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The Dark Reality Behind ‘Cozy Mysteries’

The genre’s popularity can feel like a relic of a bygone era — but these books share DNA with today’s bloodier thrillers

The Atlantic
The Atlantic
6 min readSep 16, 2021

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Image: Getty; The Atlantic

By Alyse Burnside

My first exposure to the strange, inoculated world of “cozy mysteries” came during a long road trip with my older sister. We were driving through Niagara Falls, New York, past vendors hawking Falls souvenirs, when our conversation hit a lull and she turned on an audiobook called Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder. It was the 27th installment of a series called the Hannah Swensen Mysteries, by Joanne Fluke. My sister had read them all: Blueberry Muffin Murder, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, Peach Cobbler Murder. I’m usually more likely to be listening to a true-crime podcast while driving, but I was lulled by the uncomplicated prose, charmed by the protagonist’s life as both bakery owner and amateur sleuth — and drawn to the paradoxical concept of a feel-good murder.

Turns out I’m not alone. Fluke’s books join a slew of cozy mysteries, many of which regularly make best-seller lists, that hinge on making murder palatable, even soothing for readers. Prolific cozy-lit blogs and Twitter accounts discussing them litter the internet. The amateur sleuths of these books, like Hannah Swensen, tend to be plucky, likeable…

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The Atlantic
The Atlantic

Written by The Atlantic

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