Getting Cozy, Mystery Edition
November 14, 2024 4:01 PM   Subscribe

PBS explains the cozy mystery. Cozy mystery is alive and kicking. Cozy mysteries, serially. While detective fiction is full of 'great' detectives, they're notoriously all male, even given the presence of many beloved female detectives in cozy and other mysteries, and Moser and Xhignesse have a few thoughts about why that is, in a Feminist Philosophy Quarterly article: A Garden of One's Own or Why Are There No Great Lady Detectives?

There are many posts touching on cozy mysteries on MetaFilter, but no actual posts on the blue so tagged.
posted by cupcakeninja (8 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you are in the mood for Peak Delightful, you will be happy to know that Tea Time Magazine has a regular column devoted to cozy mysteries, often involving tea, and always accompanied by a photograph of the book in question beside a nice pot of tea and a plate of scones or biscuits.
posted by phooky at 4:59 PM on November 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


If Arthur and George hews closely to the Barnes novel, it's absolutely not a cozy mystery. There are a lot of tricks to keep the reader off balance and it lacks the comfortable certainty the genre offers--it's neither clear what has happened, nor that things will turn out OK for protagonists. Great book though.

In general I think the PBS article is indifferent to the distinction between golden age mysteries and cozy mysteries. The crime and detecting in the modern cozy mystery definitely draws from the golden age, but the modern cozy has lots of other required elements (including a highly genre aware sense of the older golden age mysteries). But I guess lumping them all together makes sense if I think in terms of what PBS has on their back catalog.

The "Bodies to die for" link isn't working for me.
posted by mark k at 5:41 PM on November 14, 2024 [3 favorites]


The only way I see that you can access "Bodies to die for" (for free) is through Academia.edu. They'll let you dl it once you've registered. They'll offer you a variety of non-free versions, be strong!
posted by shipstone at 2:34 AM on November 15, 2024


(Apologies, folks -- the link worked for me earlier when not logged in to Academia, but obviously something's not right -- I am contacting mods for help)
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:52 AM on November 15, 2024


We've plowed through dozens of cozy mystery series on PBS, Acorn, BBC, BritBox, Prime, etc etc etc. We keep hunting for more. There are plenty of strong female detective characters and those tend to be our more favorite shows.

Happy to provide a list if anyone wants them. Start with My Life is Murder from New Zealand. Lucy Lawless does an excellent job.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:27 AM on November 15, 2024 [6 favorites]


To be clear, lest anyone misread my substitution of that article: I do not believe that there are not wonderful, interesting, strong female detectives in cozy and other mysteries. I've read and watched many over the years. The article is specifically about gendered gatekeeping around who gets to be considered a "great" detective (Holmes, Poirot, etc.).
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:32 AM on November 15, 2024


Warning: political stuff... It strikes me that you could read through this Feminist Philosophy Quarterly article and replace "lady detective" with "lady senator, representative, or governor" and "great lady detective" with "lady president of the US" without having to change much more. Of course "fictional narrative" would be translated to "political narrative" and "fictional nemesis" would become "political opponent." I note that after the recent election a lot of the narrative is still Trump defeated Biden, or Trump and Biden reconcile (in a popular AI video.)

It is just a very hard, slow process, in fiction or in politics, to overcome the unfortunate instincts we inherit from our evolutionary ancestors. Non-males (in certain countries, even today!) have had to hide their genius and conform to certain low expectations or else be instinctively doubted as unbelievable frauds. Meanwhile men can lie and/or chuckle about their own infirmities while handily collecting the acclaim that was afforded their barbarian forbears. That is changing, hopefully, if too slowly for my daughters' sakes! For the detectives: Miss Marple and Nancy Drew were trailblazers in their times. Now they highlight the need for more progress, like the first airplanes showed the potential for starships.
posted by TreeRooster at 11:19 AM on November 15, 2024 [1 favorite]


I'm a late comer to Agatha Christie, and recently discovered the Verity Bright cozy murder mysteries (#1 "A Very English Murder"). Loved it, and raced through it. Looking for more of their series, (I think they are up to 18!) This thread is right up my alley, thank you!
posted by annieb at 5:59 PM on November 15, 2024 [1 favorite]


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