Cozy Mysteries, Soothing Reads for Difficult Times.
By Laura Childs, New York Times
Bestselling Author of Egg Shooters,
a Cackleberry Club Mystery
What’s on your bedside reading table right now? Is it a hardcore thriller where psychopaths murder, shoot, and curse up a storm? Or is it a cozy mystery? A kinder, gentler read that can help soothe you to sleep.Cozies are soaring in popularity right now just because they do give readers a respite from violence. And with all the civil unrest, political craziness, pandemic, and financial uncertainty going on right now, cozy mysteries really are the perfect antidote to difficult times. They can wrap you in a cocoon of warmth as you follow an amateur sleuth who uses smarts and intelligence to solve a crime the police are unable to make heads or tails of. There’s rarely a lot of violence in a cozy mystery and murders usually occur off stage.
When I think of the cozy genre I think of the great Agatha Christie. Her Miss Marple character is practically a prototype for today’s smart, gregarious amateur sleuths. Then there are all the wonderful Murder, She Wrote books. Interestingly enough, Terrie Farley Moran, a co-writer on my New Orleans Scrapbook Mystery series, is writing several books in this continuing series. And Lilian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who . . . series started out hardboiled, then transformed into cozy mysteries with a cast of loveable characters and cats.
One of the fun things about cozy mysteries are the various themes – cooking, art, antiques, interior design, fashion, lighthouses, candle making, etc. Everything from Cleo Coyle’s Coffehouse Mysteries to Susan Wittig Albert’s herbalist series to Leslie Budewitz’s Spice Shop Mysteries.
With all these great authors and cozy mysteries, how do I make my books stand out in a crowd? Well, I’ve tinkered with the formula a bit and have come up with what I call a thrillzy – a hybrid cozy-thriller. Let me explain. My books are traditional cozies in the sense that there’s a likeable amateur sleuth who tries her darndest to unravel a mystery and save the day. But my books also follow the thriller rule of thumb – an exciting murder in the first chapter, three major disasters that serve as turning points, a darkest-before-the-dawn chapter, and a huge, twisty ending.
In my newest book, Egg Shooters, my main character Suzanne drops by the hospital to drop off a thermos of chili for her fiancé, Dr. Sam Hazelet. Once there she runs smack dab into a pharmacy robbery where a guard is brutally gunned down and a friend wounded. As Suzanne heaves her thermos at the gunman, splattering him with hot chili, she becomes part and parcel of the drama – then works to solve the robbery, seek out the killer, and save the reputation of a nurse accused of being a conspirator. Egg Shooters is book nine in my Cackleberry Club Mystery series featuring this intelligent, focused amateur sleuth who doesn’t rely on coincidences or inept police work to solve crimes.
In the tradition of all my previous cozy mysteries, I also add a huge dose of human drama and liberally sprinkle in plenty of clues. After all, the fun of reading a cozy mystery is trying to solve the mystery!
All my best,
Laura Childs
About Egg Shooters
A murder in the local hospital is raising everyone's temperature in the latest book in the New York Times bestselling Cackleberry Club series.
Suzanne Dietz co-owner of the Cackleberry Club Café is visiting her fiancée, Dr. Sam Hazelet when a masked gunman bursts into the emergency room. He shoots two people and would probably have done more damage had Suzanne not brained him with a thermos full of chili. Still, the gunman manages to escape.
Now the ladies of the Cackleberry Club are determined to find the killer before he finds them.
About Laura Childs
Laura Childs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries
Laura specializes in cozy mysteries that have the pace of a thriller (a thrillzy!) Her three series are:
The Cackleberry Club Mysteries
– set in Kindred, a fictional town in the Midwest. In a rehabbed Spur station, Suzanne, Toni, and Petra, three semi-desperate, forty-plus women have launched the Cackleberry Club. Eggs are the morning specialty here and this cozy cafe even offers a book nook and yarn shop. Business is good but murder could lead to the cafe’s undoing! This series offers recipes, knitting, cake decorating, and a dash of spirituality.
The Tea Shop Mysteries 
The Scrapbooking Mysteries
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