Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Words Matter, a guest post by E.J. Copperman

 One lucky commentor will win a hardcover copy of \
Bones Behind the Wheel by E.J. Copperman!


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Mystery readers and writers are used to our genre getting sliced and diced (no pun intended) by agents, publishers and bookstores. Do you write dark psychological thrillers? Madcap historical mysteries? Police procedurals? Romantic suspense? Most of us - readers and writers alike - would prefer their mysteries classified in one of two ways: Will I like it? Or won't I?

 I know many, many JRW readers put E.J. Copperman's books in the first category. His Haunted Guesthouse series continues to grow in popularity (the newest one, BONES BEHIND THE WHEEL is now out!) and his Asperger Mystery series garners critical acclaim and five star reviews. So love Copperman, love his books - just please think twice about how you describe them...



Photo from Poison Pen Bookstore
Let us, for a moment, consider the term “humorous cozy mystery.”



I am, at least it says in some of the reviews of my books, a writer of humorous cozy mysteries. I have, for the past 17 or so years (but who’s counting?) been making my living as such. You could say, were you so inclined, that humorous cozy mysteries have been the main source of my income for a good portion of whatever career this is.



The problem is, I hate the term “humorous cozy mysteries.”



Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks, let me clarify: I don’t for one second dislike the genre (Subgenre? Sub-sub-genre?) itself. I like mystery novels. I like mystery novels that don’t rub my face in the gory details and try to get me to think that the world is a horrible, depraved, frightening place. There’s the newspaper for that.




I’m a particular fan of those novels – mystery, bloodless or otherwise – that exhibit a sense of humor. I am a comedy nerd. I have little patience for any form of entertainment (art, if you must) that has no sense of humor at all. It bores or irritates me. So I am not by any means suggesting that the type of books I and so many others (who tend to get nominated for awards, but am I bitter?) write are in any way a second-rate art form. Much to the contrary.



It’s the words “humorous cozy mysteries” that I object to. To which I object. Fine. Be a grammar cop. Because words do matter, and those are possibly the most terrible choices available for the kind of stories I tend to write. Let’s take them one at a time:



Humorous. If there’s a worse way to say “funny,” I’m not aware of it. Humorous has an almost sarcastic ring to it, like what you would say to someone who just tossed off an unusually bad joke or pretended an insult was just their way of kidding. There’s a scene in Silver Streak where Richard Pryor jokes that Gene Wilder is more or less acting in a racist fashion. Pryor doesn’t mean it but he makes the joke. Wilder looks at him and says, “Oh, that’s very humorous.” 
 

It’s the comedy version of pleasant. You might as well say that something is droll or whimsical. Even amusing is better than humorous. It makes comedy polite. Who needs that?



Cozy. Perhaps the worst culprit of the bunch. The word cozy in and of itself demeans the form it describes. If there’s a dead body on the floor and you feel cozy there is something deeply wrong with you, or you just killed that guy. There are no other explanations.

No, cozy was adopted to assure some readers that nothing nasty (sex) was going to happen in this novel and no unpleasant images (sex and violence) would be presented. Cozy says, You’ll be fine. Don’t be afraid. And once you’ve done that to a work of fiction you might as well just say that it’s toothless, pointless and free of any honest human emotion. It will be, at best, cute, a word which is mercifully left out of the phrase humorous cozy mysteries.



Cozy has led to a serious segregation of the form, too. Cozies are separated in the mystery section at the bookstore, they are generally left out of any awards discussion (except the Agatha, and no, I didn’t set out to write a piece about mystery awards), and they tend to feature crafts and baking over, in some cases (not all!) plot and character.



I was once having lunch with a group of cozy authors and discussing the trends of the day in that field. It was observed that the two big features publishers wanted at the time were crafts and supernatural beings, in particular vampires.



Joking, I said, “What about a knitting vampire?”



One of the authors didn’t look up from her soup. “I was offered that one,” she said.



Cozy.



Mysteries. That was a tease. I have no argument at all with the word mysteries.



We should call these things what they are: Funny Mysteries with No Sex or Graphic Violence. Granted, that’s not as catchy as humorous cozy mysteries, but it’s more accurate and less grating to the ear. I’d be happy to hear your suggestions for ways to banish those words from our mystery vocabulary. Ideas?

E.J. Copperman is the author of many funny mysteries with no sex or graphic violence. Wow. That took up a lot of words. Well, the latest one is the 10th (!) Haunted Guesthouse mystery, BONES BEHIND THE WHEEL. E.J. would greatly appreciate it if you’d pick up a copy. You can put it down again after that, but paying for it would be nice.


 E.J. Copperman, is on Twitter as @ejcop, has a web site and a blog, SLICED BREAD.  You can also learn more about his alter-ego Jeff Cohen at his web site,  friend him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter as @JeffCohenWriter.

70 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your new book . . . could you tell us a bit about “Bones Behind the Wheel?”

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    1. Thanks for asking! In BONES BEHIND THE WHEEL, the state of NJ is doing some anti-erosion work on the shore right behind Alison's house, and a 1977 Lincoln Continental is discovered when a large hole is dug in her backyard. Then it's discovered that there's a human skeleton in it, and a VERY cold case is reopened. So Alison, very reluctantly, is drawn into the investigation by her new husband, her daughter and her resident ghosts. It all goes downhill from there.

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  2. Delighted to hear that there's a new Haunted Guesthouse mystery on the shelves. I will definitely pick up a copy, as I have with the other nine, and pay for it, and enjoy the heck out of reading it.

    The word I'd like to banish is "cozy." It is so condescending. And yet what to replace it with? "Safe"? Who reads mysteries to be safe? "Fantastical"? While books in this genre frequently challenge my ability to suspend disbelief, I think the folks over in the SFF genre might object to "fantastical."

    How about plain old "fun"?

    E. J. Copperman writes fun mysteries. I can live with that.

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  3. I know how hard it is to work around "cozy" - and I don't try any more. I try to use the positives - village-based, amateur sleuth, with justice and equilibrium restored in the end, which is admittedly clunky - instead of what they don't have. Best of luck with the new book!

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  4. I like what Gigi said: fun. All of your books are definitely fun! I’ve read just about all of them as far as I know (I must check), by you and by your alter ego. The only thing that’s NOT fun about them is waiting for the next one to come out!

    A trip to the bookstore is in my near future.

    DebRo

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  5. Welcome welcome welcome, dear one! This is a very good question, and quite the dilemma. And I agree, there is no satisfactory answer, so far at least! Maybe the jungle red brain trust can come up with one.... An now I am off to the dentist… (Nothing funny about that :-)) ! And back soon to chime in again— and hear what you all have decided.

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    1. Also going to the dentist, Hank! (I doubt I'll see you there.) Thanks!

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  6. Well, I do love funny so I will definitely put your books on my list! Love discovering new authors. Thank you, Reds.

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  7. Congratulations on your new release. Jersey has lots of buried bodies. Great premise. I read and enjoyed one of your Asperger's books, which showed me ways of interacting with my neighbor on the spectrum.

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  8. Congrats on the new book, EJ. Love the cover and your post brings up some valid points about the biz. It seems sales and marketing will always rule classifying books and that’s a battle that can’t be won. As for awards, a very powerful agent once said, “You can make money or win awards — very few authors do both.” So, I’m just going to stick with the former. LOL!

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  9. Congrats on the newest book, Jeff! And good luck finding a new way to describe your work. Publishers have sliced and diced the mystery genre as a whole so finely it is almost ludicrous these days. And don't get me started on the covers full of cats. Oy.

    Why do they not want readers to find new authors on their own is my question? Wouldn't it be a lot more fun to discover a new series without preconceived ideas?

    By the way, congratulations, too, to the Reds with Agatha nominations! It's so exciting, except it would be SO hard to choose between so many fine reads.

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    1. Karen, you make me think of something a writer friend told me at a conference: "Once you've got a cat on your cover, there's no going back." :-)

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    2. Julia, don't get me started about a cat on the cover...

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  10. I don't know that I've yet read a humorous cozy mystery yet. Unless you perhaps might include the Abcday the Rabbi...by Harry Kemelman. I will catch up at some point. I like books that make me laugh but I imagine that they are not terribly easy to write. I'll put this one on the To Be Read pile.

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    1. David, you might like to look into E.J.'s Jeff Cohen books as well. I'd love to hear some more suggestions for Funny Mysteries with No Sex or Graphic Violence! Anyone have any suggestions?

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  11. I love this essay Jeff aka EJ! Thanks for putting smart words to the conundrum...

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  13. EJCopperman: I laughed out loud as I read your post, and am off to get one of your books. (I'll be ordering online, as it's -20 degrees where I am right now.)
    Instead of "humorous cozy mystery," how about "witty, smart mystery?"
    As a reader, I am always grateful to writers who can make me laugh.
    And as a writer, I always hope I can make my readers laugh. Purely for selfish reasons. It feels good to make other people feel good.

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    1. Keziah, you and your dogs stay safe! Make sure you join us on Friday - we're going to be sharing tips on how to keep warm and cozy when your thermometer has frozen on the front porch.

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  14. Oh goodie, a new to me author! I've read your Asperger series so now it's on to the Haunted Guesthouse.

    I'm afraid there won't be a shift in the labels, categories and niches until some sort of shift on a financial spreadsheet comes to the attention of some marketing person, sitting in the offices of some publishing house somewhere in New York or LA. Unfortunately the authors are the last group to have a say in the process. And readers? We have been homogenized to a single line on a graph or a "target market".
    As a reader I'm driven by the recommendations of other readers . I've never read a book because it fit into my favorite "genre."
    By the way, Vampires Who Knit is in print. It is marketed as a "paranormal cozy mystery series." *sigh* Someone who paid a fortune for a graduate degree in marketing reduced a "demographic" to four words. Money well spent?

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    1. I would love to know who coined the term "paranormal." Is it like paramedic - professionally adjacent to normal? Is it like paranoia, a prefix meaning abnormal? In which case, it's literally saying "abnormal normal." Or is it "para" as in parallel, "at or beside" something. Next to normal? That has a whole different connotation than vampires.

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    2. And...we're back to the "architecture of language."

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  15. I have no issue with the label at all. It's short and explains things perfectly to me. As someone who enjoys Humorous Cozy Mysteries, I can't think of a better way to describe them.

    Anyone besides me noticing that the Agathas are getting darker? The nominees this year, especially for best novel, aren't as light as they once were. I'm not saying the nominees are bad books, but seriously, where are the lighter books in the mystery genre going to go to be recognized? Seems like the Lefties are about the only things left.

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    1. That's something Jeff/E.J. and I have talked about. Writing funny and light well is hard, but it's rarely recognized when awards get handed out. Critics seem to think making readers sad or fearful is the highest form of art. I'd argue the opposite - it's easy to elicit a tear; it's much more difficult to get a laugh.

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    2. Mark, I think that Rhys Bowen's book has been nominated and it is a lighter book ?

      Diana

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    3. Julia, with a few exceptions, I never read the darker mysteries. I think there is ONE series that is "dark" and I love it because it is different from others. When I submitted my nominations, I nominated the lighter mysteries since I read lighter mysteries.

      Diana

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    4. Diana, I was thinking about Rhys's "Royal Spyness" series in this context. I wonder if its significant her works are nominated and marketed as 'historical' mysteries, rather than as funny mysteries - which they are, very much!

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    5. Julia, I nominated Rhys' Royal Spyness for both historical mystery and humorous categories. When I saw the list of nominees AFTER I sent in my nominations, Rhys' Royal Spyness was nominated for historical mysteries. Loved Four Funerals and maybe a Wedding. Agreed that they are very funny!

      Diana

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  16. EJ, 'cute' and 'demeaning'--perfectly summarizes why I hate the term 'cozy'. There are some mysteries which are too cute for words and these I avoid like the plague. However, smart, funny mysteries are a sheer delight to read--because they have to make you care about the characters, plot must make sense, and setting should definitely help define and shape the story. Only a good writer can accomplish this--and good writing will be recognized by readers and shared--too bad the awards people haven't figured this out.

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  17. Ah, the power of words!
    I think the only solution is, perhaps, wide spread lobotomies!?
    Libby Dodd

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    1. I can definitely think of a few people I would nominate for the procedure, Libby...

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  18. Jeff/E.J., welcome to the Jungle Reds! I remember your books from my first Malice Domestic conference. That was the first time I heard of your books. Congratulations on your new book.

    Like Mark, I have no issue with the label. To me, a "cozy mystery" label means no graphic violence. I remember that some authors objected to the label "cozy" and prefer the term "classical".

    I like mystery novels that are funny. I like mystery novels that are well written. I started with Nancy Drew mysteries then started reading Agatha Christie mysteries. At first the Agatha Christie novels were very challenging because there were no pictures in the book. Now I can read books without pictures.

    Diana

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  19. Jeff, as a writer of humorous mysteries I am well aware of being ignored by the serious reviewers, the Edgars etc. we are perceived to be somehow lesser. Not as deep as noir. Delightful, charming... That's what they say about my Royal Spyness books, but I don't really care because readers love them, and that's all that matters!
    And your aspergers series is brilliant!

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    1. Rhys, that means the world to me coming from you. Thank you!

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  20. I’m surprised the publishers haven’t adopted a code like the TV and movie industry. Perhaps cozies would be PG-13. Then you could have Mature Readers only: may contain sex, violence, bad language, plot twists, unlikeable characters, boring occupations, etc. How about PN for paranormal with subsets of funny, scary, and animals? I could go on and on. I get frustrated when bookstores classify books as something different than I would and I can’t find them!

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    1. Excellent idea, Pat! That way bookstores could shelve broadly, and readers could decide it a particular title is to their taste.

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  21. I just have to say, words definitely DO matter!! Normally I scan through these discussions. E.J./Jeff, you had me at Mysteries. Your way with words reeled me in,as do your Agent To The Paws,Haunted Guesthouse, and Asberger's series. Looking forward to Bones Behind the Wheel!

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  22. I hear you Jeff/E.J. I like funny mysteries with no sex or graphic violence, I like a good ghost and I like guesthouses in general but most of all , I love a good book. So, should I begin at book #1 ?

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    1. Begin anywhere you like, Danielle. The books are designed so that you can jump in anywhere. Thanks!

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  23. Let's have a new genre for mysteries - danged good books ought to do it. Folks can tell they're gentle mysteries by the use of danged and the good books should speak for themselves.

    EJ, if your cover artist had displayed a bit more bone on your latest cover, you could have used Humerus Cozy Mystery and been right on target. Don't judge, I couldn't resist.

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  24. I feel for you, EJ... I call my own books creepy-but-not-icky mysteries. and I agree, cozy is problematic... conjures images of chintz tea cozies. Though frankly no better than the meaningless "traditional mystery." I understand readers wanting to be assured that they're not going to trip over something they wish they hadn't read.

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    1. Hallie, I so agree with this. I started a mystery years ago and kept reading until the author included a scene that was so horrifying to me that I still wish I could un-read it, un-see the images it evoked. I actually threw this book away rather than share it with my mom or donate to the library. Powerful writing, but...

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    2. I get that readers don't want to be suckered into something that would make them uncomfortable, and I think there should be a way to do that. I think Pat's suggestion isn't a bad idea. It's not the distinction I object to, it's the terminology. Exactly, Hallie!

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  25. There are 'hard boiled' mysteries. Maybe cozies could be called 'soft boiled'?

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  26. I love funny mysteries, whatever you want to call them. Congrats on the new book!

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  27. EJ, I have a request. Could you please slow down? There is such an abundance of riches in your different series that my head is spinning when I try to settle on where to start. I have started the Asperger's series, and I plan on getting back to it soon. I am itching to read the Haunted Guesthouse series, and that itch is going to have to be scratched this year for sure. The Mysterious Detective series and the Agent to the Paws series are also calling me. All of these mysteries have two of my favorite things in common, clever titles and completely engaging covers. Is it little wonder that my head is spinning.

    The label of cozy mystery has always been a problem for me in my reviewing of books because I'm sometimes not sure if an author objects to the term cozy. I don't ever want to imply that a "cozy" mystery takes any less talent or work or brilliance than any other kind of mystery, so I generally don't use the term in order, I guess, to avoid the controversy over it. But, I don't think that it's a bad thing that a book can elicit cozy feelings from the reader, so I can't think of "cozy" as without merit. So many readers want and need some comfort from their reading, as well as great story lines and characters, which "cozy" does so well. I do wish that someone would come up with a term that is both descriptive of the contents and acknowledges the literary worth, too.

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    1. Alas, Kathy, I am slowing down. Midnight Ink is closing its doors and the Asperger's series is with them. And at least one of the others is not continuing, so everybody who wants there to be a book #11 in the Guesthouse series... well, they go by sales numbers...

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  28. Jeff / E.J. ?? Have you read the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon? There is a character with Asperger's syndrome.

    Diana

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    1. Yes, Diana. I have read the book. Thanks for asking!

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  29. There has been an interesting discussion among romance writers about the word "clean" - meaning, no sex. How exciting is a Clean Romance? Funny implies no graphic violence or torture (I would hope!), but I think Funny Sex-Free Mystery is about as appealing as Clean Romance.

    I'm not being helpful, I know, but I enjoyed the post and wanted to comment!

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    1. Ramona, anyone who wonders that must be made to read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. They don't even kiss in the novel, but what a romance...

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  30. Oh, I did just add your blog and Web site to my Reading Room blog under EJ Copperman/Jeff Cohen. I suggest going to EJ's/Jeff's blog Sliced Bread to read more about him being labeled a cozy mystery writer.

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  31. Copperman/Cohen's titles have me intrigued I will have to get one and add it to my stack of books to read

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  32. I don't mind the term cozy. I think more of me reading in my comfortable chair with a glass of ice water or tea by me. While I prefer books without graphic violence, sex, and profanity, what I like most about cozies is the sense of family and community in them. People shouldn't write them off because some books deal with serious subjects.

    By the way Betty Hechtman writes a series that has a character who writes a series about a crocheting vampire. Also by the way, I love cats (and dogs) on the covers! I like learning about different crafts and jobs even if I don't do them. I guess fun is the best word but a lot of other genres would claim that.

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    1. I find "cozies" have a broad range of subjects and tones, Sally. There's an awful lot that fits under the banner of "no graphic sex, violence or profanity."

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  33. Ah, the cozy term. Not a huge fan of the designation, but I do like the style--especially the funny ones! And, funny that there should be a mention of knitting vampires! I just finished The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren. I so enjoyed it! Young (20s) American goes to visit Grandma in Oxford. Grandma owns a knitting shop, but due to an unfortunate event is now a vampire. Complications ensue! And, yeah, there's a cat, but don't let that stop you!

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    1. I've read books that take the "cozy" elements and played with them in delightful ways, Melanie. That sounds like one of them!

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  34. Thanks for your guest post- I am always looking good reads!

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  35. I can’t wait to read this series.

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  36. Congratulations on your book! I love all kinds of mysteries!

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  37. Fascinating post and intriguing story which interests me greatly. Best wishes.

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  38. Congratulations on "Bones Behind the Wheel". I agree with your view on cozy mysteries, I feel they are as much of a mystery as any other book in that category. My Sister loaned her friend one of her favorite "cozy" series and the next time she saw her she returned them because she doesn't read "cozies". She is missing out on some really good "mystery" reading .
    diannekc8(at)gmail(dot)com

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    1. I expect that's the experience of many people, Dianne.

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