Plus, the stories are also democratic and relatable since the sleuths are amateurs. As a reader, you can see yourself in a cozy mystery. No fancy forensic expertise is needed. Conversation and local knowledge (good old fashioned gossip) are the best tools for the job. With the year we’ve all had, it’s no wonder there’s a cozy boom. It’s the perfect combination for these times: vicarious escape and reassurance side by side. Even the colorful, home spun covers and punny titles are an inviting and evocative part of the package.
The New Wave: Diverse Cozy Mysteries
The one downside of this otherwise delightful formula, however, has been that conventionally (in the past and often still today), cozy mysteries take place in mostly homogenous small towns and communities. Like the English country villages of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries, these are pleasing, otherwise safe settings if you belong, but horribly insular if you don’t. They are hardly known for their diversity. Now, however, a growing multicultural, multiracial wave of modern cozy mysteries are updating the formula. Building on the inroads made by writers like Barbara Neely, with new settings and new subtext, cozy mysteries are becoming increasingly diverse. And there are modern diverse cozy mysteries for a wide range of moods, tastes, and readers.
Fish Out of Water/The New Girl in a Small Town
Meddling Family Affairs
Real Estate is a Battlefield
Laughter is the Best Medicine
We hope you enjoy discovering these diverse cozy mysteries. Get more cozy recommendations from these Book Riot lists: Marvella Harris is just 28 years old, but she has an old soul. She moved to the Peach Coast for a reason. In New York, Marvey had trouble gaining traction in her career, but in the Peach Coast, she easily makes her mark. After just a few months, she’s in love with her job and falling in love with the townsfolk, too. As the library’s new director of community engagement, she’s started a book club and organized a book signing. And, she has a new best friend, independent bookstore owner Jolene Gomez. Both are newcomers and outsiders to Camden County. While Marvey is a Brooklyn transplant, Jolene (Jo) is from Florida. All looks great until a controversial local author turns up dead in the bookstore’s back room. Then chaos breaks out and BFF Jo becomes the prime target of a lackluster investigation. As a Gator fan in Georgia Bulldog territory, clearly justice is not guaranteed. So Marvey jumps head first into the investigation with helpful and handsome local scion and journalist as her helpful sidekick. For the Miami raised Cuban American food anthropologist and cooking show star Miriam Quinones-Smith, moving back to South Florida should feel like coming home. With a handsome environmentalist husband, a newly minted PhD, and an adorable bilingual toddler, and her best friend now in close proximity again, Miriam’s life should be golden. But her husband’s newly distant behavior and her mother-in-law’s barely veiled hostility make the homecoming less than happy. Then, when a woman drops dead at a country club luncheon right next to Miriam, life gets more complex and, honestly, more interesting for the rebellious and independent academic. A vibrant, diverse, LGBTQ-inclusive cast and Raquel Reyes’s deft balance of sensitive topics and frothy intrigue make this a standout. With her options dwindling, she takes a position teaching music at a boys school in the Irish countryside. The job comes with a housing — a historic cottage — and the very famous, very unhappy ghost of a musical legend. Able to communicate clearly with him, she agrees to investigate the death of his late wife and clear his name of both murder and suicide so he can finally rest in peace. Though she’s well respected in local society, Rose’s situation closer to home could use improvement. Her ambitious daughter-in-law thinks she cheated her stepson out of his rightful inheritance though all the law firms she consulted to contest the will disagree. But what’s delightful is that Aunty Lee manages those competing agendas with compassion and aplomb, just like she maneuvers the police. In the first book, when a body turns up and two local women go missing, Rose Lee helps solve the case, not because the police are bumbling, but because she is just exceptionally sharp. A satisfying blend of interpersonal conflicts and more serious subplots involving homophobia and other entrenched issues, the case packs a real punch, revealing much about Singaporean society along with who did it and why. She was wrong: dead wrong. Returning home to Shady Palms, Lila endures not-so-subtle hazing from a gaggle of hypercritical Filipina aunties. Plus, the boy she used to love and now loathes has a habit of hanging out at the family restaurant, doling out scathing reviews on his foodie blog. That was bad enough. It gets worse! You don’t know what the bottom looks like until your ex-boyfriend drops dead face first in a plate of food you just served him in your family restaurant and you become prime suspect number one. Turns out Derek had secrets that may have gotten him killed. But Lila has secrets too, and they place her firmly in the frame. The victim in this case is a classically nasty piece of work. Russ Nolan runs a puppy mill with abusive, unsanitary conditions and breeding practices that put the health of the dogs at risk. One is almost tempted to say good riddance to bad trash. No one is broken hearted to see him go. The only catch is that Mimi’s very loud confrontation with him shortly before his death makes her a suspect.
15 Cozy Mysteries Coming Out in the First Half of 2021 25 of the Best Cozy Mystery Series 10 Scrumptious Culinary Cozy Mysteries
