I got a letter this week from Alfred suggesting a topic that sounds really interesting for a lot of us Cozy Mystery readers. Thank you, Alfred, for this great entry idea!
“The reason I am writing is that I had a column idea for you and thought it might be a good one to do. What if you asked the readers if they could only choose 3 or 4 authors to read, who would they choose and why? I gave this some thought and my three would be Laura Childs’ Tea Shop Mysteries and Emily Brightwell, of course I really like her. For my third one I would have to say Lorna Barrett’s Bookshop series. But what really takes center place on my bookshelf is my entire run of Tales of Grace Chapel Inn – this is an excellent series and you can’t wait to read each book to see what happens next.”
I’m going to start by telling you who my three Cozy Mystery authors would be:
Agatha Christie – She’s simply one of the best story tellers, her sleuths are great characters, she writes classic stories/plots with phenomenal settings, the mysteries are difficult to guess – yet make sense in the end because they are character-driven mysteries.
Ngaio Marsh – Her mysteries are really good classic stories that make sense, yet they are complicated. They (again) are character-driven. The characters are three dimensional, not caricatures. Marsh is a another truly good story teller. The sleuth and his team are a comfort to read about, there are no wild changes in the characters’ personalities. Her stories usually open with very long exposition of the crime setting and the characters, but the pay-off is well worth the wait – once the sleuth and his team arrive, the unfolding investigation of the crime makes interesting reading.
As for my third Cozy Mystery author, I’ll have to continue to think about this. There are so many other authors who I enjoy reading. I cannot imagine having to limit myself to only one out of all my favorite authors.
So, if you only had three Cozy Mystery authors who you could read, who would they be AND why?
(Here are all of your answers in list form: Three Cozy Mystery Authors, and No More – Part 2
Here are some fun Indiana facts:
Here are some fun Alaska facts: