Another crazy blog comment:

[Jon Loomis]

I love this woman.  Every mystery has to be a cozy.  Plus, I'm far left!

I am half way this this book and I have never read such trash language in my life in a mystery book. I can read 3 to 4 books a week just reading at night and I was totally disgusted with this one. I chose it because of the setting...Cape Cod..which I love and I am enjoying the mystery part of it but I feel all the foul mouthing crap in it is uncalled for. I cannot believe you come from a place like Wisconsin and write such trash but of course you are far left (from some of your writing in the book) so that figures...anything goes. I wish you well but if this is an example of your type of writing I will not buy your books again. Yes I am a female.

Kind of hard to decide which is the funniest part. 

[Jon Loomis]

It's occurred to me that Christine would have to read the book to understand why this is as funny as it is. Reader "Ann" apparently doesn't object to the fact that the book is set in a gay resort town, or to my detective's lesbian sidekick, or to the frequent references to bondage, female domination, strap-on dildos and hetero/male-receptive anal sex--or at least she doesn't say so. It's the occasional F-bomb that she objects to, along with a few comic references to prominent conservatives. I also use the word "tits" a few times. And there's a parrot that curses. And a couple of foul-mouthed old women. Damn, I'm going to have to go back and re-read the thing myself...

Anyway, my point is that to show there are no hard feelings here, if Christine would PM me with her mailing address, I'd be happy to send her a signed copy of the book for free (with the proviso that she not read it out loud to her kids, or let them get their paws on it 'til they're thirty), so she can decide who's crazy for herself. It's risky, I know, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.

[Jon Loomis]

Yep. That and the fact that GLBT people are treated as...people.

[cj forrest]

That settles it, Jon. You managed to list everything I enjoy reading in a mystery. I’m running out and buying your book the first chance I get. How can you have a story that contains gay resort towns, lesbian sidekicks, bondage, female domination, prominent conservatives, strap-on dildos (sounds painful), anal sex, and not have the occasional F-bomb thrown in for good measure? How can you not have bad language in a context like this? You know when you get the part when Jon’s character fastens down the strap-on dildo that all hope for speech etiquette is lost. The only thing that I can think of that would have this kind of context but with no offensive language would be in some kinda strange, alternate reality, Mormon missionary, S and M, syfi, murder mystery where no gets their feelings hurt. Hey! Wait a minute…I might be on to something here.

[Jon Loomis]

You managed to list everything I enjoy reading in a mystery.

It's a wacky grab bag o' fun, for sure. And the plot even works.

Sort of.

[Christine Duncan]

I do feel better to hear that you did try to reply to her via your blog. I stand corrected. Her loss. Please accept my apologies and I am glad there are no hard feelings.
Some of the stuff along the way has been funny. But I really need to change a couple of you folk's minds about cozies.

[Jim Thomsen]

Christine: I, for one, am listening. I don't write cozies but I do enjoy them occasionally. One of my favorite series, because it's set in my home area of Western Washington and features a fellow small-town newspaper editor as its heroine, is Mary Daheim's "Alpine" series. Cozy to the core, with skimmed-over violence, implied sex and PG-rated profanity ... yet, with a robust sense of humor and a sincere delight in local culture and history.

What should we know about cozies that you don't think we're getting?

[Jon Loomis]

No need to apologize--it's the internet! Seriously, though--you're right in that there is a risk of looking petty or thin-skinned when one does this sort of thing. And in fact I'm both of those things! Just not so much in this case.

[I. J. Parker]

I've come around to liking the Mma Ramotswe series very well. That needs to be a cozy, because it celebrates a simpler, more perfect life. Though even McCall-Smith doesn't altogether avoid reality. He deals with the Aids epidemic. Yes, I like that series. Don't much care for the Dalhousie one though.

[Christine Duncan]

Jim, some of the things missing in the critique of cozies are just the qualities you mentioned. A good cozy (like Joyce and Jim Lavene's Renaissance Fair mysteries) can be funny. The good ones are set with reality, IJ. Look at Sarah Graves Home Repair is Homicide series. Her heroine is a mom dealing with her son's substance abuse and her own not so wonderful childhood. They aren't meant to avoid reality or sugar coat it. They are just more suburbia than urban warfare.
Which isn't to say cozy readers can't enjoy some of the grittier stuff too. Your book sounds interesting Jon, but I don't need a freebie. I'll be looking you up.

[Richard Sanders]

Crap? I'm shocked and disgusted by this woman's language.