Anyone Getting Tired Of?

[Ms. Woc Reader]

The over emphasis on the sleuth's day to day life in cozies lately? The mystery in some of the stories is taking a back seat to explaining their day to day activities. It's especially annoying when the author really doesn't have a regular job so every day is they baked a casserole and had the same conversation talking about solving the mystery but making no real moves to solve it.

[Sally]

I've read cozies where the body appears on page 1 and then disappears until 20 pages before the end of the book where the killer explains everything to the heroine and stalls for time until the police arrive. Not a mystery at all. At a writers convention I learned that "sleuths need to deduce." The story focus should be solving the crime, not finding a new cake recipe IMHO.

[Ruth]

I like a bit of background on the main character but the story needs to stay focused on the mystery and move along. Sometimes an author gets bogged down as a series progresses with the routines and habits of her main characters until the story is just all padding.

This happened with the last couple of The Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Brown. I loved this series and enjoyed reading about Qwill and his cats, but I finished one of the last books and realised it all just went through the motions of describing how clever Koko was and how cute Yum Yum was and how that feeling in Qwill's moustache never let him down and she'd forgotten to actually put any story in!