The breadth and variety of mystery stories encompass all kinds of tastes in literature. If you’re a fan of quiet stories set in the countryside with a minimum of gore and a maximum of atmosphere, then cosy mysteries might be just for you.

The ultimate in cosy mysteries usually starts with Agatha Christie’s books. Her two best-known detectives, one professional and one amateur, were Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. In The Mystery of the Blue Train, Poirot successfully sorts out a dead heiress, her duplicitous maid who is also a male impersonator, a spurned husband, a conniving lover, and a mysterious Marquis. While Poirot’s Blue Train runs from London to the French Riviera, we’ll take another Blue Train, which runs from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and then to Pretoria.

Interior of the Blue Train, South Africa

Sylvia Rosin: Blue Train (Berlin Dreiklang Ensemble, Ensemble)

Miss Marple made her debut in The Murder at the Vicarage, where the vicar has been lured away on a false call and comes home to find a despised Colonel dead at his desk. Miss Marple, observing village life as she does her gardening, sorts out the liars from the prevaricators, the false from the true, and, in the end, she brings all the various strands together, like her knitting, to incriminate the murderer.

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

John Jenkins: Fantasia in F Major, “All in a Garden Green” (The Rose Consort of Viols, Ensemble)

In Lilian Jackson Braun’s long-running The Cat Who… series, our frustrated crime reporter, Jim Qwilleran, pairs up with his Siamese cats Koko and Yum Yum to solve the mysteries that come out of his journalistic activities. From Koko’s proficiency at the Dictionary Game to Yum Yum’s slightly cross-eyed view of the world, the cats are a valuable part of Qwilleran’s successful summations. What better than a mashup of Disney and Falla?

Siamese Cats

Sonny Burke: Lady and the Tramp: The Siamese Cat Song (in the style of Falla) (Scott Tennant, guitar)

An English barrister writing under the name of Sarah Caudwell created the Hilary Tamar series, where 4 junior barristers at Lincoln’s Inn become detectives to save each other from sticky situations. Hilary solves the mysteries through the quartet’s reports via letter and telex – usually it’s a question of tax law or inheritance law that’s causing the murders. What better way to pick up the first title, The Shortest Way to Hades, than via a jazz piece that also reflects on the quartet’s ironic tone?

Barristers

James Hartway: 3 Myths – No. 3. Hades’ Jazz Band (Pauline Martin, piano)

One of the problems with cozies is that our amateur detectives largely operate from home. This means that the murderers quickly run out of possible victims. Miss Marple’s cases often involve her travelling or having someone from elsewhere tell her their story. In the case of other detectives, they are retired school teachers or nurses who run into strange cases involving their patients.

In the rarer cases of amateur detectives who are men (besides Lord Peter Wimsey), we have English writer G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. Father Brown uses his experience in the confessional and knowledge of human nature to solve mysteries. His greatest opponent, the French master of crime Flambeau, is eventually converted from evil to good. His first appearance was in the short story “The Blue Cross” where Father Brown is carrying a valuable cross and Flambeau, in the guise of a fellow priest, attempts to steal it as they make their way across London. Everywhere they stop, Father Brown causes havoc, throwing food at the wall in an elegant restaurant, switching signs at a grocery, breaking a display window, and finally losing a package at a sweetshop, where the counter lady is told to just put it in the mail should she find it. The detectives follow Father Brown and Flambeau out onto Hampstead Heath, where Flambeau tries to hold up Father Brown. Instead, Father Brown tells Flambeau that he no longer has the Blue Cross, it being posted by the lady at the sweetshop and that they have been followed by detectives, who promptly arrest Flambeau, the false clergyman. He had long been alerted to his false companion because of other outrageous tricks that had been played (switching sugar and salt, altering a bill to 3 times the amount) that Flambeau had not objected to so as not to draw attention to himself. Father Brown’s superior skills are praised by all

Actor Mark Williams as Father Brown

Phyllis Tate: London Fields – IV. Hampstead Heath – Rondo for Roundabouts (London Philharmonic Orchestra; Barry Wordsworth, cond.)

The prime cosy authors had their day and passed on, succeeded by authors who focused on the psychological or procedural mysteries, but for a nice day on the couch, with a cup of tea and some biscuits, nothing beats a cosy.

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