The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Mystery Books with Real People as Characters …

March 28, 2008

So, you say you want “REAL PEOPLE” mixed into your mysteries! I went through the authors on the site to find the authors who have incorporated “real people” into their mysteries. Since this is the Cozy Mystery Site… most of the authors write cozies…. (By the way, I am writing the descriptions in present tense… even though in some cases… the author is no longer with us…)

Please remember that I only include authors who are on the Cozy Mystery site…

Susan Wittig Albert: The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter take place in England during the early 1900s, with Beatrix Potter and her menagerie of animals.

Bruce Alexander (aka Bruce Cook) writes the Sir John Fielding Mystery Series which features Sir John, who along with his older brother Henry, established the first British criminal records  and police department.

Steve Allen writes the (comedian) Steve Allen Mystery Series.

Robert Barnard… as Bernard Bastable he writes the (composer) Amadeus Mozart Mystery Series.

Stephanie Barron (aka Francine Mathews) writes the (author) Jane Austen Mystery Series.

George Baxt writes the Celebrity Sleuth Mystery Series featuring such celebrities as Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, etc.

Caleb Carr: John Schuyler Moore Mystery Series

Ron Goulart writes the Groucho Marx Mystery Series which features this 1930s Hollywood actor/comedian.

Barbara Hamilton pens the Abigail Adams Mystery Series which is set in colonial Boston.

Stuart Kaminsky writes the Toby Peters Mystery Series, which features Toby sleuthing to help Hollywood movie stars from the 1940s.

Peter King writes the (author) Jack London Mystery Series.

Deryn Lake writes the John Rawlings Mystery Series which features Sir John Fielding (the blind British magistrate who started the Bow Street Runners – the first British police force) along with John Rawlings, a young apothecary..

Anna Maclean (aka Jeanne MacKin) writes the (author) Louisa May Alcott Mystery Series..

J. J. Murphy writes the Algonquin Round Table Mystery Series which features poet/writer Dorothy Parker.

Elliot Roosevelt writes the (first lady) Eleanor Roosevelt Mystery Series..

Rosemary Stevens (aka Rosemary Martin) writes the (Regency England’s fashion expert) Beau Brummel Mystery Series..

Nicola Upson: The Josephine Tey Mystery Series is based on the “real life” author of Scotland Yard’s Alan Grant Mystery Series.

Nancy Means Wright: The Mary Wollstonecraft Mystery Series features Mary, an English governess in 18th Century Ireland. (Mary was a real person.)

***To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.***

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Mysteries with (Previously) Famous Fictional Characters:

March 27, 2008

Here is another cozy mystery theme… I have gone through all of my authors and found two who “borrow” characters from other authors. They are as follows:

Carrie Bebris… Bebris has an MA in English Lit, has been an editor, freelance writer, and college instructor. Her Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery Series features two of the main characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Mrs. Darcy is Elizabeth Bennet, who, if you remember, married Mr. Darcy at the end of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice… obviously in England!

Barry S. Brown: Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street Mystery Series

Carole Buggé: Sherlock Holmes Mystery Series

D.E. Ireland: Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins Mystery Series, based on the George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion characters.

Laurie R. King: King has an MA in Old Testament Theology, and writes the very popular Mary Russell Mystery Series which features Mary Russell, a protégé of Sherlock Holmes. I won’t give all the details… but Sherlock Holmes is actually the partner/side-kick sleuth!

Lora Roberts: Roberts writes the Mystery with Sherlock  Holmes Mystery Series.

Joanna Campbell Slan: Jane Eyre Chronicles Mystery Series, which features Charlotte Brontë’s Jane.

June Thomson: Thomson writes the Sherlock Holmes Series.

Jill Paton Walsh writes the Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery Series, which is based on the characters of Dorothy L. Sayers.

♦To access more Cozy Mysteries by Theme click on this link.♦

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I Am On A Roll!

March 25, 2008

I have been getting so many recommendations! I actually have four lists of mystery authors who I will eventually get posted on the site. The reason I have four lists is because I have gotten the recommendations in different ways. My number 1 list is comprised of authors who you, the cozy mystery site readers, have let me know about.

The second and third lists have authors who I have accumulated from the different web boards I have belonged to at one time or another. These are authors who I annotated and who I thought I would get to very quickly when I first started the Cozy Mystery website, but who have been placed on the back burner for now… until I finish up the authors who you all have actually told me about.

The final list I have is authors who I got from the Malice Domestic queue of authors who were "registered attendees" either last year or the year before… I thought that if they were willing to go to the convention and meet "ordinary people" like us, well then, doggone it, good for them (and good for us! ) Hopefully, I will someday get to that fourth list of authors…

If you have recommended an author, and have been wondering why it is taking so long to see that particular author on the site>>> Did I mention that I have twenty four authors on my #1 "Authors To Do" list?!?

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Marian Babson…. I just felt like a quick cozy mystery…

March 23, 2008

I just started a Marian Babson book from over thirty years ago…. Murder Sails at Midnight, from 1975. I went to my trusty book shelf which now holds over 300 books for me to read at some point in the future (I really should count those books some time soon!) and decided that it was time for me to read this particular book. I have read several of Babson’s books before, but since they didn’t belong to a series, I just hopped around picking books as they suited my moods.

Murder Sails at Midnight is not disappointing me. I have finished about half of the book and cannot wait to find out … not whodunit, but who whodunit to! For those of you who haven’t yet read the book, we are "introduced" to the murderer at the very beginning of the book. Babson then introduces us to four people, one of whom will be the recipient of the murderer’s handiwork… This is a book with a neat twist… Babson lets us in on the "secret" of the murder, and fills us in on some of the facts we will need to know in order to (hopefully) solve the crime.

And, since the reader knows who the whodunit is, and that he will be ending one of the four people’s lives, we are able to go along with Babson and try to pick up the hints… sifting through the red herrings that she tosses out to us. I have to admit, I have no idea which of the four people is the most likely to get the undeserved ax.  I am having to fight off the urge to take a peak at the end of the book… that’s how much I want to know!

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