As a reader who loves whodunits, I was rather dismayed when I made contact with other mystery lovers--readers and writers--five years ago, after a period of literary hibernation--to find that while I wasn't looking, they'd acquired a bad name. The bad name was "cozy." It seemed to be widely assumed that if a mystery had an amateur sleuth, it was shallow, poorly written, and infested by talking cats and pots of tea. I had some trouble understanding this. Wasn't Lord Peter Wimsey an amateur sleuth? And what about contemporary protagonists? Many are police and private investigators. PI and police procedurals are allowed to be traditional without stigma. But how about all those lawyers and newspaper reporters? Jan Burke's Irene Kelly? Edna Buchanan's Britt Montero? I made the mistake of describing my own mystery Death Will Get You Sober, as a cozy or semi-cozy when I first started shopping it five years ago. I now know that gave some agents and editors the wrong impression. My protagonist and his two sidekicks are strictly amateur investigators, but they deal with some gritty issues, most notably recovery from alcoholism and codependency. The setting is New York City, the voice is slightly wiseass, and the word "puke" appears in the first sentence. The characters are as genuine as I could make them, and I intend them to grow emotionally not only in the course of this story but throughout the projected series. And there are no talking cats. You'll get to see for yourself when Death Will Get You Sober comes out next year. In the meantime, I'd love to know: when you hear "traditional," do you think "cozy?" Liz

Elizabeth Zelvin
DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER (St. Martin's 2008)
www.elizabethzelvin.com

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Comment by Robert Gregory Browne on March 11, 2007 at 12:37am
Isn't every mystery a whodunit?

I've never quite understood all these labels.
Comment by Janet McClellan on March 10, 2007 at 11:16am
I agree with Nikki... marketing has a two-edged sword and where "cozy" is concerned I believe that it may have been an ill-advised attempt to cash in the the Agatha and Something-who opportunities for sales. Of course the problem would be the definition not provided by the publishers but that attached by a reviewer and critic base. Perhaps, rather than encouraging a publisher to place a new manuscript into some time worn category, it would be best to encourage them to have courage...

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