mysteries that
>| contain most of the elements of a cozy: a minimum of
violence, sex,
>| and social relevance; the solution is arrived at by
ratiocination or
>| intuition rather than forensics and police procedure
(or beating a
>| confession out of someone); the murderer is indeed
exposed and order
>| restored at the end; the hero/ine is honorable and
the other
>| characters (often including the murderer) are well
mannered and
>| well-bred (except, of course, the servants); the
setting is a closed
>| community of some sort, such as a village,
university, stately
>| home. Desirable, but not essential: a writing style
graced by wit
>| and literary allusion.
>
It seems cozies are much easier to define because they are
set in a limited,
artificial world. OTOH, I think, we have seen, hard boiled is
much harder to
pin down. Everybody seems to have their own concept of what
is hard boiled.
Maybe the reason isthat hard boiled books are more like life.
There are no
real limits on the characters' actions. Anything may happen.
Often they
aren't even mysteries. Granted a lot of authors are very
formulaic as we
have seen with Hamilton or with Spillane say, but across the
genre there are
no real set standards. While tough private eye books may be
typical, they
are far from exclusive.
BTW, by the definition above are the Sherlock Holmes stories
cozies? It's
fairly close, but I think they differ enough from these
standards to avoid
that designation.
Mark Blumenthal
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