subsequent books they might be sent off to another state/city and are not part of the story. I like a continuing story between the characters. If it involves a male and female relationship, I want to follow it through in all the subsequent books (and not just by phone conversations). It adds another dimension to the story. Most likely this is done so the female lead can solve the mystery without any male help, thus supposedly creating a strong female character. Both Jane Cleland and Susan Wittig Albert (and others I can’t think of right now) do this!
A good author can include the male character without diminishing the role of the female character. Not all the books I read have a romantic storyline, which is fine if that is the way the stories are developed from the beginning. But if a romantic character is introduced, then don’t send him off to ‘Timbuktu’ in every other book – keep him part of each book.
Julia says
I just had to throw in, in reference to Katherine Hall Page, that the book that took place in Norway was actually my favorite. For a very long time I got the feeling that KHP didn’t actually like Faith’s character, certainly not as much as she liked Pix. It was more comfortable reading a book centered on Pix and Ursula than feeling like KHP was nudging Faith along like a recalcitrant child. I don’t like it when authors idolize their main character (such as Patricia Wentworth did with Miss Silver), but at least a little affection would be nice.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
MJ, at least the boyfriend/significant other/husband is the same character!
Margaret says
I don’t really mind when Authors take the Characters out of their “home base” as long as the story touches back to the “home base”. I understand Authors need to “broaden their horizons”. I’m sure it can be really boring to write the “same ole…” in every book. I travel frequently so I don’t mind a little change of venue in my books but I still like them to keep the same flavor. I will admit sometimes when characters travel the story gets to far out. Some of the Murder She Wrotes that left Cabot Cove were okay, like when they traveled to other quaint locales (Amish Country, Truck Stops, etc.). The episodes I truly disliked are the ones without Jessica!!! I really don’t like when Authors remove the main characters or make them secondary/useless. I would prefer they just end the series and start a new one.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Margaret, my husband and I simply didn’t watch the Murder, She Wrote episodes where Jessica didn’t do the sleuthing.
I’m all for authors starting new series – when they feel their sleuths are stale and just sort of going through the same motions… sort of like when a hit television show calls it quits while they are on top, instead of continuing until it’s just a pathetic imitation of what it once was. I do, however, wish the authors would keep the same name they “became famous with” instead of adding a new pseudonym to their resumes.
linda says
Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind a storyline from a favorite author going to another locale but, what would Bill Crider’s Sheriff Dan Rhodes be without his dispatcher Hack Jensen and his jailer Lawton? Also, it would seem to me that Sheriff Dan would have a very hard time getting away from his feral hogs without the help of his deputy Ruth Grady. I love this series. This is a down home, down to Earth kind of mystery that is wonderful reading. But the stories would sure be missing something without these 3 characters, let alone without Dan’s wife Ivy to help keep Dan grounded.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Linda, he’d just have to take the whole kit and caboodle with him!
Sheila says
I have the opposite view of many of you, in that I quite like it when the sleuth is in a different place from usual. I like the change of scenery and imagine that the sleuth has to work harder because of being in unfamiliar places! I enjoy almost all the Murder She Wrote episodes wherever they are set, except the ones in Ireland – I find those to be rather stereotyped and maybe a bit patronising to the Irish. I do like secondary characters but I really read mysteries for the puzzle – I like trying to work out who did it and who will be the first to “be axed” and it can be too easy when for example it’s Cabot Cove and there are a couple of newcomers! So I don’t mind about the setting changing, what I don’t like is when the format changes, eg when a cosy turns dark or, like Margaret said, the sleuth disappears altogether! (though I understand why sometimes Jessica was not in the show or only did a bit at the beginning and end, introducing the story (I presume it is to save filming time, get enough stories ‘in the can’ or because Angela Lansbury needed a break) but I don’t like it!)
linda says
The person to be “axed” seems to be the meanest of the bunch. Sometimes I would like the meany to be accused, then maybe later found innocent. Might be different!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sheila, I know that there are several Cozy Mystery authors who actually use different locations in all of their books. One such author who comes to mind is Margot Arnold. I have all of the books in Arnold’s Penny Spring (anthropologist) & Sir Toby Glendower (archaeologist) in my book shelf, but every time I go to pick a new author, for some reason, I tend to gravitate toward a series that has one given location, even though I have heard really good things about this series…
Judith says
Another series that uses different locations is Maddy Hunter’s Passport to Peril series. In that series, the supporting characters join the main character on the various tours – so you get some continuity with each location
Julia says
I admit I didn’t like the ones where Jessica traveled, but I did like a lot of the episodes where there was a ‘guest sleuth,’ mostly because I invariably liked the guest sleuths (particularly Keith Michell of ‘Six Wives of Henry VIII’ fame). But while I adore Nancy Atherton’s Aunt Dimity series, the books in the series I haven’t cared that much for are the ones where Lori travels to another country. I don’t mind her traveling within England, because she always spends at least part of those books in her cozy little cottage in Finch. But the ones in Australia and Colorado…they just don’t have what drew me to the series in the first place. The character wanted a home and people who loved her and a place where she belonged. Having watched her find all that in her little viilage through the course of the books, why would I want to read about her time away from it?
Danna - cozy mystery list says
You summed it up perfectly, Julia, in very last part of your comment! Why, indeed, would we want to leave a well-defined village setting for one that is just a one-book destination?
linda says
I agree with Julia on this one. I want the English mysteries to stay in England, that is why I read the English mysteries. Hamish MacBeth stays in Scotland. He doesn’t even like leaving his croft!