kentholloway
Written on Jun 24, 2020
I love cozy mysteries a lot, but one of the things about them that drive me kind of crazy is the lack of any masculinity in them. It’s why as an author myself, I’m working on creating a brand new subgenre called a brozy mystery...a cozy with a bit of a kick to it. And after reading this book, I’d say that Cozy Up to Death is probably the broziest brozy of them all.
If I hadn’t already developed the term, I would have originally said this is an “anti-cozy”, because it takes all the cozy tropes and turns them upside down (maybe even dumps a few of them in the ocean and a dumpster or two along I-95), all the while paying beautiful tribute to those same tropes along the way.
I mean, here you have a guy who runs a bookstore (cozy trope, check), which has an adorable cat (cozy trope, check), in an idyllic small town (cozy trope, check), finds a little non-sexual romance along the way (cozy trope, check), and begins looking into the disappearance of a beloved town person that might have been murdered (cozy trope check). But let’s pull back the curtains just a bit (don’t worry! No spoilers here!) and we’ll find that that bookstore owner? Yeah, he’s an ex-bike club hatchet man with a heart of gold who happens to be in witness protection. He also hasn’t read a book since high school. The cat? Yeah, our hero isn’t a big fan of cats. But all bookstores need cats, right? So he’s got a cat (and the cat is very very awesome, I might add). The romance remains true no matter how you want to turn it up on its ear. In fact, the romance is rather amazing, and makes you see this big bad biker with the heart of gold (who loves his grandma) with even more adoration.
This book, I have to say, hit all the right notes for me. I absolutely loved it. In fact, it ties at my number 1 favorite cozy mystery along with John Gaspard’s Ely Marks series. Needless to say, on to book two with great anticipation. I should also point out that my comments about it being an ‘anti-cozy cozy’ shouldn’t be taken too literally. Conway takes great care to show a deep love and respect to the genre. It in no way diminishes the cozy genre, but in reality lifts it up. Builds it up. And makes it a force of good that will change even the hardest of career biker criminals into a sweet, good natured man who grew to love the small quiet little cozy town he was forced to move to by the US government.
And if you’re ever curious as to what a brozy mystery is...this is one for you to check out!