American/Cozy Mysteries

Essays:
§ Cozies: An Especially American Art Form
§ When is a Cozy not a Cozy?
Kenneth Abel
§ Cold Steel Rain 		Alina Adams
§ Murder on Ice 		Donna Andrews
§ The Penguin Who Knew Too Much 		Nevada Barr
§ High Country
Larry Beinhart
§ The Librarian 		Claudia Bishop and Don Bruns (editors)
§ A Merry Band of Murderers 		Meredith Blevins
§ The Hummingbird Wizard 		Lawrence Block
§ The Burglar in the Rye
Jan Brogan
§ A Confidential Source 		Judy Clemens
§ The Day Will Come 		Joan Coggin
§ Who Killed the Curate? 		Jeffrey Cohen
§ As Dog is My Witness
§ Some Like it Hot-Buttered
Thomas Cook
§ Into the Web 		Gordon Cotler
§ Artist’s Proof 		Casey Daniels
§ Don of the Dead
Diane Mott Davidson
§ Dark Tort
§ Double Shot
Aaron Elkins
§ Good Blood 		Sharon Fiffer
§ Buried Stuff 		Kate Flora
§ Stalking Death 		Christine Goff
§ A Rant of Ravens
Denise Hamilton
§ Last Lullaby
§ Savage Garden
§ Sugar Skull 		David Handler
§ The Cold Blue Blood 		Charlaine Harris
§ Grave Sight
§ Grave Surprise
§ Shakespeare’s Counselor 		Rosemary Harris
§ Pushing Up Daisies
Ellen Hart
§ An Intimate Ghost
§ The Iron Girl
§ Night Vision 		Libby Fischer Hellmann
§ An Image of Death
§ A Picture of Guilt
§ A Shot to Die For 		Martha C. Lawrence
§ Ashes of Aries 		Marc Lecard
§ Vinnie's Head
Laura Lippman
§ To the Power of Three 		Mary Logue
§ Maiden Rock 		Margaret Maron
§ Last Lessons of Summer 		Sujata Massey
§ Girl in a Box
Alexander McCall-Smith
§ The #1 Ladies Detective Agency 		Deborah Morgan
§ The Marriage Casket
§ The Weedless Widow 		Marcia Muller
§ Cyanide Wells 		Kem Nunn
§ Tijuana Straits
Nancy Pickard
§ The Virgin of Small Plains 		David Skibbins
§ Eight of Swords 		Jessica Speart
§ Blue Twilight 		Julia Spencer-Fleming
§ All Mortal Flesh
§ A Fountain Filled With Blood
§ I Shall Not Want
§ In the Bleak Midwinter
§ Out of the Deep I Cry
§ To Darkness and to Death
Denise Swanson
§ Murder of a Sleeping Beauty
§ Murder of a Barbie and Ken
§ Murder of a Snake in the Grass 		Sarah Stewart Taylor
§ Judgment of the Grave
§ Mansions of the Dead
§ O’ Artful Death
§ Still as Death 		Elaine Viets
§ Dying to Call You
§ Just Murdered
§ Murder with Reservations
§ Murder Unleashed
§ Shop Till You Drop


Who Killed the Curate?, Joan Coggin, Rue Morgue, $12.00.

If this isn't one of the best Christmas reads ever, I don't know what is (maybe Tied Up in Tinsel, by Ngaio Marsh?). This is a light, funny reissue of a series written in the 40's about an extremely ditzy socialite who marries a vicar and finds herself very much a fish out of water when she ends up in the English countryside. Imagine her dilemma when the curate is murdered on Christmas Eve - luckily two of her most amusing London pals are on hand to help her solve the crime. There's more to "Lady Loops" than this precis suggests, though, all of it enjoyable and somewhat indescribable.

If you enjoy Joan Coggin, you may also enjoy Ngaio Marsh, Michael Innes, Cyril Hare, and Edmund Crispin. Or you may enjoy the sparky synergy of Henry and Emmy Tibbets, in Patricia Moyes' underrated and delightful series. A fun one to start with is Murder a la Mode.

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