It’s Agatha Christie’s Birthday — Let’s Celebrate International Cozy Mystery Day

Did you know Sep­tem­ber 15 is Agatha Christie’s birth­day? Since Dame Christie’s mys­ter­ies start­ed the mys­tery genre now known as cozies, both Eng­land and the Unit­ed States cel­e­brate today as Inter­na­tion­al Cozy Mys­tery Day. Offi­cial­ly, cozies are all about mur­der in a small com­mu­ni­ty that is solved by some­one oth­er than the police. (Ama­teur detec­tive, please step forward!)

Eng­lish cozies can be quite man­ner­ly, with Lords and Ladies. Amer­i­can cozies often involved dogs or cats, and espe­cial­ly food, or a small shop that sells a vari­ety of things.

Cozy com­mu­ni­ties come in all vari­eties: small towns, fish­ing vil­lages, farm com­mu­ni­ties, the sea shore, and even aboard ship. The time zone may cer­tain­ly be cur­rent, but many cozies are set in the past. Some are even set in the future. There might be ghosts involved, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, or aliens, and even romance. Hol­i­days bring out a new batch of titles. (Noth­ing quite like a lit­tle mur­der for Hal­loween, right?) In fact, any­thing or any­one can be includ­ed in a cozy — except a tru­ly grue­some killing, a world-wide threat, or a pro­fes­sion­al crime solver!

I’ve illus­trat­ed a bit of vari­ety with twelve cov­ers. A cou­ple of authors answered when I asked for vol­un­teers. Some, I select­ed from a Gup­py post. (Gup­pies are Sis­ters in Crime mem­bers.) I’ve read some of the books myself. And, oth­ers I just hap­pened to have the cov­er copied to my can­va dot come file. (Made it easy.) Some of the titles are quite old, some brand new. (I’m enclos­ing the Kin­dle links I find at Ama­zon — one is only avail­able in print.)

What cozy do you love the most? Do you have a cozy series you can’t get enough of? One of my favorites is the series that includes Click Here For Murder by Don­na Andrews. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I must be in the minor­i­ty, as her pub­lish­er only want­ed four of them. There def­i­nite­ly was an over­all ongo­ing plot that nev­er hap­pened. (Oh, and the fact that the alpha­bet now ends at Y. But that one is understandable.)

Death By Dis­ser­ta­tion — Christ­mas Cocoa Mur­der — Down in Flames — Por­trait of a Dead Guy — Click Here for Mur­der — Cliff Hang­er — A Souf­fle of Sus­pi­cion — Judge Thee Not — The Fam­i­ly Way — Stran­gled Eggs and Ham — Play It Again, Spam — Fat Cat at Large