The Cozy Mystery List Blog

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

Necessity is the Mother of Invention…

I remember when my husband first joined audible.com several years ago. He kept trying to get me to buy some of the audio books. Every three or four months I would go into their site and take a look to see if any of my favorite authors’ books were included in their very big library of books. I was always disappointed to see that they had very few authors who I would actually "choose to choose." So, I stayed with my local library, preferring to get my audio books on their book cassettes… since my library carried a lot of my favorite authors. 

At one point, I decided to expand my horizons (mostly because I was running out of library audio books) and I found that I actually enjoyed listening to "regular" mysteries. While they wouldn’t have been my first choices, I discovered that I actually enjoyed them a lot! If I had been provided a large menu of authors like M. C. Beaton, P. D. James, Agatha Christie,  and Ngaio Marsh at audible.com I never would have tried what they had to offer…. authors like Jeffery Deaver, John Grisham,  and James Patterson… all authors who I enjoy…. now.

Hmmm…. the cozy authors who I listed in the above paragraph just happen to all be women, and the authors audible.com carried just happened to all be men. (That is not to say that to be a cozy mystery author you must be a woman. But I have to admit that the majority of my favorite cozy authors are women… and I’m not talking about a 70% type of majority…. I would venture to say that I am talking about somewhere around 90%!)

Of course, if you have spent any time on my alphabetical authors’ pages, you have seen that I also enjoy reading a lot of non-cozy mystery books…. Reginald Hill, Colin Dexter, and Harlan Coben just to name a few.  But, when choosing my next book to read, I usually want to go with a tried and true cozy mystery.

Oh, and almost as an aside…….. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I recently checked and found that Ann Granger is now being carried by audible. I wonder if the purchasing agent mistook Ann as Andy when contracting for those audible books. Either way, although I have read most of her books, I have all of the available titles on my queue to purchase!

 

What Happened to Gold Medal?

As I was getting together the list of Edgar Awards in the Best Paperback Originals category, I was surprised to see several publishing companies that I simply did not recognize. What a surprise that Playboy actually published books… and not just their monthly magazines… In 1981, Thomas H. Cook’s Blood Innocents was up for the Edgar’s Best Paperback Original prize, with Playboy being his publisher. Who’d have known!?! I had no idea that Playboy published anything without glossy pictures!

And, ending in 1978, there were several books that were put out by the Gold Medal publishing house…  Who’d have known that not only cake-bakers and Olympiads would strive for the Gold Medal?

Whatever happened to some of the "old" publishing houses? Several years ago, when I was still very active in my mystery reading groups and forums, I "heard" cozy mystery readers complain that some of their favorite authors were being dropped by the very same publishing houses that the authors had helped finance.  (I wish I could remember some of the authors’ names…. but one thing I do remember…. the authors were famous cozy mystery authors.) But, I think that there lies the problem. Are cozy mysteries given the same amount of "legitimacy" as other types of fiction?

I remember on one particular reading forum board, a woman from the non-mystery fiction group referred to mysteries as mind "candy"…. apparently, she thought of mysteries as just being something sweet and frothy, frosting (on top of frosting) on a cake, summer beach-time books… nothing of any importance.  I am sure she didn’t mean to label our mystery reading group as a mindless group of twits, but let’s face it, that is certainly what she inferred with her "candy" comment.

I have to admit, though, that I didn’t take it personally…. I enjoy good non-mystery fiction, but I just happen to enjoy mysteries more. I particularly enjoy cozy mysteries, but that’s just me!

 And oh, by the way, I happen to enjoy candy, too!

 

Buy British… television series, that is!

Hmmmm…. I don’t know if I should admit this… but my family doesn’t watch any mystery shows together  from the three major networks here in the States. (Three of us, however, do have a show or two that we follow individually…)  Instead, we "import" them… mostly from Great Britain. We do watch crime shows that are made right here in the States like…. Forensic Files, Masterminds, L.A. Confidential, North Mission Road, and we used to love City Confidential so much that we have seen all of them. (Please write me via the "comment button" below if City Confidential is still being made. I thought that both Paul Winfield and Keith David did great jobs as narrators, and I also thought that the writers showed a very good grasp of both the crimes and the cities in which the crimes occurred.)

Getting back to my initial thought…

We started watching The Last Detective (starring Peter Davison) a little while ago, and we are finding it quite enjoyable. (I’ll write about it in another blog…) After finishing our last episode, we started talking (I have to admit that I did most of the talking!) and we started kicking around the question: Why do we watch these British exports instead of our "home-grown" mystery shows? There are so many right here in the States that are available with just one click of our remote, yet we don’t watch them…. Why is that?…..

Hmmmm…. again!

Is it that the Brits have shorter seasons? Well, if that were true, then you would think that the longer seasons would give a series a longer time to develop characters and plot.

Is it that the Brits have fewer episodes per season? Again, if that were true, then you would think that the more the episodes, the better the chance to develop characters and plot.

Is it that the Brits have younger, more beautiful "stars" in their shows? Well, if that were true then wouldn’t we all be watching them on our major networks each and every week…. since our major networks seem fixated on youthful beauty.

Or is it that since we do have more episodes per season, we "dilute" the writers… They simply can’t spend the time needed on each of the (+/-) 26 episodes on which they feel compelled to present a mystery and wrap up the solution in the allotted 44 minutes… instead of taking a leisurely hour and a half, only five or six times per season to develop characters and plot…. thus not having the necessity of "cranking out"  shows each and every week.

Well, then what is it? Why is it that more and more people are buying the DVDs or joining online rentals like Netflix and Blockbusters?

I remember a time when we could count on A & E to air the high quality British mystery shows… Jeremy Brett in Sherlock Holmes, Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, David Suchet in Poirot, David Jason in Frost, John Thaw and Kevin Whately in Morse, Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan in Dalziel and Pascoe… (and I’m sure there are more…)

So, why is it that we keep (at least my two college-age children, my husband, and I) seeking out the exported mystery shows…. You only need to look above…. and see the highlighted words to know why we do…. How about you? 

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say…. Then Tell Me!

My family has encouraged me to give the names of authors I have tried and could not abide. I guess that "abide" is a pretty strong word…. but, there are several authors who I really cannot make myself read. The other night, when I put down that book (after trying unsuccessfully for more than a week to read it) I went to my list of authors and wrote a big "YUCK" by her name. I also proceeded to mark off the chronological list of her books… to make sure that I don’t accidentally buy any more. Once I finished annotating my "YUCK" and strike-out marks, I got both of the books that I own ready to donate to my library. I am that sure that I will never want to attempt to read her work again.

So, my family wonders why I don’t "blog" the name of the author. They think that I should be honest and "tell it like it is." But, that really isn’t how "it is." The main reason I don’t give a strong opinion about an author who I can’t force myself to like, is that there are other people who truly enjoy that very same author. I just don’t want to prejudice people who might want to give that author a try in the future who might become a fan of that author… like so many other people. I know it sounds VERY presumptuous of me to think that I might influence someone who is choosing an author for the first time, hoping to find a new favorite…

I have one friend in particular who absolutely loves an author who I have tried to read….  five times…. unsuccessfully! Each time I tried to have a positive attitude when I started reading the first book in her series, but each time I felt like everything about the book was "forced." I simply could not enjoy that particular author. This friend of mine knows how I feel about that author, and sometimes I wonder if she tries to avoid talking about how much she likes her. I know that she eagerly awaits a new book by that author, and, when I come across a new book by the author (while updating my cozy mystery list), I tell her about the new book. But, that’s as far as it goes……… she never tells me how much she enjoyed the book, or even if she read it.

Anyway, getting back to my family’s thought about this subject… Do people who come to this site want me to disclose which authors I simply cannot enjoy? I think that, no, they don’t. But, my husband and two in-their-early 20s children think that yes, I should "tell it like it is." If you have any thoughts on this question (or comments on how I could improve this site)…. please feel free to write a comment to me. (There is a very dim gray line under this blog post with a button to comment.)  I’d love to hear what you think!

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