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Cozy Mystery (part 2)
226 Plays1 year ago
Many episodes ago, Brook and Sarah discussed cozy mysteries with Melissa Bourbon. (Catch up on that conversation here.) But, there was no deep dive into the sub-genre. In today's episode, the oversight is corrected with a look at the popular category.
To view images, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/cozy-mystery-part-2/
Discussed
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (1966) Lilian Jackson Braun
Agatha Christie
Rita Mae Brown
Richard Osman
Murder She Wrote (1984-1991) CBS
Midsomer Murders (1997-2023) ITV
Psych (2006-2014) USA Network
Bones (2005-2017) Fox
Father Brown Mysteries (2013-2023) BBC/Britbox
Sister Boniface Mysteries (2023) BBC/BritBox
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012-2015) ABC
iZombie (2015-2019) The CW
G.K. Chesterton
Ngaio Marsh
For more information
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Transcript
Thanksgiving Reflections and Community Appreciation
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah, how are you doing today? I'm doing really well. How about you? As we're recording, this is the day after Thanksgiving in the US. And so I celebrated with friends and family. Also just like to express my thankfulness for this community and for you, Sarah. I just love the direction that Clued in Mystery is going. And I can't wait to see where it
00:00:40
Speaker
I agree, Brooke, and yesterday wasn't Thanksgiving here in Canada, but I am also grateful for all of those things.
Delving into Cozy Mystery Genre
00:00:50
Speaker
So today we are going to talk about cozy mystery. And for other subgenres in the mystery space, we've followed the model of you and I, Brooke, taking a deep dive and talking about kind of the history of the genre and some of the conventions of it, and then bringing on a guest to talk a little bit about the genre as well. And we realized that we actually didn't do that with cozy mystery. We just had the guest episode in our first season, I think,
00:01:20
Speaker
with Melissa Bourbon who came on and we had a great conversation with her, but we didn't do that deep dive. So that's what we're going to fix today. That's right. Yeah. So the term cozy mystery is actually quite recent.
Origins and Core Features of Cozy Mysteries
00:01:34
Speaker
It was coined in the late 20th century at a time when contemporary writers were trying to recreate that feeling that the traditional mystery novels from the golden age of detection fiction provided to its readers.
00:01:47
Speaker
And you'll remember the big names from the 1920s and 30s. We have previous episodes on many of them. They include Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Nyle Marsh, and many others. But the mysteries from this time period were essentially intellectual puzzles, offering all the clues necessary for a reader to solve the crime along the way with the fictional sleuth.
00:02:12
Speaker
The traditional mysteries were conservative stories featuring a comfortable social structure such as an English village or an academic institution and then it's shockingly disrupted by a murder.
00:02:26
Speaker
Enter the gifted sleuth who is able to somewhat miraculously solve the crime and bring comfort and order back to the world. Following the World Wars, crime fiction took on darker, grittier tones. These were the hard-boiled detective novels of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Hard-boiled or noir novels are less about the strict puzzle and more about the dark world of crime and the seedy life of the detective. They're rather nihilistic.
00:02:56
Speaker
Cozy mysteries therefore began as a revival of the Golden Age style of more light-hearted mysteries, counterpoints to those darker detective stories being published.
00:03:08
Speaker
Cozies have a lot in common with the novels of the 20s and 30s, but they have their own set of expectations too. And this is what I'm gonna call the conventions of cozy mystery. So there is a crime and it's many times a murder and it's investigated by a usually female amateur sleuth with some type of special skill. The setting is typically rural or at least a small tight-knit neighborhood.
00:03:37
Speaker
Oftentimes, the sleuth has a relationship with someone in a professional capacity in order to gain information, maybe an attorney, the medical examiner, or a detective or police officer, and many times this leads to a love connection.
00:03:54
Speaker
There are also things cozies won't have. Cozy mysteries will not have curse words, graphic violence, and no harm to an animal, a child, or a vulnerable adult. And cozies will also not have any sex on the page. You can see that within those parameters, there's a lot of wiggle room, a whole continuum of stories that may or may not be classified as cozy. And clearly, there's some overlap with traditional mystery.
00:04:25
Speaker
I think all cozies are traditional mysteries, but not all traditional mysteries are cozy. We've created some visuals for you to illustrate the continuum and kind of the similarities and differences between cozies and traditional mysteries. And I don't know that these are illustrations are perfect yet, but more works in progress that hopefully Sarah and I can adjust and amend over
Popularity Surge During the Pandemic
00:04:50
Speaker
time.
00:04:50
Speaker
Now, cozies had already gained a large following by the mid 2010s, but the subgenre boomed in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Things were dark and grim enough. We didn't need our fiction to be. And to be fair, traditional golden age mysteries also came back into popularity and a lot of people began reading those again as well.
00:05:13
Speaker
And it was at this time that both traditionals and cozies became popular with younger readers in their 20s and 30s. It kind of widened the audience for both of them from its usual like 40 and up.
Criticism and Diversity in the Subgenre
00:05:28
Speaker
So while there's a huge readership of cozy mysteries, not everyone is a fan. The idea of cozy crime itself is sometimes criticized. Richard Osman says that he hadn't even heard the term cozy when he started writing his Thursday Murder Club series. He just wanted to write a modern mystery series that hearkened back to Agatha Christie's style.
00:05:51
Speaker
Osman is of the camp that Christie's stories aren't cozy mysteries, and he even feels that the term cozy crime is an oxymoron.
00:06:02
Speaker
Other mystery fans find titles in this sub-genre rather twee or silly. There again, I think it's important to note that there's a large spectrum of stories that reside under the umbrella of the cozy conventions. So everything from very clean traditional mysteries to the very sweet stories that I've learned that some readers are now calling cutesies.
00:06:25
Speaker
My research this week has led me to spend a lot of time thinking about why cozies are such a draw for so many readers. And I've come to the conclusion that we might need to add another requirement to the list of those conventions. And this would be the way that a mystery makes us feel.
00:06:41
Speaker
In reading a cozy, we generally care about or at least like the characters. We take comfort in knowing that the crime will be neatly resolved in the end. And we enjoy a fun trip to a quaint setting, all while joining an average Joe.
00:06:57
Speaker
on a crime-solving adventure.
Character and World-Building in Cozy Mysteries
00:07:00
Speaker
Thank you, Brooke. That was such a great explanation of cozies and the relationship maybe between cozy mysteries and traditional mysteries. And I love the idea of cutesies as kind of a sub-sub genre because
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's, as with so much about mystery, there's a real spectrum of the kind of mystery that you can get even under this smaller umbrella.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, that was a new term for me. But I do think that it has a lot of value in being able to differentiate the different kinds of these stories. This wasn't easy. And it's still not easy for me to sort of parcel out the idea of traditional versus cozy. And I think that is part of the reason that we haven't gone here yet for this subgenre, which is so interesting because technically, I would say both of us write fiction.
00:08:01
Speaker
falls under the umbrella of these cozy conventions. But again, it's like, where exactly do we fit? Are we more closely related to the traditionals? Where are you on that spectrum? It's complicated, I think.
00:08:18
Speaker
I agree. Often when I think about cozies, I think about there being a thing that the sleuth has, whether it's that they work in a bakery or they are part of a quilting group or whatever. It's either something crafty or a place where they work or their hobby that really shapes who they are as a character.
00:08:48
Speaker
which that's what I associate typically with cozies.
00:08:55
Speaker
And thinking about that, like you say, it's their job or it's their hobby that really brings out the theme or the feel of the book. And it made me realize that sometimes I think for many of these books, readers are reading just as much for the world building and that experience as they are for the mystery. It's a little bit when you go to Disneyland
00:09:23
Speaker
everything or another theme park, everything takes you into that world.
00:09:30
Speaker
The walking path is the correct type of stone for the era, you know, and the buildings look right and everything. And I feel like a really good cozy for those ones that are like craft or hobby based, it kind of builds everything around the reader so that they are enjoying the scenery and the cute little town and the delicious food, just as much that experience as solving the crime.
00:09:56
Speaker
I think those books often include whether it's a recipe, right? Something that's been featured in the book, you know, a cake recipe or cookies or maybe a savory dish or I think there's one that includes like a knitting pattern. And so, you know, I think that's also a draw for the readers, right? Like if you are someone who likes
00:10:21
Speaker
to bake, then picking up a new recipe as well as solving a crime alongside of a group of characters that you've come to really like. I can definitely see the appeal in that. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that the authors that do those series really well tend to have a lot of extras for their readers, and they're almost building their own little community so that then
00:10:49
Speaker
Outside of the reading, there's this whole experience. If you become part of their newsletter or their website, you get even more extras to make the whole world come alive. I think that's a huge draw for this. That, again, was such something that was really important when we were all locked down and we had the pandemic going.
Recognizing Contributions and Pioneers
00:11:12
Speaker
As I said in the intro,
00:11:14
Speaker
That was a time that people really found out about Cozy's and that community and feeling of like a cute little wonderful town, I think was just so necessary and such a nice salve for everybody during that really hard time.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's totally true. So when I was doing a little bit of reading about this book, I noticed that the Mystery Writers of America recently established the Lillian Jackson Braun Award. And so they established it in 2022 for the best contemporary cozy mystery. And my understanding is that that's the first time that cozy mysteries specifically have been recognized as a category by the Mystery Writers of America.
00:12:01
Speaker
So Lillian Jackson Braun, she wrote the Cat Who series. The first three books in the series were published in the 1960s. The first one was The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, and that was in 1966. But it was nearly two decades later that the fourth book came out.
00:12:20
Speaker
Um, and so that was, you know, in the mid 1980s. Uh, and then they were very popular, continued to be released until shortly before her death in, I believe 2009 is when she died.
00:12:35
Speaker
And I think there were a total of 29 books that were published in that, in that series. That series features the amateur sleuth is a male, uh, and he solves crimes with his cats. And so that's pets being a key part of cozy mysteries.
00:12:53
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely feel that Lillian Jackson Braun is a pioneer, I guess, of this, probably one of the very first authors who made that leap, like we said, between the golden age, then we had some of these
00:13:10
Speaker
grim or darker mysteries and then these people in the probably the 80s is really when it took off when her series then obviously was picked up and she added books. I remember reading those when I was probably a teenager and
00:13:28
Speaker
Even then, because being a reader in that time period, they felt so different because they were that lighthearted. The idea of having pets involved in the story, very new, very different. I definitely think that she's probably one of the first people that picked that up and ran with it.
00:13:50
Speaker
Well, and I think you can kind of draw a line from her books to a lot of the other books that we see in that genre in terms of the conventions that she established as being part of the cozy genre, even if they weren't being called cozy yet.
Exploring Cozy Mystery Sub-genres
00:14:09
Speaker
The other author that I think influenced Cozy Mysteries is Rita Mae Brown, and her first book was published in 1990. And that features pets also helping the sleuth, but these are talking pets. So I think that's the difference between bronze books is that I don't think that the pets in those books speak or speak to each other, but they do in Rita Mae Brown.
00:14:38
Speaker
We see that the sub-sub genres, I guess you would say, because when we look at the popular cozies we have, you already mentioned like culinary, like the bakeries. There's also the pets, the series that really weigh heavily on the pets and then crafts and hobbies. There's historical cozies, which are really fun and popular right now.
00:15:02
Speaker
Um, and then paranormal where either the pets are talking or they're actually supernatural creatures involved. Uh, so even within the cozy sub genre, then we have all these different, uh, categories and with really specific reader groups, I will say like people who read paranormal codes, cozies are not really that interested in reading, you know, historical or, or non paranormal, one of the other categories. It's interesting.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's I think that's a really great point that there's definite preferences that the audiences have and not necessarily the overlap, even though kind of they fall under that larger cozy
Does Agatha Christie Fit the Cozy Genre?
00:15:44
Speaker
umbrella. So Sarah, I hinted in the
00:15:46
Speaker
intro about Richard Osman saying that Agatha Christie did not write cozies. And we've had other guests on, Theresa Peschel is a guest and Chronicles of Crime was a guest who both are extremely knowledgeable in the world of mystery who are adamant that those are not cozy mysteries. So what's your opinion on that?
00:16:07
Speaker
I mean, I think I agree. I think a lot of Christie's work kind of fits in that cozier space, especially the Miss Marple books that are, you know, set in St. Mary Mead. So it's a small community. But the crimes themselves, I don't think are necessarily cozy. And she
00:16:28
Speaker
did not subscribe to the convention of no harm to children, because that does happen in a few books. Yeah, I think I would agree. I don't think she is cozy. What about you? I probably lean a little bit more toward the idea that her Miss Marple series are some of the beginnings of the cozy. I feel like that there are some of those stories that are rather cozy.
00:16:58
Speaker
Uh, and I wonder how much, uh, because you're right, like, uh, kids are not sacred, sacred territory in, uh, Christie stories, nor our pets. There's some things that, uh, she will do in her stories that you would not see in a cozy nowadays.
00:17:16
Speaker
But I wonder if it's just that it's a time period situation. I mean, children in general were treated much differently in the 20s and 30s, you know, not even really considered people yet until they became adults. So I think part of it is like the timeline and culture. But I see like
00:17:37
Speaker
as you were saying, drawing the line. I mean, you can draw a line from what she was doing in the Miss Marple with this amateur sleuth in a small community to what we're seeing now with contemporary cozies.
Influence of TV Shows on the Genre
00:17:50
Speaker
Should we talk a little bit, Brooke, about some cozier crime series on television? Because, you know, I think there are some great examples. Certainly, you know, I think Murder She Wrote would be one of the real contributors to the popularity of the book genre in the mid 1980s.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I know there were some spinoff books that were written after the television series began, which I think is really interesting, kind of that reverse, because it's typically the other way, right, where a book inspires an adaptation on screen.
00:18:33
Speaker
But there's also some cozier police dramas. And I think of Midsummer Murders, which is, I don't know how many seasons of Midsummer Murders there are, but there's a lot. But they're pretty cozy. It's in a small community. You don't really see the violence on screen. But the investigation, rather than being led by an amateur, is led by police detectives.
00:19:02
Speaker
Um, and there are, you know, I think there are a few other examples that we could name of kind of cozier police dramas. Um, and whether if, you know, if we were forced to classify them, I suppose we wouldn't be able to consider them cozies because it's not an amateur sleuth. Mm-hmm.
00:19:21
Speaker
True. Yeah. Again, we could come back to that sliding scale between traditional mystery and cozy mystery. It's just really hard to nail down sometimes. But as you say, I think Murder, She Wrote was such a contributor. And the timeframe, right? It's just right there in that same era as
00:19:42
Speaker
as the Braun and the Brown mystery series. And in fact, it's a great shorthand that I use when somebody says that they don't know what the cozy mystery genre is. I'll say, well, have you ever watched Murder? She wrote. And then you can name off. It's an amateur sleuth, and you can kind of name those conventions. And that's a really helpful way to explain to someone what they're getting into if you mention the cozy mystery genre.
00:20:09
Speaker
Um, I would also mention something like a psych for TV shows, um, for a cozy mystery TV show. And, um, and I really think bones, even though it's a little bit gory sometimes because she's a what forensic pathologist, it definitely has the, um, the cozy feeling of being humorous and lighthearted.
00:20:34
Speaker
I think I would agree with that. And it meets that criteria that you mentioned in the introduction where she's working closely with the police. And there is that kind of romance that develops between her and Booth. Some other examples I would include are Miss Fisher. So that's a more historical, cozy mystery television program. Father Brown, also historical. And then the spinoff from that, Sister Boniface.
00:21:02
Speaker
Um, and then from a YA cozy, uh, kind of crossover, I would include I zombie, uh, which is actually, I guess it's YA cozy and paranormal. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And again, bring those younger, uh, mystery fans in.
00:21:24
Speaker
I think it's wonderful that you mentioned the Father Brown mysteries because in fact, and we learned this when we covered G.K. Chesterton, he is actually considered maybe one of the Golden Age mystery authors who was in fact writing cozies, maybe even easier to classify than some of the discrepancies with the Agatha Christie stories.
00:21:44
Speaker
Um, so I think it's really wonderful that we're still getting to enjoy his cozies, even though they're on TV and they've been adapted, but, um, his character is wonderful father Brown. And, um, and I believe that his stories are quite cozy too.
Future Exploration of Sub-genres
00:22:00
Speaker
Well, Brooke, thank you for this conversation. I think it's been really good for us to dive a little deeper into cozy mysteries. And I suspect that there are some additional episodes that may spin out of this, you know, if we wanted to look more closely at some of the sub sub genres within that cozy space.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to do that. I think there's a lot to discuss and this has been a long time coming, but it was a great conversation. So thanks Sarah. And thank you listeners for joining us today on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery.
00:22:40
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website at cluedinmystery.com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued In Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued In Cartel. We're on social media at Clued In Mystery.