Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV
This will be quick. I just posted all of the 2009 Agatha Award Nominees. (I guess I won’t be getting the early-bird worm!)
CONGRATULATIONS to ALL of the nominees!!!
I think that if you take a look at the lists, you will recognize quite a few of “our” authors, and look forward to reading the new ones. Remember that the Agatha Awards are probably the most “Cozy” of all of the mystery book awards… No gratuitious violence, no “gross-out” goriness, and no explicit “adult situations”… so to speak.
I just updated my holiday mystery book lists, and wonder if I have left any obvious books off of the lists. (I was actually quite surprised by how many books I didn’t have listed!)
I usually try to take a look at the books as each holiday approaches, and then see if any of them pique my interest. I know I wrote about this several times, but that’s how I “found” Cyril Hare… Once I read his Christmas book, I was hooked on his mystery-writing style! (I currently have all of his books upstairs in my TBR book shelf.) Also, I “discovered” Kate Kingsbury’s Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery Series from that list.
As 2010 begins, with Valentine’s Day behind us, and Easter approaching, I am getting my yearly “spring fever”>>> even though we are experiencing a wet and cold day here in San Antonio.
Anyway, the reason I am writing about this is to ask if any of you can spot some books that I am missing on the holiday mystery book lists, so that I can add them.
This is a continuation of my entry from yesterday:
Don’t get me wrong! It’s not like I intentionally don’t answer a site readers request for help. If someone writes and asks me about… let’s say… Camille Minichino’s Gloria Lamerino, Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles, or Katherine Hall Page’s Faith Fairchild, I will definitely write back (almost!) immediately. But, as I saw from my post on February 16, it took less than three hours for Barbara to come up with the mystery book author’s mystery identity.
Having said that, Cheryl is asking for help identifying the following author!
“I read this book somewhere between 2005 and 2008 and despite revisiting my local bookstore, cannot find the author or the book, as I would like very much to read more of her work. I gave the book to my father in law to read (and buy more of her novels)…now it’s gone!
Here’s the story, hope you remember it…..
This novel, a mystery, set in England involved an older married couple, (the husband may have been in the publishing business) who decided to retire to the country to a house and lovely garden where an older aunt lived. (I think the wife’s name was Anne.) They had a somewhat odd ball loner neighbour who wrote about medieval weaponry etc. a seemingly worthless pursuit that no one knew about, until he was murdered. Meanwhile, back in London, their daughter (Penny?) was squandering their retirement fund under the guise of “investing” it on their behalf. In the end, the couples shattered dreams of retirement are saved by the finding of the neighbour’s meticulous records of historical weaponry, which are then published and bring in funds to pay for their retirement.
This book was written by an English woman, well written, engrossing to read. It was punctuated with her dry humour and she made the characters real and likeable, even the shiftless Penny, who you couldn’t help but want things to work out for. The writing was comparable to a Ruth Rendell or Kate Atkinson, with none of the drama or goriness that ruins many mystery novels.
And, most notably, it took my several days to read it and I couldn’t put it down.
I’m hoping you’ll remember the story line and help me find this writer’s work again.
I too have read all the Agatha’s, Ruth’s, Barbara’s, Sue Grafton’s (she is good)….
Thanks!
Cheryl”
So, if you know the identity of the author Cheryl is describing, please drop us a comment… This author truly sounds like someone a lot of us would be interested in reading!
Boy! Am I getting lazy!?! It used to be that when someone asked me for the identity of an author, I tried to come up with the answer for them. If I didn’t know the author, I would do Google searches until I came up with the correct information. In some cases, I would spend quite a bit of time trying to identify the author, and if I absolutely could not… then I would post an entry asking for your help.
Recently, though, I have changed my modus operandi >>> I have so many authors on the site, I just can’t remember all of them. And that even includes some of the authors I read/follow!
I am not joking when I write about my need to mark off books after I get them. I have one mark which means that I own the book (“*****” after the book’s title) and one mark that indicates that I have read the book (“—–” through the book’s title) >>> I no longer leave anything to chance.
