Traditional detective stories typically required the development of four character roles: The detective, the victim, the murderer, and the remaining cast of supporting characters, all of whom are generally assumed to be incapable of solving the mystery without the help of the detective.

The Mystery Characters

For the modern cozy mystery author, the business of casting the parts in her play can border on the bizarre. Even talking animals are welcome to audition for a part.

The script calls for a pregnant witch? Not a problem. Need a trio of ghosts to deliberate with the detective? Why not half a dozen?

In addition to the usual stock of expected characters, today’s cozy mystery reader is likely to encounter any assortment of talking animals, witches, warlocks, werewolfs, spirits, familiars, shapeshifters—and the rest of the guys in the band who, over the past couple of decades, have sneaked in to become regulars in some modern cozy mystery series. This latitude in electing the cast of characters is one of the genre’s biggest sub-genre differentiators. These new sub-genres have significantly widened the audience of readers who count settling down with a new cozy mystery series among their favorite pastime activities.

Today’s cozy mystery readers need to be discerning in their selection of sub-genre novels, lest they risk being saddled with a cast of characters as foreign to them as the mobile phone would have been to the initial readers of Poe’s detective fiction. The cozy mystery reader who looks forward to a long afternoon of listening to the deductions of a talking pig probably isn’t the same reader who can’t get enough of Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey.

Cozy Mystery Characters

Traditional detective stories typically required the development of four character roles: The Detective, The Victim, The Murderer, and The Usual Suspects, all of whom are generally assumed to be incapable of solving the crime without the help of the detective. With some minor tweaks, today’s expectations for character roles remain essentially the same. What has changed, however, is how the modern cozy mystery author chooses to people these roles.

The Detective

Historically cast as an elite or an aristocrat, today the role of the detective is more often filled by some everyman type of character. The detective in today’s cozy mystery is generally the character the reader chooses to bond with as she takes several hours out of her busy life to walk in the shoes of someone she sees as not wholly unlike herself. Together they take up the challenge to solve the mystery of who killed this person or persons, and why?

The detective—that is to say her intelligence, her humor, her wit, and whatever else makes her connect so easily with we common folk—is a major reason why we so eagerly look forward to returning to that special world the cozy mystery author has created for us, snatching up each new adventure as soon as it is published.

The Victim

There can be no cozy mystery story without a victim. That being said, the mystery cannot be about the victim. The elaborate backstory and eventual tragic fate of the victim in the story are merely plot devices, ones intended to demonstrate to the reader the detective’s transformation from a world of harmony to one of chaos. As such, care must be taken not to allow the fate of the victim to upstage the proper work of the cozy mystery play—that being, a detailed recounting of the displacement of order in the fictional world and its subsequent restoration by the detective.

To achieve this goal, the cozy mystery author needs to walk that delicate balance between creating a victim who’s persona is so compelling that the reader cannot help but constantly lament his untimely demise, and one who’s character is so repulsive that the reader loses all interest in discovering who and what is behind the tragedy that befell him. A tricky assignment indeed, but the skilled author is more than up to the task.

The Murderer

As with the victim, the murderer in the modern cozy mystery (though not always initially, but certainly by the end of the play) is a rather unsympathetic character. Readers aren’t comfortable locking up essentially good people who happen to have had a recent reversal of fortune or two. They want to have discovered along the way some unredeemable flaw in the character of the murderer, one that can justify their own eventual applauding of the harsh punishment invariable doled out to him by the end of the play.

As a symbol (though cozy mysteries aren’t usually steeped in symbolism, they still must hit the obligatory literary archetypes of their genre or risk not being a story at all—a subject outside the scope of our discussions in these articles) the capture and punishment of the murderer represents the restoration of order in the fictional world, a once near-perfect world that had become disrupted by the original crime.

The Usual Suspects

What would a murder mystery be without a slew of suspects to carry out the business of dispensing clues, red herrings, and double-bluffs? All the suspects in the play participate in this round-robin of disseminating truths, near truths, and outright lies, but the clever author will ensure that when the dust settles and a final accounting is made, all the genuine clues indeed point to the true murderer.

Characterizing her suspects in a cozy mystery, through the gradual exposing of their complex relationships and intricate backstories, provides a rich way for the author to introduce an air of authenticity into her play and—if she is adept—can distract her readers just enough to carry even the weakest mystery plot to a more or less satisfying conclusion.

The Supporting Cast

More so now than in the past, modern cozy mysteries rely on a growing number of supporting cast characters to interact with the story’s hero, the detective.

Today’s cozy mystery readers need to be discerning in their selection of sub-genre novels, lest they risk being saddled with a cast of characters as foreign to them as the mobile phone would have been to the initial readers of Poe’s detective fiction.

The early days of detective fiction sometimes featured a Watson character, usually some close acquaintance of the detective designed to act as a foil to showcase her superior mental ability. Today the Watson character is often veiled in the guise of the nosy neighbor, the local doctor, the supportive vicar, or—increasingly, in some more recent modern cozies—the faithful pet. Look for the person (or animal, or spirit, or whatever) in whom the detective confides to mull over the implications of the most recent set of collected clues and you’ve discovered the Watson character.

In many cozy mysteries a character other than the actual murderer comes under suspicion, usually shortly after discovery of the crime. Initial clues uncovered by the detective all point to the guilt of this sympathetic suspect, a generally likable character who often has emotional ties to the detective or the victim, thereby strengthening the detective’s resolve to get involved in the investigation early and to quickly get things moving towards uncovering the proper murderer and exonerating the falsely accused.

Incidentally, this sympathetic suspect makes for a natural love interest for the detective.

Thanks for visiting! This is the fifth in a series of articles that explore the question: What is a cozy mystery?

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