Cosy Mysteries with a Personal Edge

As I mentioned before, I was rather angry by the time I’d finished the first Spice Town mystery (and I’ve never bought nor otherwise read the others). The novel had a nice love story and certainly hinted at another, it had an amateur detective who would have made more sense than most, being the mayor of the town and thus having a vested interest in its good name, but it had no serious crime. On the other hand, most of Annabel Chase’s novel series are focused as much on the interpersonal relationships as they are on the serious crimes and I couldn’t love them more for it. Why is that?

At first glance, one might think that the different view I have of these series is down to me reading Annabel Chase knowing that there’s going to be a lot of personal conflicts in the books, but not being prepared for it when it came to Spice Town.
And, yes, it is true that I enjoy Annabel Chase’s books for the interpersonal stuff as much as for the cosy mystery part. I have been following her “Federal Bureau of Magic” series from issue one to issue twelve (so far) to see how Eden Fury’s powers grow, her family gets more annoying, and her relationship with the sexy Sheriff in town deepens. I have enjoyed her “Spellbound” series as much for the main character’s relationships in town as for the crimes. Why have I not been as angry about the large wedge of personal stuff in those books when I read the first of them? Why have I been seeking out more of the author’s stories?
Because they’re still cosy mysteries. Yes, the crime is only about fifty percent of the book’s content and the rest of it is personal drama and developments that take several books to come to fruition. At the same time, though, the crimes are also interesting, they have high stakes, and they are resolved in a way which makes sense. Besides, all cosy mysteries have a lot of personal stuff going on in addition to the crime, so that is nothing new or specific to Annabel Chase’s books.

That is what was missing from the Spice Town novel — the cosy mystery to solve.
It’s not that there’s a love story in it. As a matter of fact, the love story was the best part of the book — it was well-written, it was sweet, and it was engaging. Even the suggestion that in time there might be more between the mayor (who makes for a good amateur sleuth as she ought to have an interest in her town’s reputation, given it lives off tourism) and the police chief is fine. They have a prior history, but didn’t think of each other ‘that way’ before due to the mayor being happily married and now widowed. I could see their relationship shift and blossom over the course of more books. So, no, it’s not the interpersonal relationships which put me off the book, quite the opposite.
My problem was that I hadn’t bought a romance novel, I had bought a cosy mystery novel. I was expecting a mystery and I was getting — next to nothing. I’ve mentioned in the blog post linked above that there was no body. What that really means is that there was no tension, no stakes, nothing about the theft was in any way related to the town or to the main characters. That was my problem there.

I generally have a problem with long-running cosy mysteries, as they usually feature an amateur sleuth and it gets harder and harder to believe that the owner of a bookshop, a coffee shop, or a boutique, a local librarian, a professor at a college, or a retired lady from a small, cosy town would actually end up stumbling over bodies that often.
Of course, the problem with long-running cosy mysteries also includes ‘a good reason for them to be invested in the mystery.’ Even if I stumbled over the body of my next-door neighbour who was a terrible busybody (not that my personal next-door neighbours are), I wouldn’t automatically want to investigate things myself. An amateur needs a good reason for stepping into an investigation, especially when it comes to murder and they might be the next one on the murderer’s list. The amateur needs personal stakes in the mystery. As mentioned, that would have been less of a problem with the Spice Town series, as I can see how a mayor would insert herself in investigations which were harming the town’s name. If anything, the amateur sleuth of this series made more sense than many others. Even a professional needs stakes of a kind, but those are usually ‘they have been given that case and it would be bad for them not to solve it.’

This is where the big difference between the FBM and Spice Town comes to light.
Eden Fury’s cases are often deadly. She has to go up against demons of any kind, has to protect the populace of her little town (which is a hotspot for the supernatural), has to make sure the regular humans do not realize that vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural beings do exist and live among them. Eden is as invested in those cases as she is in her regular life. She is a professional at investigating, so when something happens in her town, it’s her job to find out what it is. She cares very much for people and wants to keep them from harm. Both boosts her stakes.
The Spice Town crime is based on a theft, which is already a let-down of kinds. Yet, if the main character were invested in the theft, if the money for the fireworks display had come out of her tight budget and now it’s gone, if the fireworks were meant for a special celebration in town and advertised and now there’s all those tourists who want to see it, I can see high personal stakes which would make the story interesting. If the author had completely left the theft out of it and only written that romance, it might have been fine, too, although then that wouldn’t have been a mystery novel, but a romance one. As-is, the story reads like the author wrote that romance, then realized she was due a mystery novel, and put in that theft during the editing of the first draft, just so she would meet the requirements. That is how the book reads for me.

Cosy mysteries with a personal side to them are fine. They can be a lot of fun to read and especially a series which slowly develops interpersonal relationships book by book can be very addictive. The crimes might be solved by the end of the book, but will Eden get further with Sheriff Fox? Will she get new fury powers from using hers in the climax of this book? It’s easy to see why I’ve immediately pre-ordered the next book after reaching the end of the currently last one. If you call something a cosy mystery, however, you have to deliver on the ‘mystery’ part, not just on the ‘cosy’ one.