Book Club discusses "Death of a Cozy Writer"

This month, the book club read and discussed the first of new series Death of a Cozy Writer: a St. Just mystery.

Writer G.M. Malliet, a former journalist, won the Malice Domestic Grant for this title. The grant is awarded to unpublished writers for traditional mysteries following in the tradition of a Agatha Christie novel--that is the setting is within a confined setting of people who know each other in a novel without explicit sex or excessive gore or violence. Here's a pix of Malliet from her website.

Death of a Cozy Writer is set in Cambridgeshire, England (where Malliet also lives) with the unsettling activities of a wealth writer's planned remarriage and the negative reaction by his adult children. The writer, Sir Adrian Beauclerk Fisk, has build a successful book series with an Agatha Christie-type character. As a result, he may offer his children Ruthven, Sarah, Albert or George a wealthy inheritance upon his death. Instead, he toys with that possibility and changes his written will at whim--showing contempt to all his children. Tragically, during a major family gathering for the engagement announcement, one in the party is found dead.

With almost a third of the story told, Detective Chief Inspector St. Just enters the novel.

Here are some takes on the novel:

• DCI St. Just has an amazing gift of deduction to solve the case--he appears to shortcut the investigation process...


• the novel has its share of humor but not the sort of British humour some readers would expect (except for the laughable American character who tries too hard to fit in) and it struck me as being "catty" too often


• the "Cast of Characters" in the front of the book was nice for the reader


• the book was nicely written


• as a murder occurs in a eighteenth-century Cambridgeshire manor to bring the police to the location, the family and others remain there during the investigation and--unfortunately--another death occurs there so it was suggested the people should have been moved


• the most shadowy and seldom seem character,Violet Mildenhall was judged the most interesting because of her unique background


• the favoritism which Adrian displays to some of his children at times, and disapproval more often, raised a long discussion about favoritism in real families and how the issue is handled in fair and biased manners.

Overall, the book was judged as a OK but not noteworthy.