The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Trixie Belden – Another Classic Teenage Girl Sleuth

Last August, we discussed a Cozy Mystery series that got many young readers interested in mysteries, myself included – Nancy Drew. It turns out that Nancy Drew is just one of the characters who turned us into what we are today: Cozy Mystery readers! Some of us started our mystery reading journey with Nancy while others started with sleuths such as the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, and Trixie Beldon.

The first Trixie Belden book, The Secret of the Mansion, was originally released in 1948, and new books were periodically released until 1986. The first six books were written Julie Campbell Tatham, a very real author who also wrote the similar teenager mystery series Ginny Gordon and a Rin Tin Tin novel, among other things. After that, various authors employed directly by publisher Western House, releasing an additional 33 books to bring the total Trixie Belden book list to 39!

One of the big differences between Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew appears to be that a bigger effort was made to make Trixie seem like a slightly more realistic view of a teenage girl. It was hard to imagine Nancy Drew having trouble with anything, and while this made her a figure to look up to, it also sometimes made her a bit harder to identify with than the more realistic Trixie.

In contrast, Trixie sometimes felt frustrated by her brothers (something I think anyone with siblings has felt from time to time), and despite her obvious intelligence, she had difficulty with certain school subjects >> particularly math. All of this likely goes a long way toward making Trixie feel more like a real person than the ethereal, at times almost-too-perfect Nancy Drew.

Unlike Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden hasn’t seen the same efforts to update and reinvigorate the series. Regardless of how you feel about the changes made to the Nancy Drew books to “modernize” them, this does at least make sure that a new edition is periodically released so new readers (and those of us who might be feeling a bit nostalgic) can pick up the series.

Please leave a comment below if you remember reading about Trixie’s adventures!

(Thank you, ALL, for your comments! There were so many, I thought I would post a Trixie Belden Follow-Up rather than try to respond to each of you. I hope this is OK!

Four New-to-the-Site Cozy Mystery Authors: Vickie Fee: Liv and Di in Dixie, Julianne Holmes: Clock Shop, Catherine Lloyd: Kurland St. Mary, Joyce Tremel: Brewing Trouble

It’s that time once again… time to add new authors to the Cozy Mystery site! As usual I am posting authors who Cozy Mystery readers have recommended to me. I’m always looking for new-to-me Cozy Mystery authors to try (with the hopes of adding them to my favorite authors list) so it’s always a pleasure to post authors who look really promising to me.

 Vickie Fee – Vickie Fee grew up in Memphis, but now lives in upper Michigan. She earned her degree in journalism, which she put to good use reporting in a number of small newspapers. Her Cozy Mystery series, the Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery Series, stars party planner Liv McKay and her best friend Di Souther, and is set in the fictional town of Dixie, Tennessee.

 

 Julianne Holmes – Besides being a Cozy Mystery author, Julianne Holmes is the director of a service organization for theaters in the Boston area. She writes the Clock Shop Mystery Series, starring an expert clockmaker named Ruth Clagan who lives in Massachusetts.

 

 Catherine Lloyd – Though Catherine Lloyd now lives in the United States, she was born and grew up in London, England. Lloyd writes of her birth nation in the Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series, a historical Cozy series set in the 1810s in the small English town of Kurland St. Mary. The series features Miss Lucy Harrington as its sleuth. Major Robert Kurland helps Lucy with her sleuthing.

 

Joyce Tremel – A former police secretary, Joyce Tremel now writes the Brewing Trouble Mystery Series, starring Maxine “Max” O’Hara, a certified brewmaster and owner of the Allegheny Brew House in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With that in mind, it’s also no surprise that Joyce is herself a Pittsburgh native!

These authors (and many, many more!) can be found on the Cozy Mystery site.

Agatha Award Nominees for 2015

I’m a little late in telling you this >>> the Agatha Award nominees have been selected for the 2015 awards. CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the nominees!

Unfortunately we’re going to have to wait until April 30, 2016 to find out who the winners are, but let’s face it, being a nominee for this very prestigious mystery book award means those authors are already winners! What an achievement! (I think of the Agatha Awards as the Coziest of Cozy Mystery awards.)

The 28th Malice Domestic convention will be taking place in Bethesda, Maryland >>> and that’s when the winners among the nominee (winners) will be announced. Again, CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the nominees! And, here they are:

AGATHA AWARD – BEST NOVEL 2015

AGATHA AWARD – BEST FIRST NOVEL 2015

AGATHA AWARD – BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL 2015

AGATHA AWARDS BEST CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT

AGATHA AWARD – BEST SHORT STORY 2015

  • A Year Without Santa Claus by Barb Goffman
  • A Questionable Death by Edith Maxwell
  • A Killing at the Beausoleil by Terrie Farley Moran
  • Suffer the Poor by Harriette Sackler
  • A Joy Forever by B.K. Stevens

AGATHA AWARDS BEST NON-FICTION

AGATHA AWARDS MALICE DOMESTIC AWARDS

  • Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient: Katherine Hall Page
  • Poirot Award Recipients: Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald
  • Amelia Award Recipient: Douglas Greene

As you take a look at this list of all the nominees (and in the case of the last category, the winners!), you will no doubt recognize many authors who we talk about here. You probably have a favorite (or two, or three) who you think definitely should win in their category. We’ll just have to wait and see…

P.S. If you’d like to see who was nominated and/or won past Agatha Awards, or access more mystery book awards, you can click on this link to take you to the page on my site:
Mystery Book Awards.

Anne George’s Southern Sisters Mystery Series

Murder on a Girls' Night Out: A Southern Sisters Mystery (Southern Sisters Mysteries Book 1) Among the often recommended mystery series on the Cozy Mystery blog’s monthly recommendations, is the delightful “Southern Sister” series by Anne George. This series features the very amusing sisters – Patricia Anne (“Mouse”) and Mary Alice (“Sister”). The eight books in this series follow the adventures of some of our favorite sleuths, Mouse and Sister.

Mouse and Sister are quite different in appearance and personality. In the first book, we meet Mouse who is 60 years old and a retired school teacher. Sister is her elder by five years. Sister is the opposite of Mouse in most ways. Sister is quite large and Mouse is very skinny. Mouse has been married to one man for nearly 40 years while Sister has been widowed three times >>> and all of her husbands were rich, as in rich! Sister is the type of woman who dresses and acts flamboyantly. When she enters a room she gets attention. Mouse is a more quiet woman, but much of the humor in the books is due to Mouse’s sharp tongue and quick wit. Despite their differences, the sisters obviously love each other very much.

At the beginning of the first book in the series, Murder on a Girls’ Night Out, Sister has just bought a dance hall >>> the “Scoot & Boot” where she and her current boyfriend have been line dancing once a week. When Sister takes Mouse to see the place, they discover a body and the mystery begins.

The books are set in and around Birmingham, Alabama which is not exactly a small town, but the sisters and their families provide a Cozy atmosphere. Each has several children, with the travails of their unmarried daughters featuring prominently.

This series is a fun read. The only thing wrong with the series is that there are only eight books, released from 1996 through 2001. Unfortunately, Anne George passed away before she could give us more Mouse and Sister sleuthing adventures.

I can say without hesitation that Anne George is one of my favorite authors. If you are looking for a Cozy full of lots of fun and a great funny-but-warm relationship between the main characters, I highly recommend you try this series. I like this series so much that way back in 2007 I featured it in another post! And, this series is so popular that a few years ago we created an entry “Authors Similar to Anne George” which has a number of good recommendations. However, Anne George, was truly one of a kind.

P.S. If you’re interested in other entries about some highly recommended Cozy Mystery series, you can see them on the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.

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