I’ve been diving into more books written by Annabel Chase recently. A while ago, I started out with her Eden Fury series and I enjoyed the books. Not so much for the cosy mysteries, but really for all the characters in them and the way Ms. Chase handles them. That isn’t to say the mysteries aren’t good, it’s just to say that they’re not the only or main reason why I read the books.
One big problem I have with cosy mystery series normally is suspension of disbelief. Why would a retired professor, a widowed author, or any other number of amateur detectives be dropped into a new case over and over again? It can work once, if they’re the ones accused of a crime or a close friend or relative is. It can work twice. Three times is a risk and anything above it really means I have to work hard on the suspension of disbelief.
Both the “Federal Bureau of Magic” series featuring Eden Fury and the “Spellbound” series featuring Emma Hart get around that problem by having the main character be a professional in Eden’s and semi-professional in Emma’s case (see this post on types of detectives). Eden is an agent of the Federal Bureau of Magic - a branch of the FBI which handles supernatural cases. Emma becomes the new public defender when she arrives in Spellbound, a town full of supernatural people, and can’t leave again, since she has legal training and the last one was just murdered.
It helps, of course, that Annabel Chase doesn’t put the full focus on the cases. They’re there and they are something Eden and Emma are working on, but it’s the interpersonal level where the books really shine. Interesting and unique characters crowd both towns and interact with the main characters on a regular basis. Whether it’s Eden’s friends and family (a topic all by itself) or the many new friends Emma makes in the cursed town of Spellbound, there’s many people around, populating the world, making things interesting.
Another thing Ms. Chase does very well is the romantic sub-plot. I am very aware that cosy mysteries almost always have one, one way or other. I’m not always happy about it, especially when the two parts of the romantic plot are shown as opponents in the beginning (such as the sheriff/detective who officially has to solve the case and the amateur sleuth). In both series I’ve read so far, this is not the case. Yes, Eden’s love interest is the sheriff of the town (strictly speaking the new one, as the old one dies in the first book), but as a member of the FBI officially and the FBM really, she’s not working against him or trying to divert his work - they’re working together on many occasions, growing closer in the process.
Emma’s love interests (so far, I’m at about half-time with a strong suspicion about the guy she’s going to end up with) are not opponents for her, either. They’re men from the town, several types of supernatural beings (fallen angel, vampire, minotaur), who have nothing to do with law enforcement. I’m completely up with the books surprising me, but my money is on fallen angel Daniel, as it were. As a matter of fact, with the Valkyrie Astrid taking over the post of sheriff, there’s no opposition in the sheriff’s department, either - the former sheriff didn’t like Emma looking into things because he was more than incompetent.
With all the pesky ‘I am the law and I want you to stop meddling in my affairs’ out of the way in both series, there is no silently sneaking into a place because the sheriff doesn’t want them to be there - Eden and Emma, to a degree, have the right to be there and, should that fail, have a good relationship with law enforcement which allows for them to offer their help. There’s also little to no suspension of disbelief necessary - Eden or Emma getting in on an investigation can easily be explained with their jobs and their general standing within the society of their town. It’s not ‘how can one old lady writing crime stories be in the vicinity of about 600 murders?’ as with Jessica Fletcher and “Murder, She Wrote”. Agatha Christie knew why Miss Maple did solve less cases than professional detective Hercules Poirot.
This frees up more space within the books for the interpersonal part and allows for long plot lines in that direction, too, be it Eden’s mixed luck with her relatives or Emma meeting new people and slowly becoming one of the people in town. To be honest, this is what is mostly drawing me to those books. They’re not overly long, the cases not overly complicated, but there’s a lot going on between characters written so well that I want to learn more about them. The characters quickly have a definite identity so I don’t have to think about whom this or that name refers to. I know who they are, I even might know a quirk or two they have.
This is why it’s fine to take it easy with a case in a cosy mystery, provided you have something else people might get into - like the interpersonal relationships and well-designed characters in Annabel Chase’s books. If there’s something about your amateur, semi-professional, or professional detective that warrants its own plot line, feel free to put it in, be it personal growth, a journey of self-discovery, or just a slow-burn love story. Keep the case and your other plot interwoven so they’re both furthered throughout the book or books and people will still enjoy it. Perhaps not quite the same crowd as with a more crime-focused story, but still a big enough one, I’m sure.
Even though it seems almost mandatory to put the cosy detective at odds with law enforcement, that’s also not an absolute necessity. If you have an amateur sleuth, such a position might be necessary to a degree, but as soon as you have a semi-professional at least, it’s no longer something which needs to happen.
There are more ways of composing a cosy mystery than just ‘plucky amateur solves cases which stump the professionals.’ In many cases that means you can have a cosy mystery series which allows for the reader to keep up the suspension of disbelief much longer. Of course, if people die through murder every other week in your small fishing village, people will at some point wonder where all the victims come from, but there’s even a way to explain that (such as ‘they’re all tourists’). Take it easy with the mystery, too, if you want to, and make your personal plot for the main character as important as the case. If you do it well and keep the readers interested, it will work out.
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