American/Cozy Mysteries

The "cozy" mystery is, at the moment, maybe one of the most popular of all the different mystery subgenres - more popular as a whole than P.I. novels, historicals, or books about cops, lawyers or doctors - and it's uniquely American. Although the original practitioners of this particular art form - Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, etc. - are nowadays labeled "cozy" they really aren't. Agatha Christie had a body count to rival Val McDermid's; Marsh killed people off with meat skewers through the brain; and Lord Peter Wimsey - shades of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley - sobs in his wife's arms at the end of Busman's Honeymoon because he's sent someone to the gallows. The cozy mystery of today is often less violent, and the violence is usually way off canvas. Because life in America is so extremely varied, there are many, many different types of cozy writers, and therein lies the richness of this type of art form. The writers visiting Aunt Agatha's this August - cozy writers all - cover school psychology, gardening, stain removal and dairy farming. It's easy to dismiss these topics, of course, they are so absolutely humdrum. But looked at another way, these books are like reading a sociology course on American life in the early 21st century - and the characters populating these books are anything but humdrum.

Denise Swanson, who has been visiting Aunt Agatha's since her first novel, Murder of a Small Town Honey (she made that visit with her mother in tow) has evolved into one of the more reliable and better known cozy writers, with now eight books under her belt, including her latest, Murder of a Real Bad Boy. While Denise's titles are on the cute side, her novels, featuring school psychologist Skye Dennison, are smartly plotted and vividly set stories that take place in the tiny town of Scumble River, Illinois. The books are a gently humorous, but never condescending, look at life in a small town with all the ties that bind that make small town life claustrophobic and supportive at the same time. Skye is a smart, capable and thankfully opinionated woman who both fends off and enjoys her mother's attention; has a brother who's still trying to find himself; and a love life that has stayed interestingly complicated throughout all the books. My favorite in the series, Murder of a Barbie and Ken, features both Swanson's sometimes sardonic humor - the Barbie and Ken of the title are perfectly rendered - and a nicely complicated and satisfying story. And more, Skye sticks with you after you've finished each book - she makes you want to know more about her.

Heather Webber (A Hoe Lot of Trouble) and Sharon Short (Death of a Domestic Diva) both write books set in Ohio, with main characters who are passionate about their hometowns and their lives. Webber's main character, Nina Quinn, is a newly separated (her ex is a cop) owner of a landscaping and design company that specializes in one day garden makeovers. Now a good cozy also has an element of fantasy, and the fantasy in Webber's books certainly centers on the idea of leaving your raggedy garden with its maybe blown late summer blooms and coming home at the end of your work day to find it transformed into something beautiful - and low maintenance! What could be better? Not much, I don't think, and it got me invested in Nina Quinn, who loves her business and can't figure out if the death of her gardening "mentor" - his death was not unexpected, but still odd - was natural or murder; why her gardening tools are disappearing; where her stepson's escaped pet snake might be (she doesn't take her shoes off in the house anymore); and worse, why her stepson is acting out at school. Nina finds her own personal life confusing and upsetting; she's dismayed not only by her husband's adulterous affair with a coworker, but by her own feelings towards men she encounters in her normal daily life. This is the first book in Webber's series, and while I'm not sure what's going to happen with Nina's love life, I can appreciate the tight plotting and delicate balance of humor and emotion that makes this series eminently readable.

Sharon Short's reluctant amateur investigator, Josie Toadfern, owns a laundromat and is a stain removal expert. When Josie finds that her tiny town has been left off the state map of Ohio, she's determined to get it back on there, and sees her chance by writing a letter to a Martha Stewart-like homemaker guru, Tyra Grimes, suggesting a show devoted to stain removal techniques. To her complete and utter surprise, Tyra shows up on her doorstep - bringing with her chaos, murder, and a clever window treatment for Josie's apartment involving forks and a scarf type valance. This is definitely a story about being careful what you wish for; Tyra certainly brings more trouble that she's worth, in more ways than one. The thing that made Sharon's books stand out to me - a small business owner - were her descriptions of her pleasure in opening and closing her business at the beginning and end of the day. This routine, of course, is disrupted by Tyra, and I think I was just as eager as Josie for things to be sorted out and returned to normal. As an added bonus, Short includes a brief stain removal newsletter at the end of the book - I always do have trouble getting out chocolate stains, and now I know what to do!

The last author, and newest, is Judy Clemens (Till the Cows Come Home). Her books only squeak into the cozy category - the main character, Stella Crown, is a struggling Pennsylvania dairy farmer - but Stella also has tattoos and rides a Harley. She's not exactly typical of anything; and Clemens' story has more on scene, and disturbing, violence than any of the other books. I was fascinated by Stella's life - she was orphaned at an early age and took over the family farm with the help of her farmhand, Howie, who is more of a surrogate uncle than hired help. Like James Herriot's classic All Creatures Great and Small, Till the Cows Come Home begins with a graphic cow birth - not a standard one, as in the Herriot book, but a cow c-section. It sets in motion everything else that happens in the novel, which is very tightly plotted, suspenseful, and emotionally compelling. Clemens takes you deep into Stella Crown's life and when things begin to endlessly backfire in ways both large, small, and disgusting on her farm, you are so invested in Stella it makes you as mad as it does her, and as eager for a resolution and an end to her problems. The deaths off scene of two local children and the on scene death of a major character make this book extremely memorable - and made me cry my eyes out. Stella is an unusual heroine, and you'll also learn a bit about dairy farming, which, take it from me, is very interesting and nicely integrated into the plot.

I was thinking and wondering as I read all of these books what truly sets a cozy novel apart from a more hardboiled crime novel, and I think it's a world view. In a novel by Michael Connelly or Dennis Lehane, the main character is not only troubled, but troubled by the world, and the world to them is a corrupt, dangerous and often disturbing place. And in places like L.A. or urban Boston, I imagine that's a true and valid view of the world. In novels by cozy writers, there's a sense of optimism about the world, a sense that if the difficulties besieging the characters can be resolved - and with the help of the smart and determined main characters usually found in these books, they can be - then the world will once again right itself and be a good place to be. Combined with the typical mystery reader's enjoyment of a sense of closure, along with the element of fantasy that's present in the work of nearly every cozy writer, from Diane Davidson on down, this optimistic view of the world is pretty hard to resist. If only we could all conquer our own problems so successfully and finally, the world would be a better place - wouldn't it?