The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Cozy Mystery Site’s History with Author Recommendations

When I started the Cozy Mystery (List) site, I only made pages for Cozy Mystery authors. They were the Cozy Mystery authors who I was currently reading at the time, or they were Cozy Mystery authors with whom I was familiar. All of the authors I posted were writers I could vouch for.

At first I didn’t swerve from the Cozy Mystery authors path. But little by little I started adding authors who were not Cozy Mystery authors, people like E. F. Benson, Colin Dexter, and Reginald Hill. These were all authors who I had read and enjoyed.

I then started getting recommendations of mystery authors. They were all authors who some of you thought the rest of us should know about. I got so many requests that I finally had to post (on my contact page) that I only wanted Cozy Mystery authors. For years, I would send a thank you message to each person who  recommended a mystery author, but then I got so many requests that I had to start sending out a form letter advising the recommending person I had gotten his/her recommendation, and that I would take a look at their author later. (Which reminds me, I actually always look at the authors who are recommended. I either do a Google search, or in a lot of cases, the recommending person has sent me the author’s website, which I always look at.)

While I appreciate a lot of the recommendations I get, I have to say that I get a lot! I have now gone to a system that I never envisioned going to. I get so many recommendations that I now have posted:

… Since this is a Cozy Mystery site, please recommend only Cozy Mystery authors.

I am currently receiving so many requests that from here forward I will not be able to respond to each submittal. I’m sorry.

Yikes! This sounds rather impersonal for me to do, but my husband finally convinced me that I was spending way too much time thanking people for their recommendations, and way too little time actually posting new authors!

Having said that, I am going to go get some new authors posted on the site…

Hennepin County Judge & Minneapolis Sleuth = ?

Here is the third of these “identify the author” entries. Elise asks for our help with this:

I’ve been searching for a book I read in the early 90s by a local Minneapolis author. It was his debut novel and set in Minneapolis. I vaguely remember the plot involved the detective uncovering a secret of a Hennepin County judge that was involved in a young male prostitution ring of sorts.
I don’t remember the author or the name of the book. Any help would be appreciated!

So, if you know who Elise might possibly be looking for, please post a comment. Thank you!

Undercover Cleaning is Her Game…

So, moving right along with the identification of authors/book titles:

Anita asked us if we could identify this mystery series:

I’m trying to find the name of a mystery series about a single mom that cleans the houses of her rich friends, but she’s in disguise. I keep thinking she drives a VW Beetle and meets a widower with a daughter and then she realizes they dated in high school.

Thanks!

I’m hoping that one of you knows who Anita is searching for. I’ve read several mysteries with cleaning ladies as the sleuths, but this one does not sound familiar to me.

Thank you for your help!

Cozy Mystery Tree Lovers…

Here’s another question from a Cozy Mystery reader. Cheryl asks:

I am trying to find the title of  book I read a few years ago involving a mom and teenage son. The son was “living” in a tree as a tree hugger – helping out for someone else to try to save this tree from being cut down. A body was discovered not far away from this tree. His mother discovered a Petosky stone near the body and knew that the killer was from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or had visited there, as that is the only place the stone is found.
Thank you,
Cheryl

I have to admit that this doesn’t sound at all familiar to me. (Of course, usually as soon as I say something like that, it will predestine that the author be one of my favorites!) If any of you think you might know the title of this tree, please post a comment.   Thank you!

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