January is a harsh month. The parties and other festivities that lured us out in November and December are over and many of us are less than motivated to face the cold 13 hour-long January nights. Many of us prefer to find the warmest place on the couch, curl up with a few books or the TV remote, and stay there until signs of spring begin to show. I am one of those hibernators myself and this winter I am encouraging my brethren to fight the cold and dark with something that sounds comforting and welcome--a Cozy Mystery.
A Cozy Mystery is a softer answer to the graphic, rough world of the Hard-Boiled Cop Mysteries. In Cozies, the sleuth is normally a complete amatuer when it comes to investigating a crime. These days the amatuer might call anything from catering to genealogical research his or her day job, but in older Cozies the sleuth is often retired or a writer. Murders or other violent crimes take place off stage, with the sleuth(and readers) finding out about them from friends, the news, or another indirect source. Our sleuth rarely says anything stronger than "Heck!" or "Shucky-Darn" and while the sleuths often have a romantic someone special in his or her life, the reader never follows the sleuth behind the bedroom doors. Cozy Mysteries, in short, are a gentle read for those who love to figure out whodunnit.
Cozy-mystery.com has an extensive list of cozy mystery authors and other mystery authors the web page creator loves. Our librarians have taken the liberty to check this list for authors we have in our collection and have complied our own list of Cozy Reads. To see the results of this search, come by and see our Cozy display all month long.
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