crime and I received more than one blank expression. Someone asked me to define a cozy crime - well my understanding of what makes a cozy is that the crime is usually without explicit sex of violence, where the emphasis is usually on whodunnit - the quintessential cozy crime writer, I stated, is Agatha Christie.The cozy mystery, also called the traditional mystery, is a specific genre light on sex and gore whose focus is on "whodunnit" .
TV series like Quincey, Murder she wrote, Heart to Heart and Heartbeat are all to my mind cozy crime. And apart from the odd Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers I haven't really read that much within the sub-genre, preferring the more hard-boiled and character led crime myself. But I have often browsed the mystery section in bookshops and found rows and rows of mysteries featuring cats - apparently there is a sub-sub-genre of the cozy genre called cat crimes.
There is a great article, written by Vickey Britton, that defines the genre HERE. It's well worth a look, not only does it look at many of the key titles in the genre but also supplies curious readers with a list of writers who typify the very best of the genre.
"A cozy mystery is one written in the tradition of Agatha Christie. It usually takes place in a closely-knit setting with a limited group of suspects. A small town or English village where people are well-acquainted is a common setting for the cozy. An amateur detective is usually responsible for solving the crime. The cozy is light-hearted in tone rather than heavy. The murder often takes place offstage, as opposed to the hard-boiled mystery which contains a professional police officer, graphic violence and a sense of gritty reality. "
Vickie Britton
Another article worth checking out is the Goodreads guide to cozy mysteries.
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