Non-Fiction books about Cozy Mysteries
Here at CozyMystery.com we have a theme for Non-Fiction books, with a couple of dozen books on it.
This theme covers non-fiction, obviously, but they break down into four main categories. Here we’re going to discuss each of these categories and some of the books in them.
Agatha Awaits
Before we begin I’d like to point out one thing: the presence of Agatha Christie.
She is of course a giant in the literary world, and her mysteries continue to be among the top-selling books each year. This is why she tends to dominate the non-fiction world of the mystery genre too. Half of the non-fiction books we list are directly about her or her characters, and half of the rest feature her in some way.
I might go so far as to say she is mentioned in every single non-fiction book about mysteries, because she is such a giant in the field. I don’t think there’s another genre of writing which is so identified with one person.
Anyway, to the categories:
The History of Cozies
The history section is perhaps more the History of Mysteries, but each talks about cozy mysteries as a sub-genre in one way or another.
The first question is how academic you want to get. Many (most?) of the books which deal with the history of mysteries are at least somewhat academic, and honestly are relatively difficult to read. By that I don’t mean they’re bad books, I mean that if you’re used to reading light cozies, these are very much a change of pace.
Reading the Cozy Mystery by Phyllis M. Betz (editor) is probably the most dense book on the list. This is a collection of academic papers about cozy mysteries and it reads like it. There are some excellent essays within the book, but you have to be really interested to want to read it.
On the other hand, two books by Martin Edwards seem written for a wider audience. Both The Life of Crime and The Golden Age of Murder are enjoyable reads for people who like history and love mysteries. It is perhaps his role as a mystery author which enables Edwards to write such accessible histories. Were I recommending one book on this list to read, The Life of Crime would be it.
We have two books from Lucy Worsley on the list, The Art of the English Murder and A Very British Murder. This can be confusing, because they are identical books, with the second being branded for the well-known British television show. It is a good book but I wish they were more clear in the descriptions about the situation.
Practical Applications for Cozies
(or, how to murder someone)
These books talk about the science of killing people. Both examples we have use Agatha Christie as their entry point to the world of mystery.
I’ll be honest and say these types of books are more technical than I like. They tend to use mystery as something to hang their technical details on. What do I mean by that? Well, imagine someone wrote a chapter about arsenic, then tacked on details about some Christie stories and some real-life crimes, to bring the chapter into the mainstream. I’m not saying that’s what these authors did, but it’s the way it feels.
I’d say these books are for the hardcore mystery fans rather than general reading.
Cozy Characters
It is interesting how people come to think of characters as real people. If you have a biography of a character from a book, you can talk about them in history terms, as Mark Aldridge does in Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World, or as a real person, like Anne Hart does in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot: The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot. While both books are enjoyable, Hart’s treatment of Poirot as a person, while detailing the history of the character, makes the book very interesting to read (not that Aldridge’s book isn’t interesting).
The other main book in this category is 100 Greatest Literary Detectives by Eric Sandberg (editor), and it’s this book which I might recommend more than any other on this list (perhaps Life of Crime might beat it). It does of course cover much more than cozy mystery characters, but it’s a well-done look across the genre.
Writing Cozies
The final category is a little more technical, and not for everyone.
If you’re interested in digging into how cozy mysteries are written, or mysteries in general, there are books out there for you. Some people like to pull back the curtain and see exactly what goes into the stories they love to read. Others would like to join their favorite authors and write their own stories. These are the books for them.
I want to mention just one book here, How to Write a Mystery by the Mystery Writers of America. This is a recent book which also works in some ways as a survey of the mystery genre. The various authors in the book cover a variety of topics, and they are as you might expect, well written and interesting. As before with the Martin Edwards books, the people who write mysteries for a living tend to be better writers than those who don’t. No big surprise there.
Non-Fiction is for the dedicated reader
There’s a range of books written about different aspects of mysteries. Few of them are specifically about cozies, but they all have something to say. Your interest in them may be tempered by how deep you want to go, but everyone can get something out of them.
Do you have anything to say about this article? Agree or disagree with what we have to say? Let us know in the comments below.
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