(Untitled)

[littlered2]

I was in Waterstones last week, and discovered that they had a bookcase devoted solely to what they called "Cosy Crime". It included Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie, to my great bemusement.

Here is the ending of Unnatural Death:

'An evil woman, if ever there was one,' said Parker, softly, as they looked at the rigid body, with its swollen face

Comments

[antisoppist]

I agree entirely. Are they using "cosy" just to mean "does not involve torture, dismemberment, psychopathic serial killers and eyeballs hanging out of their sockets", which I would quite like a warning for on most modern crime fiction? In which case "Golden Age detective fiction" would do just as well.

[littlered2]

I assume that must be the case - "has disturbing things in, but not *modern* disturbing things, so it's fine". Not all of them were Golden Age - I was just nipping in and out for a present in my lunchbreak, so didn't have a chance to peruse them properly, but I did spot some M.C. Beaton.

"Cosy" is, anyway, an utterly useless title. Sayers must be turning in her grave.

[antisoppist]

A friend of mine sent me a load of ebook "quilting mysteries" (which I haven't read) and I suspect they might qualify as cosy, unless people get their entrails pulled out by crochet hooks or something. Similarly, books where mysteries are solved by cats.

[littlered2]

Perhaps the victims get smothered by fabric, or viciously stabbed with embroidery scissors. And, as Pratchett points out, cats are vicious bastards. I can imagine one of mine being an extremely un-cosy detective. (If any suspects were mice, they'd be in trouble.)

[littlered2]

That makes a lot of sense - Sayers' plots aren't usually taking place in East End slums, or similar. Say what you will about Helen, Duke's Denver isn't exactly a grim setting.

Oh dear. I mean, it's broadly factually true, but not hugely representative.

[littlered2]

Hello! It's always nice to make new friends. I shall friend you back.

[hedge_backwards]

If I were going to draw any distinctions between 'types' of crime novels; which would probably be a fool's errand in the first place, I would group them as crime fiction which treats the crime as an intellectual problem to be solved on the part of the detective and by extension, the reader and those which deal with the crime as a social or psychological symptom. The latter often don't have most complex of plots where the actual crime is concerned. It's really more of an excuse to involve a lot of interesting character types in an extreme situation and to record the ensuing explosions (sometimes literally). I would place Christie firmly in the former camp but I have trouble defining Sayers, true, she deals with fully rounded characters and the cases are rarely concluded in the library with brandy and cigars, after which, everyone but the murderer goes merrily on their way as though they've done nothing more than solve a particularly difficult crossword. However she does seem to set out her stall in Busman's Honeymoon when Peter

[littlered2]

Ooh, this is interesting! Looking at which camp Sayers belongs to, she wrote Five Red Herrings specifically to show she could write an intellectual-puzzle style mystery (although I get the impression, from an admittedly small sample size, that it's not hugely popular. Could this be why?), and even as early as Unnatural Death, there's a presumption throughout the book that Mary Whittaker did it - it's just finding out how and why that's the problem. So in some ways the intellectual puzzle aspect is there, but at the same time her characters are very three-dimensional, even the minor ones, and it's not just a Christie-eque "here are the puzzle pieces, let's spend a book putting them together". And the solution to the mystery is often not as interesting as the other things going on around it.

true, she deals with fully rounded characters and the cases are rarely concluded in the library with brandy and cigars, after which, everyone but the murderer goes merrily on their way as though they've done nothing more than solve a particularly

[hedge_backwards]

This is how crime novels should be shelved...

[littlered2]

Perfect.