My fave reads of 2018 part 2: Mysteries!

I started reading mysteries a few years ago when I was searching for adult fiction that wasn’t romance-centered. I stumbled upon cozy mysteries, which I like because they are usually pretty light stories (which seems like an odd thing to say about stories involving murder, but I stand by it). I also think mysteries are very interesting from a writing perspective, and I like to see how authors weave the storylines together, plant red herrings, and eventually lead the sleuth to solve the crime.

As far as I can tell, the key components of a cozy mystery are:

• a female sleuth who’s not a professional detective or police officer – many of the sleuths own or work in a store, restaurant, bakery, or library;
• a small town or community with lots of quirky people;
• a murder that happens “offscreen” and isn’t described in graphic detail;
• often the sleuth is older than 30, and I think the target audience of cozy mysteries are ladies who are older than me;
• there’s no graphic sex, swearing, or much that could be considered “controversial;”
• the murderer usually ends up confessing, often in front of a police officer, which drives me up the wall and makes me want to run in and read them their Miranda rights.

This year, I listened to a lot of mystery audiobooks to relax while working on my novel. Since my book was young adult fiction, reading other YA novels felt way too close to home, so I really dove into mysteries. I even braved the world of non-cozy mysteries a little!

I’m always on the lookout for queer cozy mysteries. I found a couple this year, but they didn’t make my best-of list. The one queer mystery that did was definitely not cozy, as you’ll see below. I’m thinking about writing a queer cozy mystery as my next writing project, but I haven’t gotten very far. If you have any suggestions of queer cozies for me to check out, please let me know!

And now I present:
Shelley’s Favorite Mystery Reads of 2018

A Magical Match by Juliet Blackwell (A Witchcraft Mystery #9) (2018)         
This is my favorite cozy mystery series, and I was excited when a new book came out. This series is about Lily, a witch who owns a vintage clothing store in San Francisco. Too often, cozy sleuths are prissy, fancy ladies, and I love that Lily isn’t. She runs around town in Keds and a ponytail, and is friends with the homeless man who sleeps in her store’s doorway. She also has a talking pig for a familiar, a colleague who makes plus-size replicas of vintage dresses, and a bunch of witchy and hippie friends who pop up occasionally to help her with research or tracking down leads. The audiobooks are narrated with a sweet Texas twang by Xe Sands, who is one of my favorite narrators, and the world of this series just seems so sweet and weird and fun. Plus, I love reading about the vintage clothes.    

Blanche on the Lam (Blanche White #1) by Barbara Neely (1992)
I’ve been looking for more cozy mysteries written by authors of color, which is how I found this book. The main character, Blanche, is a black woman who does domestic work in rich white families’ homes, and starts sleuthing when there’s a murder in the house she’s working in. Blanche makes a lot of observations about the experience of being a black woman working for white people, and about police treatment of white vs. black people, and how black lives are treated as though they’re disposable. I liked this book a lot, and the author did a good job injecting social commentary into a story that could otherwise be pretty quick and easy.
 
Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1) by Jacqueline Winspear (2003)
This was a really interesting story! It’s not actually a cozy, since the sleuth in this book is a professional detective, but it does have a lot of the primness of some cozies. We start in the 1930s as Maisie sets up her detective agency, then most of the story is about her younger years, and with her personal life connecting to the mystery. Maisie was a nurse in World War I, which I learned a lot about, and an ambitious, inquisitive, driven woman in a time when women were expected to be none of those things. Before reading this book, I hadn’t considered how in-the-middle-of-things the nurses were during the war. I thought author did a good job of illustrating the horrors of war and how veterans are kind of abandoned when they come back. And Maisie is smart and kind and I liked her orderly process of solving the mystery.

Blackmail, My Love: A Murder Mystery by Katie Gilmartin (2014)
My final mystery recommendation for today is a standalone and is not cozy at all, but it’s definitely queer. This story takes place in the 1950s and is about Josie, who travels to San Francisco when her brother goes missing, and explores the underground gay scene while she searches for him. She meets lots of memorable characters, tells and hears heartbreaking stories about having to hide being queer, and comments on racism and sexism as well as homophobia. It’s a touching and engaging story that breaks every cozy rule that I listed above, including the graphic sex. I can’t recommend this book highly enough if you are interested in queer history!
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