The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Do You Really Use Peoples' Reviews?!?

I know that I have mentioned going to Amazon, Netflix, and other web sites to read reviews by people just like you and me. I spend time looking up an author before I start reading his/her series, and what better place to get peoples’ opinions than those types of sites? Amazon and Netflix reviews help me make decisions on both books and movies. (As well as several blogs which provide reviews that I trust. I also visit the author’s website, and do a general website search for the author before I decide whether or not I want to "invest my time" reading a new author.)

I get cozy mystery author recommendations from the site’s viewers from time to time, and some of the authors who have been recommended, well, I just can’t believe I missed them! When I started this site, I only included authors who I had read, or authors who came recommended by my cozy mystery reading friends. Now, though, I have been very lucky to have gotten some really great author additions from the site’s viewers. Authors who, after I take a look at, look like authors I will enjoy spending time with…

But… be FOREWARNED…

Once you have looked at a lot of reviews, you will possibly find a pattern. By this, I mean, you might see the same reviewers touting almost every book that you look up! I know this sounds impossible…. but, let me assure you, it happens.

There is one particular reviewer who comes to mind… Someone whose name I won’t reveal, but if I see the name with a review, I just skip right on to the next review. This particular reviewer has, if I am able to do the math right…. well over 14,000 reviews on Amazon. That’s a whole lot of books, and a whole lot of reviews! I’m OK with someone reading that many books… I actually think it’s great! But it seems to me (and a few of my friends) that almost every review this particular person has posted for a book has received a five (out of five) star rating. I say "almost every," since I have a seen a very small percentage of four star ratings…. I consider the four star rating from this particular reviewer to be the kiss of death for that book!

The nice thing, of course, is that the reviewer is putting a positive spin on the books, which will help get the book into more people’s hands. (And remember what Thumper’s mom said about saying only positive things!) The bad thing (for me, anyway) is that when I look at reviews, I hope to glean some information that will be useful to me. I don’t want a sugar-coated look at a book… ("Just the facts, ma’am.") I can’t believe that almost every book this reviewer has read deserves a five star rating. And, I can honestly say that I have never seen this reviewer give a three star rating. But possibly, the author of a book garnering a three star review from that reviewer would have the review pulled off of the site immediately… I certainly would!

I realize that everyone has different tastes in their reading likes and dislikes, but I have seen some five star ratings from this reviewer on books I simply couldn’t recommend to anyone! If four stars is the lowest I have seen this reviewer give, then imagine the schlock-of-a-book the three star rating books must be… if there are actually any three star ratings. (Of course, I haven’t seen every review by this person, so I could be wrong… there might just be a three star tucked in every once in a while.

Anyway…

You will continue to hear me talk about "my reviews" that I use, but remember, even after I read the reviews, I use a little common sense in making my decision to either get a book/movie, or not.

The Boston Strangler on AMC…

Here is another movie I happened to see listed that I thought might be interesting. As with the Mrs. Pollifax: Spy movie I blogged about a few nights ago, I can’t vouch for it. I haven’t seen it yet, but will surely set up some type of taping machine when they show it…

The Boston Strangler…. with Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, and George Kennedy airs on the AMC channel on Tuesday, August 28, from 3:30 to 6:00 AM (Central). When I looked the movie up on Netflix, I saw that it is one hour and 56 minutes long, and AMC has a block of two and a half hours saved for it’s airing…. Undoubtedly, there will be a lot of advertisements. I sure hope they don’t cut any of the actual movie time to allow even more ads!  (Didn’t you prefer AMC when it didn’t show any ads? I certainly did!)

While I know that The Boston Strangler is by no means a cozy mystery type of movie, I still thought that some people might be interested in the mystery part of the movie. One reviewer on the Netflix site said that this movie isn’t a slasher-type of movie. (If made today, it probably would be!) I am hoping that the reviewer was correct about that!

Anyway, I just thought that I would blog this now, in case anyone wants to tape it.

What Do You Do When You Just Can't Remember?

I received two e-mails from a site viewer (while I was on vacation) that have been on my mind. He visited my web site, and was able to find some new authors he might try reading, but he also sought some help in finding an author (or two) he had "misplaced."  I feel really badly because I am not able to help him come up with the possible authors. He wasn’t able to provide me with enough clues to help narrow down the possibilities.

This started me thinking about an author I read several years ago, but who I didn’t annotate, and now can’t seem to remember… All I do know is that I’d really like to read her again. I just don’t remember enough of the the book to be able to give much of a description. (This is one of the reasons I started compiling my lists of authors!)

If you are reading this blog, and have a cozy mystery author whose name you can’t remember…. please feel free to send me a comment (which can be done by hitting the "Comment" button right under the faint gray line right under this particular blog.) I will try to address your author’s series’ description (that you give to me) in a future blog, and perhaps, we can come up with your "lost" author. Obviously, the more clues you provide, the better the chances of finding exactly who you are looking for… And, if I am not familiar with your author, hopefully, one of the blog’s readers might know the identity of your sought-after novelist.

Now that I have given this a lot of thought, I think that I will go try to remember some more of my particular book’s details so that I can blog them, and hopefully, with the site’s viewers’ help, find my author.

Miss Emily D. Seeton… (With a Title Like That, Could She be Anything But Cozy?!)

As many things as I tried to cram into this last month of travel and (very successful) surgery, I did manage to try two new authors, and of course, read some of my “tried and true” novelists.

I won’t even go into how much I loved The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (by Alexander McCall Smith)… since I have spent a lot of time blogging on (and on!) about how much I love Smith’s novels. (But, of course, I would have found myself remiss if I hadn’t at least put that little bit of information into this blog….)

I tried two new authors… Heron Carvic was one of them. (Heron Carvic was the originator of the Miss Emily D. Seeton novels.) I read Picture Miss Seeton (which, if you know about how I feel at the beginning of a series, you know that it has got to be the first book!) and I found the book to be a very enjoyable read. I came away with a good feeling of character development for Miss Seeton. I was left thinking… now this is a cozy mystery character I will enjoy revisiting in the future. And, since there are so many books in the series, I should have plenty of time to get to know her better.

I enjoyed the interaction between the Superintendent of Scotland Yard and Miss Seeton, and found it to be very believable. I have found that in several cozy mystery series, the interaction between the police and the always-better-at-solving-crime amateur sleuth can be really annoying… Some authors portray the police as bumbling idiots standing on the side-lines, jealous of the amateur sleuth, and always warning the amateur to get off of the case…. because let’s face it, if the bumblers can’t solve the crime, they would rather that the culprit gets off free, leaving the case unsolved… And, since there are more than enough cozy mystery series to read (as this site’s lists should show!), I don’t stay with a series like that for long! I usually try to give the author a few attempts at redemption, but, you know what they say about three strikes!  And a lot of the time, it’s just the one strike that makes me put a book down as a “YUCK” on my private list!

I don’t want to say too much about the novel, since I don’t want to give away the plot by writing unintended spoilers…  Let me just say this… Since I have only read the first novel in the series, I don’t actually know if Miss Seeton will remain in this lovely little village…. I am hoping that the following books stay in this same quaint cozy setting, with all of the cozy mystery inhabitants (some more eccentric than others!) the characters, plotline, and setting left me with a feeling of “going home.”

This particular Miss Seeton novel had all of the cozy mystery requirements… and, of course, it didn’t hurt that there is a little promise of romance for future books!

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