The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Leslie Meier, Jill Churchill, Kate Borden… Mystery Book Authors with Similar Flairs…

I just finished my most recent Halloween mystery book by a rather new author (to me, that is!) >>> I read Death of a Trickster and must say that it is definitely a Halloween Cozy… small New England town, amateur sleuth, everybody-knows-everybody feeling, eccentric personalities with hidden personal secrets, and to top it off, the most wonderful feeling of autumn/fall that you could possibly find in a book… I felt like autumn was actually one of the characters during the first half (or so) of the book… 

As I read Death of a Trickster (which is written by Kate Borden – aka Kate Grilley) I was struck by Borden’s similarity with two other Cozy mystery book authors who I follow… Leslie Meier and Jill Churchill. All three of them have strong, female main characters who have children… These children are actually written into their plots. The children aren’t just backdrops in their novels, they are woven into the novels’ story lines. There are times when the main characters/sleuths have to find someone to watch their offspring, times when their offspring disappoint them, times when their offspring are actually like >>> children!

For some reason, Jill Churchill’s Jane Jeffrey mystery series, Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone series, and Kate Borden’s Peggy Jean Turner mystery series just seem to have the same Cozy feeling strewn throughout the book. I don’t know how else to describe it.

Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone series is set during major holidays of the year, while Jill Churchill really doesn’t “focus” on holidays… although she has several Cozies that are set during Christmas. Borden, I’m not quite sure of… She has only written three Cozies in this particular series, two of which are holiday-themed… Death of a Trickster and Death of a Turkey (Thanksgiving theme cozy mystery.) I guess we will find out if Borden will become an exclusively holiday-themed mystery author when her next Peggy Jean Turner mystery is published!

Cell Phones, Televisions, OR We Sing…

I love the ease of cell phones! Let me state that before I continue with this rant… I love having almost an unlimited amount of long-distance time. I love having access to all sorts of places when I am at all sorts of places.

BUT>>>>

I do not dial my cell phone (or even hold it!!!) while I’m driving. I grew up not being able to make phone calls while on the road – so it is simply a habit I don’t plan to acquire. When my children were young, whenever we were in the car tooting around, we found fun things to do. The “We Sing” tapes were permanently left in the car. When we weren’t singing along with the Wee Sing gang, we played games: rhyming (à la mat-cat-rat), Is it bigger than a breadbox?, simple math, I Spy, the alphabet-finding game, ETC.  Which brings me to my next point…

I remember the first time I was aware that some cars actually have television sets installed in them. What?!? Yep, that’s right! That was my initial response, and I am still wondering WHAT?!?

More and more, I am noticing something that rivals the television and DVD hook-ups in cars>>> Parents on their cell phones with their little tykes in the car!!! Are the parents lives so busy that the only time they can find to make appointments or catch up with family/friends is while they are in their cars with their tots?

Hopefully, when these same cell-phoning parents’ children are twelve years old, the parents can look back fondly and remember what their friends/family had to say during all of those car rides with their children! As Harry Chapin would say: The cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon…

"Indian Summers" in England?

A while ago, I was caught off guard – not a lot, but just enough…

Are there “Indian Summers” in England? I am not being facetious about this>>> I would really like to know!

I started reading a new Cozy mystery series, which is set in Great Britain, and I was a little surprised to find the “Indian Summer” description for a beautiful autumn day. For some reason, I had always thought this description only applies to North America’s crisp autumn days.

When I read about the beautiful “Indian summer” weather in this British Cozy, I thought about something a site reader from England had written to me. She said that she was quite bothered by non-British authors who set their mystery book series in England and then include things they (the non-English authors) think should be included – stereotypical things – which sound totally wrong to “real” Brits. Of course, since they are stereotypical things that she wrote me about, the rest of us might not know that these things happen “only in the movies.” (I wish I could remember some of the examples she used!)

So, with this in mind, is there such a thing as a British “Indian Summer” day, mate? (I know, I know!!!)

Only One More Cambridge/Boston Trip Entry…

One of the things I like about living in a “young” city like San Antonio is that the streets are planned on a grid. Boston streets are not! One of our tour guides said that the reason for this is that they just paved over cattle trails and foot paths from years ago. If it was good enough for the cows, then by golly, it was good enough for cars!

Thank goodness for GPSs! (Global Positioning Systems)

As I mentioned in my previous entry, my daughter rented a “Zip Car” two different days. YOW!!! You cannot imagine how many times the GPS’s “woman” had to say “Recalculating” for us! I counted at least three times when a one-way street simply stopped and became another street (with a different name) going the opposite one-way direction. Good grief! And for two directionally-deficient gals, this caused a lot of… frustration (and laughter!)

Another difference I noticed between Boston/Cambridge roads and San Antonio’s >>> Apparently they lack white paint out there to delineate lanes. I noticed (many times!) where two lanes became one lane and then it went back to two lanes… with absolutely no notice!

My San Antonio taxes are also going for such “niceties” as protected left turn lights. But I guess that they don’t really need those protected left turn lights in the left lanes because drivers wouldn’t know if there was a left lane for the left-turn-only arrow >>> since they seem to lack the white painted lines.

I don’t know how they do it! No wonder most people rely on the public transit system! I know I would!!!

MENU