The other day, a patron wanted to know what mystery authors she might like to read. The BHPL reference librarian "interviewed" her to find out what her reading interests were. The patron said she is an Agatha Christie fan and doesn't like violence in books. This generally means that she would like the genre of mysteries called "cozies" or "English village mysteries" often featuring an amateur detective who uses intellect, common sense, keen powers of observation and a lot of nosiness, rather than brute force, to solve mysteries.
Here is the list the librarian made for her. For all you "cozy" mystery fans, you might like to try the following authors:
Antonia Fraser - Jemima Shore mysteries (British TV reporter)
Ann Granger - Mitchell and Markby mysteries - Meredith Mitchell works in Foreign Office and with her detective boyfriend Markby solves a lot of crimes set in English villages
Katherine Hall Page - Faith Fairchild mysteries - a caterer married to a minister in Massachusetts
Alexander McCall Smith - No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series(shelved in Mystery under McCall) - set in Botswana
Joan Hess - Claire Malloy mysteries - set in a bookstore
Donna Andrews - American; humorous; main character is an artist
Dorothy Cannell - interior decorator in an English village, humorous
John Sherwood - widowed horticulturist in an English village
Since you like Agatha Christie, we also recommend Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh who were Christie's contemporaries.
That query exactly describes my mother, who has since come to love Alexander McCall. Thanks for the additional ideas! I made a basket of a book from each author for her recent birthday.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked our list of "cozies." Thanks for stopping by the library blog.
ReplyDeleteLoved your list! Very handy to know that these books are called "cozies" or "english village mysteries". That makes it a lot easier to search for them on the internet. I'm going to try if I can find one of these authors in our library.
ReplyDeleteI just requested a few first novels from some of the different authors. Thank you very much for this list!
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