What is a Cozy Mystery?
The question we ask ourselves every day is about what qualifies as a cozy mystery. Looking through thousands and thousands of books, we’ve come up with a few answers and a few rules.
Our database on CozyMystery.com shows an increase in books every year for the last fifteen years. In 2022 we will average more than ten new cozies released every single day. The genre is big and growing fast.
As cozies have exploded in popularity, plenty of publishers have slapped the cozy label on the cover or filed their mystery novels under cozy mystery on Amazon. Desperate for sales, they hurt themselves by categorizing books this way. It annoys readers who don’t get what they expect and leads to critical reviews and poor ratings.
Contrary to popular opinion, you can’t just put the label “cozy” on a book and call it a cozy mystery.
If the cover says the book is cozy but the content isn’t, you’re being misleading. You might get away with it at the edges, where there are books which can fit both in cozy and other subgenres (but if you see a hard-boiled cozy, it’s not a cozy, it’s marketing).
A quick note for those on the other side of the Atlantic: We know you spell it cosy, but it’s just that common language dividing us again. Just pretend all our zees (or zeds) are esses, okay?
There are six major areas to look at when you’re deciding if a book is cozy or not:
- Is it a mystery?
- Does it have a cozy tone?
- Where is it set?
- What is the crime?
- Who is the sleuth?
- Who else is involved?
Each of these is important in their own way, and it may not be necessary to fulfill all of them to be cozy. If a book does, you’re reading a cozy mystery.
The Mystery
The word Mystery is right there in the title, so it’s obvious what the book should be about, right? Not obvious enough.
Above all, a cozy mystery should be about a mystery. I’m not talking about the mystery being part of the story. It is the entire story.
If the focus is on the two lead characters falling in love while they try to solve the mystery, it’s not a mystery, it’s a romance.
If the focus is on the interpersonal relationships of the characters, it could be a family saga or the dreadfully named women’s fiction.
People buy cozy mysteries for the puzzle more than anything else. If the leads are falling in love in a cozy, everything between them is always subordinate to the mystery itself.
It’s all about the puzzle
The puzzle gets us to read, and most anything else is a distraction. We want to know what the main character knows, and to solve the puzzle just before she does.
When the story resolves and they reveal the answer to the mystery just before the end of the book, we want to have figured it out for ourselves, or to be surprised by the outcome (which better not include trickery!).
If they solve the mystery too soon, it might not even be a mystery. Many suspense and thriller novels will tell you whodunnit by the mid-point of the book, and spend the second half either catching the bad guy or stopping them from doing what they’re trying to do. These are not even mysteries, let alone cozies.
So make it a genuine mystery for the reader to solve alongside the sleuth.
The Cozy
One of the biggest factors in a cozy mystery is how it sounds to the reader. People reading cozies have very specific requirements which are non-negotiable.
The obvious part here is the tone, which is easy to describe but hard to measure. Tone falls into the “I know it when I see it” category.
If you’ve read a variety of mysteries, you can pick up on tone right away. Suspense novels read fast, while noir gives a darker feeling. Even a police procedural sounds different when you read one.
Cozy gives, as the title suggests, a cozy feeling when you read. It’s calm, a light and breezy read. There’s no rush, no great suspense other than in a few brief passages, which often are at the end when the denouement comes. You’re not on the edge of your seat as you read.
Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll
Foul language is never seen in a cozy. A single four-letter word will almost certainly disqualify a book as cozy. It’s not what readers want. Softer words are more difficult to categorize. Some people think the word “damn” should never appear in a cozy, others are fine with it. Individual readers make their own judgments about what they want to read.
Sex? Never. Never ever. I can’t emphasize this enough. There are often romantic overtones in cozies, but we draw the curtain very early on, and anything more than a hint is disqualifying. This can create problems, especially as a relationship develops over a series. You have to remember the mystery is always the focus.
And how about violence? We’re talking about murder. As the saying goes, everything happens off-screen. We don’t see the murder, we find a body. We don’t get gory details. There might not even be any blood, depending on how the victim died. We’re looking for clues, not graphic descriptions.
As for perspective, it’s almost always either in the first person (“I did this”) or the third person (“She did this”), but it is always from the sleuth’s perspective. We see what she sees, we know what she knows. Nothing more, nothing less. This is another bright line: if the book is written from multiple perspectives, it’s not a cozy mystery.
If something happens and the sleuth doesn’t know about it, then neither does the reader. If they know something but the reader doesn’t, cozy mystery readers will be angry at the outcome, especially if you spring it on them right at the end as the vital clue to solve the mystery.
The furry exception
There is one exception to this rule. Now and then a cat will be involved in the mystery, and we will get chapters from the cat’s view. This might tell us something the cat knows, but the human doesn’t. Whatever it is, it’s usually transmitted to the person, so it doesn’t remain as hidden information.
One last note on what makes a cozy is the length of the book. A typical full-length cozy mystery is around 60,000 words or about 240 pages in a standard size book (unless it is a short story or novella). This is shorter than a standard novel, which comes in at about 80,000 words. Cozies skip detailed descriptions of places and people (other than the clues, of course!), and it helps to make them shorter. Simpler? Yes, but that’s not a bad thing, it’s a feature of the genre.
The Setting
Another feature of a cozy mystery is the setting. It gives us the impression of a place we’d often like to be, and it provides an important background to the story.
Many traditional mysteries were set in very limited locations: the country manor house, or even a train carriage in Poirot. Cozies are a little more expansive, but not much. Rather than the manor house, they might set it in the whole village, and rather than happening in a single night, it might progress over several days.
The main reason for this is to limit the number of suspects. Cozies aren’t normally set in cities, because anyone could have committed the murder in a city. They’re in a village, a small coastal town, or a cruise ship. Anywhere with a finite number of people who might have committed the crime, and you have limited access from outsiders.
In most cases, the setting will provide a group of locals who will be suspects or helpers (or both), and a place for a series to be set. It’s easier to have a series of murders in a small town than in a single house, no matter how big it is.
Past or present
There’s no limit on when a cozy mystery is set, although they are almost never set in the future. There are scattered cozies set throughout history, and there has been a recent popular trend to set them in both the late 1800s and the 1920s, but the vast majority are in current times. They ignore current events, as there’s often little or no reason to mention them. Mostly a cozy is an escape from the real world, so you don’t want to bring it in with you.
One last note on setting is the popularity of the witch and paranormal cozy. These are set in our world, but also in fantasy worlds or even crossover between them. There’s no limit to the imagination of cozy authors.
The Crime
It’s murder, of course.
That’s not strictly true, but almost all cozy mysteries involve one or more murders. It’s hard to put a number on it, but perhaps one percent of cozies aren’t murders, but thefts or some lesser crime, and those are often intended for a younger audience. Witch mysteries especially seem to aim younger and involve less murder.
The murder happens near the start of the book, although I’ve seen it happen as late as a quarter of the way in. Sometimes there’s a second murder at the midway point, when the murderer has to kill someone else to cover their tracks.
We never see the murder in detail since it happens off the page. A book where we see the murder (even with the killer’s identity hidden) is not a cozy mystery. We don’t get any details of what happens other than from our heroine.
Too much blood makes me faint
There are never details of the body, unless it is a specific clue to the mystery. There are no descriptions of blood. Often the murder doesn’t even involve blood, as the victim might have been poisoned or strangled or struck with something. Many times, our sleuth finds the body and may not realize they are dead. They might look like they’re sleeping instead.
Clues are found on or around the body, but again, they are not graphic. You won’t see the bloody fingernails where the victim fought their killer. They might have something in their hand, or next to them, which is described without going into messy details.
The police can’t help you
After we find the body, the police become involved, and the story will normally develop in one of two ways.
First, the police may rule the death was a suicide, or they will take the obvious clues and make a quick arrest. Here, the sleuth doesn’t believe they have the right answer, and will begin their own investigation to find the truth.
The second type of mystery is where the sleuth themselves, or perhaps their best friend, are the primary suspect. They know they didn’t do it, so they now have a powerful reason to investigate and clear their name.
Either way, it propels the sleuth into the mystery to find the correct answer. The police may warn them not to interfere, but that never stops them. The entire point of the story is for them to solve the mystery, with or without help.
The Sleuth
The sleuth is the protagonist of the story in a cozy mystery. Everything is seen from their perspective. If the person doing the investigating is not the main character, or we don’t see things through their eyes, it is not a cozy mystery. We have to identify with this one person for it to be cozy.
The protagonist of a cozy can be anywhere from young to old. How young? Teenage detectives usually fall into the Young Adult category instead of cozy, so we might say anywhere from twenty on up. If I were to guess, I’d say most were around thirty or in their sixties, but you could easily find examples of every age in between, and both older and younger. If you look at cozies released in the last decade, you might see eighty percent or more of protagonists in the mid-20s to mid-40s age range.
As mentioned, younger sleuths may appear more on the paranormal side of cozy mysteries. This is likely an effect of both their audience and their authors being younger. They are often in the “discovery of powers” stage of life, which lends itself to younger characters.
She’s a she. Sorry, guys, but it’s true
Side note: Yes, the protagonist is female. There are men who star in cozy mysteries (Jim Qwilleran of the Cat Who… series is probably the most famous), but I’d bet at least ninety-five percent of the main characters are women. It’s just the way it is. Historically in novels, I think people wrote men as police officers or private investigators, and they left women on the amateur side of things. We now see plenty of cases of women in police and detective mysteries, but men have not yet come the other way in large numbers.
As far as occupation is concerned, the amateur sleuth is fundamental to the cozy mystery. They might be a baker, a librarian, an antique store owner, a writer or even a reporter. If they’re a professional detective in any form, they’re not cozy. If they’re a retired cop, they might be cozy, because they’re no longer a professional.
Their occupation will become a recurring theme in all parts of the book: if they’re a librarian, we’re going to hear lots about books. You can bet a writer will spend plenty of time with a notepad in the coffee shop. And a baker means you’ll get bonus recipes in the back of the book. Not only that, but the cover and especially the title are going to reflect on the theme, too.
One caveat: there are some cozy mysteries which star the local constable in a small village in the middle of nowhere. These can qualify as cozy, as long as none of the other rules are broken. When several police officers are involved, or the solo officer is high-ranking, it is less likely to be cozy and more toward the police procedural side.
No Sherlock (we want Mycroft)
And you may wonder about Sherlock Holmes. He is a consulting detective in the early days of crime fiction, and that is the biggest reason he’s not cozy. He belongs on the detective fiction side of mystery novels (his brother, however, can very much be cozy).
Our sleuth, meanwhile, is often new to town at the start of the series. This lends itself to them being mistrusted by all the locals and often makes them the suspect by default. If they found the body, even more suspicious.
But they’re new in town, or returning after a long absence, and perhaps looking for a fresh start when they’re thrown in at the deep end of a murder. Who among us wouldn’t start investigating the crime for themselves? None of us, that’s who, which is why we read cozy mysteries, to live vicariously through the heroine. That’s why we need to have a hook to identify with them.
The Characters
There’s an entire cast of characters who aren’t our sleuth. Each one impacts the story and the series.
The Best Friend
They’ve known each other forever, and will always have each other’s back. The best friend might be the chief suspect, which is why the sleuth is involved. Whatever happens, they’re there for support and to provide someone for the sleuth to bounce ideas off.
The Romantic Interest
He’s a local who she crushes on, but he also helps in solving the mystery. It’s important to remember we’re here for the mystery, not the romance, so it’s going to take a while before anything happens between them, and even then it’s going to be very chaste.
The Nosy Neighbor
Somebody has to twitch those curtains, see everything going on in town, and give a vital clue, which is enough to cast suspicion on somebody. Usually helpful, but sometimes they don’t intend to be.
The Local Shopkeepers
They see everyone in town. Maybe they give information about people’s movements, or maybe they provide a space for people to meet and talk and overhear things. Each has their own personality, too.
The Local Policeman
He’s the one investigating, not our sleuth, and he will remind her of that. He might be bumbling, or incompetent, or quick to judgment, but he’ll give her reasons to keep going. Sometimes he’ll give her information, although he might not intend to. He might even become the Romantic Interest, but if he does, it’s probably his boss who doesn’t like her and her interference.
Each of these people will become the core cast in a series. They’ll have their catchphrases and mannerisms, and they’ll provide just the right amount of help at just the right time. They will become beloved characters, and woe betide the author who kills one of them off later in the series.
Which brings us to our last character:
The Victim
Often the victim has never appeared in a series before, and if you see a brand new character at the start of a book, you can almost assume they will be the one to die. The clever author weaves people into a sentence here and there throughout the series so they have someone ready to kill.
It turns out that nobody much liked any of the victims. They were nasty in their own way, even if we have not seen them before. This lets the author concentrate on the mystery, and not on the reaction to a beloved friend’s death (unless it’s part of the plot). Sad to say, but a cozy murder victim is rarely missed.
In Summary
A lot goes into a cozy mystery, more perhaps than you would think. Many of these items are hard and fast rules, while some are a little looser. This depends on the reader as much as anything, because personal taste plays a big role.
It is important to remember an author can bend the rules if they wish. If they’re good enough, or interesting enough, they might find a whole new area that hasn’t been explored before. I would advise them not to push on several boundaries in the same book, though.
Interesting things happen at the edge
There are soft and blurred boundaries between cozy mysteries and some genres, like traditional detective mysteries, and hard borders with others, like noir. If you find someone who has written a hard-boiled cozy, save your money, because it’s not really cozy. It’s possible to stretch the envelope, but not tear it to shreds.
So look at each of these six categories and understand what is important for a cozy and what isn’t. You might decide you like just one style, or you might be interested across the board. Perhaps you only want mainstream, or maybe you need to be on the cutting edge.
Whatever you’re looking for, there’s a cozy mystery out there which is perfect for you. Look around our site, we have lots of possibilities for you.
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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Ann Nichols· Reply
While it is almost always true that nobody much liked the victim in a cozy, often the killer is someone just as unlikable. The trick, then, is for there to be enough unlikable suspects that the reader gets to wonder Which One Did It. No fair having the killer turn out to be the series’ regular pain in the patootie; although unmasking a killer who seems to be decent, but is secretly rotten, is permissible.
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