About American cozies

[james_davis_nicoll]

Is it coincidental that every American cozy I am sent is set in a small town?

Comments

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

A "cozy" in an old-fashioned type of murder mystery where Sir Gerald gets killed in the library while playing a bassoon and, after a leisurely plot through quaint surroundings, it turns out that someone rather decent with a quite good reason did it and they leave the murderer gently alone in the library with a spot of brandy and a revolver with one shot in it.

In American cozies Gerald is a businessman or a politican or something, and everyone listens to NPR.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

A revolver with a single round? How delightfuly Soviet.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

They may have picked it up from Lord Peter Wimsey when he was dining at the Soviet Club.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

I would read this, mostly because of the bassoon.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

There's an alternate version where the amateur detective realizes that there's no murder at all. The final blast on the bassoon was deeply sad, and not in the sheet-music of the piece that Sir Gerald was playing, so that the detective deduces it must have been a suicide note.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

That description reminds me a lot of Fredric Brown's _The Fabulous Clipjoint_. As regards James' question, that book was set in Chicago.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

And in American cozies usually either the sleuth or the victim (or both) have some interestingly quaint, detail-oriented hobby that the author can spend half the book explaining to you, like quilting, or amateur archaeology, or lace-fancy, or raising budgies.