A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to put more time into reading, rather than spend most of my "free time" working on this site. With that in mind, I went through all of my TBR books and picked out several authors who I had amongst my books, who I hadn’t read in a long while.
I just finished my first Inspector Wexford novel by Ruth Rendell, and have added those novels to my long list of cozy series to "read my way through." As my last blog said, I was also listening to a Ruth Rendell novel in my car. I enjoyed The Water’s Lovely a lot. What astounds me is that both books are written by the same person… with some forty years between publishing dates. The Wexford novel definitely falls in the cozy genre… no gruesome details, no truly gratuitous sex, no swearing, etc. One of the cozy guidelines that is absent is the amateur sleuth… The two men who solved this mystery are by no means amateurs… they are detectives on the local police force.
As for The Water’s Lovely, it almost isn’t a mystery at all… To me, it falls into that category of psychological books, where you see what three-dimensional characters are almost "made to do" when, at the lack of a better way to phrase it, life happens. You can almost imagine yourself doing the same (sometimes bizarre) things that the fleshed-out characters in the novel do. (Make a note at the word "almost"… I have it underlined, in bold, and italicized!)
If you’re looking for a traditional cozy… I definitely recommend From Doon With Death… the first of the Inspector Wexford series!
