cozy mystery
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Murder, He Shelved
Two and half years ago, on October 1, 2020, I began outlining Death Due, a library cozy mystery that took place in 1985, at the fictional Fir Grove Library, featuring a hero para-librarian named Meg Booker. I finished the first draft around Valentine’s Day, 2021, and immediately dove into rewriting it. Two months later, I realized it didn’t work. After a four-month break over that summer, I came back to it in the fall and by early 2022 knew what I had do in terms of writing a cozy mystery that worked. Back early 2023 I had a new, much longer draft for the novel, now titled A Shush Before…
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Perry Mason and Me, Part II
Returning to the series as an adult It wasn’t until the start of 2022 that I returned to the Perry Mason television show. A good friend who loved the show kept telling me how entertaining it was, and how clever and compelling the mysteries were. I decided to watch a few episodes on Paramount + with my wife and see how it stacked up to my childhood memories. I was in for a shock. My childhood memories of a grim, implacable Perry Mason, were at odds with the good-hearted, jovial attorney, who was serious and implacable when his client’s fate was on the line, but enjoyed teasing private detective Paul…
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Glass Onion mini-review
I loved Rian Johnson’s 2019 mystery film, Knives Out, which dealt with a family angling to inherit the wealth of a world-famous and elderly mystery author, played to perfection by the late Christopher Plummer. Daniel Craig played detective Benoit Blanc, who plunged into the maze-like mystery and collared the murderer. When I learned that Johnson was working on a follow-on movie featuring Blanc, I couldn’t wait to see it. Glass Onion debuted on Netflix on December 23 and my wife and I did a teleparty with our friend Brian, since we were all housebound because of an ice storm. Knives Out was set in a sprawling Gothic castle-like mansion, a…
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Hello 2023
Happy Belated New Year! I ended 2022 with two screenings of Glass Onion, the follow-up to Knives Out. If you enjoyed the first film featuring the world’s greatest detective, Benoit Blanc, definitely catch the second, now streaming on Netflix. An eccentric billionaire and his group of friends on a sunny and luxurious Greek isle present Blanc with a twisty mystery to solve. To say more would be spoiling the fun, so I won’t. It’s taken me a while, but A Shush Before Dying is coming together at last, and I’m having an absolute blast putting this library cozy mystery together. It’s scheduled to be published later this spring. I am…
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Jessica Fletcher is my hero
I’m very late to the Murder, She Wrote party, but now that LeAnn and I are watching the show, I realize what a wonderful character Jessica Fletcher is. Wise in the ways of the world, kind to everyone she meets, and filled with empathy for all. Her previous career as a high school teacher and her upbringing as a Mainer both come out in her down-to-earth manner. Like all great detectives, she’s curious, always asking questions, fearless once she’s on the case in pursuing leads wherever they take her, and relentless in investigating. She’s also persistent in her writing, always working on the next book, wishing she could focus more…
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Finding your next great read
It was a question and a statement we got a lot at the libraries I worked at. “Can you help me? I just finished this awesome series and I’m looking for another book like those. Oh, and I’ve read everything by that author.” I’d ask them a few questions (librarians will always ask a few questions to help zero in on what you might actually be looking for). “What was it you liked about that series or that novel?” “Are you looking for something that has a similar setting, characters, type of story?” Then we would listen. In library-land this is known as “doing reader’s advisory.” In other words, helping…
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A Passion for Cozy Mystery
When I first began reading mysteries, years ago, I started with Lawrence Block, Sue Grafton, and Robert B. Parker. I loved Parker’s Spencer. I also read some of the classics, starting with Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, Poe’s short story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and of course, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Poirot. But it wasn’t until just a couple of years ago that I read my first actual cozy mystery, On What Grounds, the first Cleo Coyle Coffeehouse mystery, after a friend recommended it. I loved the novel. It took place a coffeehouse in Greenwich village in New York City, and had humor, a little romance,…