If literature has taught us anything, it is that crimes are best solved with a cup of tea. It is not a matter of magic, but of a moment of calm that allows you to see things more clearly. This was evidenced by Miss Marple, one of the most famous protagonists of Agatha Christie’s novels. From a small village in the English south countryside, this elderly lady hid her sagacity behind a cup of this steaming drink. She is the maximum exponent of cozy crime, “the most sympathetic subgenre of criminal fiction”, as pointed out by the editor of Salamandra Anik Lapointe, who emphasizes the notoriety that these stories have gained in Spain in recent years, especially after the pandemic.
Proof of this is the success of works by authors such as S.J. Bennett or David Safier. The former is convinced that Elizabeth II would be a great detective, as she relates in The Windsor Knot (Salamandra), translated into more than twenty languages, and the recent A Case of Three Dogs (Salamandra). The latter arrived this year at bookstores and narrates the queen’s inquiries to discover the relationship between a missing painting and the terrifying death of a member of her staff.
“I am fascinated by the monarch’s ability to weather every political or social storm. His reign has been threatened with disasters from the beginning, but somehow, with persistence and dignity, he survives them all”, assures the author to La Vanguardia, who explains that she grew up reading Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie, writers who also marked Safier.
The strategy of the German writer, for his part, is similar to that of his colleague by profession although, instead of Elizabeth II, he places neither more nor less than former German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the center of the narrative, who seems having found a new profession after his retirement from the political front line. “She has all the makings of a great detective: she’s incredibly smart; As a physicist, she has a scientific mind and has always been underestimated by her political rivals. Also, she knows how to deal with sociopaths like Donald Trump or Putin. What more could you want?”.
Although if there is an author who stands out in this subgenre, it is none other than M.C. Beaton, pseudonym for Marion Gibbons, and her stories about Agatha Raisin. Despite the fact that the Scotswoman passed away in 2019, her novels continue to reach more countries every year and create a broader community and even a television series. At the beginning of July, Agatha Raisin and the deadly walk was released, the fourth installment of the saga, which has already accumulated thousands of reviews, most of them positive, on platforms such as Goodreads. Despite the death of Beaton, it can be said that there is still fun for a while, since the author left written more than thirty titles throughout her career about the most acclaimed heroine of the current cozy crime that triumphed in the United Kingdom and that they now intend to do in the rest of the world.
Richard Osman is a name that cannot be missing from this list. The British television presenter, producer and novelist is responsible for the acclaimed Thursday Crime Club (Espasa), which has already been joined by more than 2,500,000 readers and stars four octogenarian retired friends who spend the while they review old cases of local murders that remained unsolved. An unorthodox group but whose triumph led the author to announce a continuation, The Following Thursday, published in September 2021 in Spain, and a third installment that will be released on October 26: The Mystery of the Lost Bullet.
Regarding the latter, Espasa advances that the gang will face a new enemy that will put Elizabeth between a rock and a hard place by entrusting her with a deadly mission: kill or be killed. As she deals with her conscience (and a gun), the group will do their best to solve the mystery in time and save her friend.
In Europe, the emergence of this modality of “kind crimes” -that is its true translation- was in the United Kingdom, birthplace of Marple and Sherlock Holmes, and where, despite being American, the figure of Jessica Fletcher, protagonist, triumphed. of television fiction A crime has been written, which arrived in Spain some time later, causing the same admiration. However, that same literary devotion had not been seen until the arrival of the pandemic. The reason? Lapointe has it clear: “We have seen that the reader was looking more than before for an entertaining novel, lighter and less violent, although intelligent and well constructed and with endearing characters. A book that allows us to escape from these times.
And it is that without a doubt, this option is much more “pleasant” – despite the fact that this is an oxymoron – than, for example, the Nordic noir, one of the bloodiest literary genres of police fiction. “The enigma ends up solved and life goes on until the next case.” In addition, he points out, “some of these idyllic towns have a dizzyingly high crime rate”, so the authors take advantage of this singularity and enhance it to set their stories there.
The editor Rocío Fernández, from Seix Barral, also sees it this way, assuring that “when there is uncertainty or reality is threatening, reading this type of story is almost a refuge in which there is little or no violence and in most cases , a happy ending”.
Both publishers confirm that the triumph of this type of novel is “a general trend in the European market” and recall that many times the companion of these amateur detectives is an animal. “There are those that almost act as Watson, indicating or discovering clues. On other occasions, they are the engine that sets in motion many of the funniest moments of a novel, especially for their observation (and if necessary, for their assessment or even mockery) of the extravagant behavior of the humans around them, as occurs with Putin, the inseparable dog of Miss Merkel, the character that David Safier has created”, points out Fernández.
As for the reading public, they conclude, “it is not exclusively female”, as it was years ago. “The recent British phenomenon of Richard Osman or new TV series like Only Murders in the Building — available on Disney and starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez — show that there is a reader or viewer of these kinds of stories more and more. globally, regardless of their gender or age”.
