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Topic: Best Cozy Mysteries??

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Subject: Best Cozy Mysteries??
Date Posted: 1/22/2007 11:25 PM ET
Member Since: 5/30/2006
Posts: 133
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I have read all of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Maud Silver mysteries and loved them. These are all set in England, and the author is now gone, so there will be no more!

Also read Dorothy Sayer's English mysteries with Lord Peter Whimsey. These are good, but not as good as Patricia Wentworth's!

Also love the Monica Ferris ones with setting in a needlework shop!

Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove series is also interesting and light, as are Jan Karon's books (Loved all of them)!

Barbara Delinsky's Flirting with Pete was good, too, and I like some of her books.

Do any of you know any other great cozy mysteries? These are light, with lots of suspense, but also with humor. Blood and gore are not in these! Neither are obscenities or explicit sex scenes. But love is here to stay!



Last Edited on: 5/13/09 10:43 PM ET - Total times edited: 2
MarciNYC avatar
Date Posted: 1/23/2007 11:17 AM ET
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Have you tried Laura Child's tea shop mysteries?  First in series is Death by Darjeeling.  My friends who like Monica Ferris' needlework mysteries like these as well.

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Date Posted: 1/23/2007 2:14 PM ET
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Joanne Fluke's series is great!

Ayelet Waldman's Mommy-Track series is also fantastic

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Date Posted: 1/23/2007 4:05 PM ET
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I really enjoy the Aunt Dimity Series by Nancy Atherton, the Bed and Breakfast series by Mary Daheim, and the Torie O'Shea Mysteries (can't think of the author at the moment.

The Aunt Dimity series features Aunt Dimity as a ghost.  She helps her sleuth via a special notebook.  The Bed and Breakfast series takes place in a B&B on the West Coast.  The sleuths (two sisters) and the suspects are usually very entertaining.  The Torie O'Shea mysteries are alot of fun for me because they combine a mystery with genealogy research. 

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Date Posted: 1/23/2007 4:36 PM ET
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Love seeing another Maude Silver fan!

All the Scumble Rivers are fun mysteries (Murder of a Botoxed Blonde, etc.) and I like the two Valerie Wolzien series -- one features an upper-middle-class housewife named Susan and the other a female construction business owner named Josie Pigeon.

Of course, there are definitely all the Cat Who . . . mysteries.

If possible, try to start each series at the beginning.  Or just try one to see how you like them and go from there.

Sherbook avatar
Date Posted: 1/23/2007 4:50 PM ET
Member Since: 3/28/2006
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Everytime someone starts one of these threads I add a bunch of new authors.  Let me throw in a couple.  Claudia Bishop's hemlock Falls, and Joan Hess has Claire mallory and the Maggody series.
mlg avatar
Date Posted: 1/23/2007 5:56 PM ET
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I like the Inspector and Mrs Jeffries novels (blanking on the author).  Also I really like M.C. Beaton's books both her Hammish and Agatha Raisin novels. 
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Date Posted: 1/23/2007 11:33 PM ET
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These are super ideas! I already see 4 that I want to try!

Thanks! Anybody else want to list some favorites?? I love getting ideas from those who have tried the authors and loved them!! Remember, if you are from the South, and haven't tried Anne George, you are in for a silly, but fun treat!!

Lulie

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Date Posted: 1/26/2007 3:27 PM ET
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I enjoy Maggie Sefton's books.  They take place around a yarn shop in Colorado and the knitters who hang out there.  "Knit One, Kill Two" is the first in the series.  The other two are "Needled to Death" and "A Deadly Yarn".
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Date Posted: 1/27/2007 9:32 PM ET
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Do you need to read Joanne Fluke in order?  I have never read a cozy, but I ordered Lemon Merangue Pie Murder.  Can I read this out of order?
mlg avatar
Date Posted: 1/27/2007 9:37 PM ET
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Another series I love but they can be hard to find are Garrison Allen's Big Mike series.   Big Mike is a cat-they are really good.

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Date Posted: 1/28/2007 11:24 AM ET
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Don't forget to check Stop You're Killing Me - http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/

Mystery listings by author and by character with special lists on occupations, locations, etc.  Invaluable if you are a series reader and want a full list of a series in order.  Also extremely helpful for authors with series under pseudonyms.  :)

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Date Posted: 1/30/2007 9:57 AM ET
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Sorry if this posts twice! Just ordered the Maggie Sefton book about the yarn shop and the aunt's murder! Who writes the flower shop mysteries?? Just love these cozy mysteries. Also, I need to know some more English authors of cozies - have read Patricia Wentworth and Dorothy Sayers.

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Date Posted: 1/30/2007 2:48 PM ET
Member Since: 5/22/2006
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Kate Collins does the flower shop series.  Mum's the Word is the first book in the series.
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Date Posted: 1/31/2007 12:46 AM ET
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Rebecca, you don't have to read Joanne Fluke in order but it does help to keep up with the character if you do. I know I mispelt that, but it's almost midnight here and I'm still on this site.  Ughh.
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Date Posted: 2/1/2007 10:25 AM ET
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I'm a Miss Silver fan, too!  Grey Mask is one of my absolute favorites.

Lulie, since you seem to like some of the older mysteries, you might try Elizabeth Daly (she wrote mysteries in the mid-20th C. featuring an upper class New York book expert as the detective); Mary Roberts Rinehart (another American who wrote suspenseful mysteries in the early 20th C., often in the "country house" setting); Ngaio Marsh (she wrote British mysteries from the 30s to the 70s featuring a Scotland Yard detective but with a feel a lot like the Wentworth mysteries); and Margery Allingham (similar to Marsh but her detective is a private investigator instead of a Scotland Yard investigator).

Have fun!

ETA:  Although Daly and Rinehart are American authors, their books have that same upper class British feel as the Wentworth books.



Last Edited on: 2/1/07 10:27 AM ET - Total times edited: 1
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Date Posted: 2/1/2007 3:19 PM ET
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I am just now getting into the cozy mysteries, and the first cozy I decided to try was Anne George's "Murder on a Girls' Night Out." It was so funny, and I enjoyed it so much that I have ordered the whole series!!

I've also heard that Deborah Morgan writes a great cozy series for antiques lovers, and I am also one of those........... 

a2heidi avatar
Date Posted: 2/3/2007 5:01 PM ET
Member Since: 2/2/2007
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Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs Mysteries are rather cozy - and Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
lillinda avatar
Date Posted: 2/4/2007 3:39 PM ET
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Why are they called "cozy" mysteries? Where did that name come from?

Linda

a2heidi avatar
Date Posted: 2/4/2007 7:10 PM ET
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Cozy mysteries have no graphic violence and are usually in a small town setting. Usually the "detective" is an amatuer.

lillinda avatar
Date Posted: 2/5/2007 12:20 AM ET
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Thanks for the explanation. I had never heard that term before. Linda
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Date Posted: 2/5/2007 12:37 AM ET
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I recently found Linda O. Johnston's pet sitter series and I love them!  The first one is Sit, Stay, Slay

Last Edited on: 2/5/07 12:37 AM ET - Total times edited: 1
ghostga avatar
Date Posted: 2/7/2007 7:42 PM ET
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i really liked Nancy Martin's Blackbird sisters mysteries.  the first one is How to Murder a Millionaire.  very funny.
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Date Posted: 2/7/2007 8:14 PM ET
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Donna Andrews is another 'cozy' writer - her series is for the birds, hehe.  Murder with Peacocks, Murder with Puffins,  We'll Always have Parrots, Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, there may be more... 

I also really like K.K. Beck, The Body in the Volvo is very funny.  And I'll second whoever recommended M. C. Beaton, my dh and I both laughed out loud at her Hamish MacBeth series, especially Death of a Hussy - hilarious.

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Date Posted: 2/8/2007 3:16 AM ET
Member Since: 1/6/2006
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How about Tamar Myers books? They're billed as "A Pennsylvania-Dutch Mystery with Recipes". They're pretty good (and cozy!). The titles are wonderful. For example:

Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Crime

or my favorite

Just Plain Pickled to Death!

 

brett 

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