With punny titles, quaint and beautiful settings, animal sidekicks, and amateur sleuths with a knack for solving clues, who doesn’t love a cozy mystery book?
Saving you the grit and intensity of a hard-boiled mystery, cozy mysteries take on a lighter tone and are populated with quirky characters in a charming community. The cases in cozy mystery books are usually solved by amateur detectives, many of whom are women, who use the natural talent for sleuthing to unravel mysteries on the side of their day jobs.
Whether the central sleuth is a bookseller, a baker, a dog groomer, or some other fun job, the cases in these books usually relate to their experiences and skills.
Cozy mystery books tie up nicely with satisfying, though sometimes shocking, resolutions. Cozy mysteries will have you following along the clues and trying to unravel the case without any tense, noir scenes to drag you down.
Explore cozy mystery books perfect for curling up next to the fire, sprawling out on the beach, or beginning your own sleuthing journey.
Cozy mysteries are characterized by a lighter tone and less of the violence and darkness of other mystery subgenres. Instead of a rough and seasoned detective, cozy mysteries feature amateur sleuths who find themselves caught up in cases. Cozy mysteries are set in quaint and picturesque locations and spotted with a cast of quirky characters. A mystery is made cozy if it makes you want to curl up and solve all of its tricky puzzles, without any gore or fear.
A cozy mystery is a lighthearted subgenre of mystery books, where amateur detectives follow clues, usually relating to their own personal experiences or occupations. No blood or violence is seen on-page in cozies—instead, any action happens before the sleuth arrives. Cozy mysteries are frequently set in quaint and picturesque locations and spotted with a cast of quirky characters. Instead of the gore and violence characteristic of other mystery subgenres, cozy mysteries invite you to solve all of the tricky puzzles of a case, without any darkness or fear.
If you are looking for a classic of the genre, you might want to reach for one of Agatha Christie’s famous Miss Marple mysteries, the work of author Charlotte MacLeod, or one of the renowned books by Mary Roberts Rinehart. If you’re looking for something more modern, try a cozy from Ann Hazelwood or one of Carlene O’Connor’s Irish mysteries!
