KEEPING ITCOSY
Margaret James talks to three authors who explain the enduring appeal of cosy crime
Those two words cosy and crime: aren’t they a bit of a contradiction? After all, what’s cosy about crime – any crime? Nowadays, however, there’s a huge fan base of readers anxious to read what publishers describe as cosy crime fiction, so I tracked down three prolific authors to find out what’s going on.
Betty Rowlands
‘A cosy crime novel is a story featuring just a little sex and not too much violence. Other kinds of crime fiction tend to offer readers more blood and gore.
‘I was encouraged to write crime fiction by my editor, and my work probably turned out to fit the classic definition of cosy crime because I prefer to write about the intrigue of the crime and about working out the solution, rather than about the nature of the crime itself. ‘My settings have been suggested by my own surroundings: the Gloucester village where I lived with my husband, and the places to which I have travelled or where I have friends. Murder on the Clifftops is set in France and was inspired by the home of some friends who lived where the book is set and had planned to run an art retreat there.