Marti's June Picks

Get Cozy and Read!

Have you considered reading a “cozy mystery”?  They are part of the crime fiction category with a twist.  Think about Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote and you have the vision of a cosy mystery in your head. Cozy mysteries do not focus on the violence of other crime fighting series.  Often the main character is well known to a number of people in a small community, intelligent and just curious enough to get in trouble. The characters of the setting show up with varying degrees in the different books with the main character always running the investigation.  Cozy mysteries are mostly serial in nature, as there are often a number of stories all around the main character and town. Many can be read as a standalone novel, but are best when read as a series. Cozy mysteries can focus on any number of specialties.  There are cozy mysteries that focus on knitting, bookstores, libraries, inns, cooking, fishing and other seemingly innocuous tasks. This focus on a specialty is what draws a number of people in.

In this genre, I am reading The Gray Whale Inn Mysteries by Karen MacInerney.  In this series, the owner of the Gray Whale Inn, Natalie Barnes is the lead character who invariably gets pulled into a mystery that she ends up helping solve. The setting is Cranberry Island off the coast of Maine.  At the end of each book are some recipes that Natalie makes for the inn within the story line. Try Murder on the Rocks (The Gray Whale Inn Mysteries series) by Karen MacInerney.



Cozy mysteries focus more on the characters and mystery then most of the rest of the crime fiction genre.  The murders are not focused on, nor described in all the blood wrenching glory.   I often feel reading this genre that I am having a cuppa tea with an old friend who is relaying a story from her town. There are many cozy mysteries and types available.  Along with the series mentioned above – here are two other good series I have been known to imbibe: Mum’s the Word (The Flower Shop Mysteries #1) by Kate Collins and Murder is Binding (The Bookshop Mysteries #1) by Lorna Barrett.


Below you will find some links to a couple of sites to get you started. 

http://www.cozy-mystery.com/ - this is the mother lode site where you can find huge lists and collections of cozy mysteries to everyone’s taste.


http://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/ - This is another site where you can find any number of books.

As always the people at MainStreet BookEnds would love to help you connect with books.  Stop in and check out the stock and all books also can be ordered at the store and on the web page. Get Cozy and Read!