I have done very little reading of pith and moment this summer. I find that I can sit and concentrate more in the autumn and winter. I remember at school thinking how foolish it was to have to sit exams in July when the weather was hot (well sometimes….)
Anyway, I am back from my cruise and then had a week in Suffolk which was lovely and now I am sitting here and feel that perhaps I ought to post else you will all feel I have vanished into the ether.
My topic today is ‘cosy crime’. Now, let’s face it, this is an oxymoron. Crime is nothing but cosy, it is disturbing and brutal and yet this genre has begun and flourished. I gather that the supposed doyenne of cosy crime is Dame Agatha Christie and I am pretty sure she would not be happy to be so designated. Of course, it is because of Miss Marple living in St Mary Mead and solving mysteries because the murderer reminds her of the fishmonger or the butcher who used to cut up their produce in an odd way, etc etc.
There is nothing cosy about Miss Marple, she is as sharp as a tack and can see right through deception and lies. One of my favourite Marple quotes is ‘it is very dangerous to believe what people say. I gave it up years ago’
OK so what cosy authors are there?
Richard Osman has latched onto this with his Thursday Club crime series where the murders are solved by a bunch of old codgers in a home. I attempted to read the first one and half way through decided I had better things to do, like make a cup of tea or mow the lawn, and I gave up. I thought it was poorly written, derivative and boring and we all know it got published because he is a ”Sleb”. Thousands will disagree with me and that is ok. Being made into a film now which I shall have to see because amongst the cast list is Pierce Brosnan who unfairly gets sexier as he gets older, and Helen Mirren who is my role model. Well I try.
So many books are now described as cosy crime that it is difficult to choose which to sample. I have tried a lot, binned half of them as the writing was execrable, but others I have thoroughly enjoyed. So here are a few that I recommend but, of course, feel free to disagree.
T A Williams. I bought one of his books for 99p on Kindle. It was classified as a light romance and set in Italy and I thought OK that sounds fun and it was. I read several others. My initial thought was that his name was a nom de plume and no man could possibly show a woman’s thoughts and feelings during a love affair. Of course, I know this is sexist. There are male writers who pen for Mills & Boon but they use a female name as otherwise nobody would buy them. So I had my doubts. But then he started a brand new series featuring a retired Scotland Yard police inspector who settles in Tuscany with his labrador, Oscar, and sets up a detective agency.
When I queried on Twitter why he started this series his reply was along the lines of ‘well I started romancing them all and now I am killing them off’
They are witty and amusing and Oscar the dog is a star and the plotting is spot on. All in lovely settings with lovely food too. I have just finished the latest Murder in Portofino and thoroughly enjoyed it. Check him out on Amazon and do try them. They are listed as Armstrong and Oscar Cozy (with a z this time) mysteries. Enormous fun.
Jane Bettany. I picked up a paperback (one of those 3 for £6 offers) along with another couple of titles because it was called Murder at the Book Festival. Could not resist that naturally, Violet Brewster, divorced and in her forties, has settle in a quiet village (NOT St Mary Mead but a close approximation) and before she knows it finds herself involved in murder which she manages to solve before the police. Natch.
Again, well written and great fun. She has also written others featuring Detective Isabel Blood, which I have on my Kindle but yet to read.
Fiona Veitch Smith. Clara Vale has inherited a house plus a detective agency from her uncle after his death. Clara is an unsatisfactory daughter from her mother’s point of view who wishes to see her married and settled. Clara went to university and studied science, a terribly unladylike thing to do in the 1920’s the period in which this book is set and she is delighted at thie opportunity to leave her family and move to Newcastle and live an interesting, exciting and independent life.I did like these. The three Clara Vane books are the Picture House Murders, the Pantomime Murders and the Pyramid Murders. She also has another series featuring Poppy Denby and I have these listed to investigate.
Kate Hardy is a romance writer who has written over 100 books for Mills & Boon and has now turned her hand to mystery. As she is still writing romantic novels and has the time to add another string to her bow, I am amazed at how she does it.
Her detective is Georgina Drake, another divorcee of mature years, who goes to live in a village (again NOT St Mary Mead). She lets out her barn as a holiday cottage and at the end of a tenancy goes to clean it up and finds the current holiday maker dead on the floor. There is a twist to these books which I am not going to give away and I found them quirky and interesting. I reviewed Kate’s first book The Body at Rookery Barn here. There are others and, once again, they are on my Kindle and I shall be reading them. So nice to have books waiting for one.
The next author on my list is Frances Lloyd. Amazon, knowing my penchant for crime, offered me two box sets at £1.99 each of the Jack Dawes mysteries. I bought one set, read the first story and immediately logged back on and bought the second set before they hoiked the price up. I was very glad I did.
Now these stories are not quite cosy. Neither are they hard hitting or brutal or filled with violence so I am including them in this list as I think the story lines are good, well written and the characters are fun. Jack has a wife called Coriander (she is a chef and really with that name could she be anything else?) and is friends with the wife of the Chief Superintendent who tries to make Jack’s life difficult, as they all do in these kind of stories. She and her friends interfere and suss out clues etc but the main thrust of the story is with Jack and they are really good. An eleventh title came out earlier this year and I bought it straight away as I enjoyed them so much.
Come the colder weather and I may plunge into deeper, darker reading. Or perhaps not. As I get older I find I prefer reading books that make me feel happy and relaxed. I honestly find modern fiction not to my taste. Mark you, I never have it is not something that has come with age.
I think I mentioned in my last post that I have also been reading a shedload of Regency Romances by Mary Balogh and I am working my way through her entire ouevre. There are a lot and they are extremely well written, not frothy at all and I have so say that the sex scenes almost put me to the blush.
Almost….
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