Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, Part 4: Wisconsin cozy

No one knows exactly what noir is, but everyone wants to be it. No one knows exactly what cozies are, but even authors who write them shy away from the term.

One panel at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego comprised writers whose work fits comfortably under the cozy umbrella, yet when the panel's moderator brought the subject up, he asked, "What about the c-word?" The ensuing discussion revealed that matters could be worse. In Canada, someone said, such books, low on graphic violence and usually with female amateur sleuths as the protagonist, are called fluffies.

On a 1-10 scale, cozy to noir, my own crime reading probably falls between 7 and 9. But I spent a good part of Bouchercon 2009 annoying people with my suggestions for clever titles, so I have a soft spot for the author of books such as Hail to the Chef and State of the Onion.

[Click here for one definition of a cozy mystery, here for Ruth Dudley Edwards' discussion of why the term is problematic — and almost uniquely American — and here for my own previous discussions of this question (scroll down).]

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Existential angst in a post-Wodehousian Age: The Herring-Seller's Apprentice

No, really.

Ethelred, protagonist of L.C. Tyler's novel, is a mystery writer, several of whose discarded chapters Tyler interpolates in the final quarter or so of The Herring-Seller's Apprentice.

One of the chapters mocks the brooding nouveau roman of Alain Robbe‐Grillet and his followers, with its intense meditation on random objects. Another pokes fun at the brooding Italian fictional detective, with the loyal assistant, who likes to drink during working hours. A third is a fantasy on P.G. Wodehouse, with that comic genius' characters appearing in the guise of police.

Ethelred's protagonist, Fairfax, is a detective nearing retirement age without the rank his abilities should have earned him. He is without a wife, and he drinks often, without tumbling over into alcoholism. Ethelred has even, for reasons he does not quite understand, given Fairfax an interest in Norman architecture – you know, the strong, solid kind that prevailed before the slender fripperies and gaudy light of Gothic. Others will be more familiar with the details than I, but that moves in Morse/Wexford/Peter Diamond territory, I'd say.

Given that Fairfax begins with a typical English detective from a certain age (say, about 1970 onward) and has him try on then discard a number of other fictional-detective disguises – and given that The Herring-Seller's Apprentice was Tyler's first novel – it's reasonable to guess that Tyler thought about his own direction as a crime writer (and perhaps about the state of British crime writing as well) and decided to have some fun and let his protagonist do the same. One might even say he was exorcising some fictional ghosts.

Oh, yes. This is a mystery story. I don't know if it quite meets all the requirements of a fair-play mystery, but it does have a surprise ending along with a summation that offers a reasonable explanation for red herrings and wrong guesses throughout the story. A reader looking to do so just might be able to figure out the mystery. I did not, and it would be fun to know how many readers did.

(My emphasis on a serious side of Tyler stems from my first meeting with him, at CrimeFest in Bristol. In response to a question about crime writers who inject humor at grim, violent moments, Tyler said he liked Alan Guthrie – unexpected for a self-described author of comic cozy mysteries.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Tradition, tradition!

Does something in the zeitgeist — the disastrous recession, maybe, the swift and terrifying collapse of vital, once-trusted industries, the newly precarious state of so many lives and livelihoods — turn readers' and publishers' thoughts to the comforts of tradition? A week and a half ago I posted some thoughts by and about those unrelated novel-writing Edwardses — Ruth Dudley and Martin — on traditional mysteries: what the term means, and how an author goes about writing traditional mysteries in these untraditional times.

This week, Sarah Weinman weighs in on "New Traditionalist" mysteries and cites some thoughts on the subject from Jordan Foster at Publishers Weekly.

Click on all those links — Sarah's, PW's, the Edwardes' and mine — and open your mind to mysteries that can be traditional and with it at the same time.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

CrimeFest blogfest II: What's traditional about a traditional mystery?

(Here's my second in a series of posts about authors who plan to attend CrimeFest 2009 in Bristol, England, next month. I'll be there, too, working when I should be having fun and having fun when I should be working.)

What's traditional about a traditional mystery? If you'd asked me a few weeks ago, I might have said traditional = cozy = prominent role for old dear = village or country-house setting = knitting = cute animals.

Then I read what Ruth Dudley Edwards had to say on the subject. In the United States, she writes on her Web site, "the distinction is made between cosies and hard-boiled, terms which are unknown here except to the cognoscenti. I am definitely in the cosy league – what Reg Hill, who is there too, calls ‘the Jane Austen end of the crime writing spectrum’."

One always knew that Britain had Christie and the U.S. had Chandler and that the dichotomy might have echoes to this day. Still, having just read Edwards' The English School of Murder, I was surprised to see the author place herself in the cozy league. The novel, after all, is set almost entirely in London, and it includes passing and not-so-passing references to drug use, homosexuality, menages-a-trois and any number of up-to-date political and cultural jabs and other references, not to mention the occasional four-letter word.

I've just opened Martin Edwards' Waterloo Sunset, and I've noticed reflections on urban growth and boosterism, not to mention a character who just might be disturbingly demented. I hadn't expected this from an author who has proclaimed his allegiance to traditional mysteries. Heck, the man even named his novel for a song by the Kinks.

I know something about what a traditional mystery isn't: full of explicit sex and wrenching violence. But sharpen my thinking, and tell me what a contemporary traditional mystery is.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009