|
Cozy Mystery
Cozy mysteries, also referred to as "cozies", are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur off stage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Cozies thus stand in contrast to hardboiled fiction, in which more violence and explicit sexuality are central to the plot. The term "cozy" was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Characters The detectives in such stories are nearly always amateurs, and are frequently women. Village policeman Hamish Macbeth, featured in a series of novels by M. C. Beaton, is a notable exception. These characters are typically well educated, intuitive, and hold jobs that bring them into constant contact with other residents of their community and the surrounding region (e.g., caterer, innkeeper, librarian, teacher, dog trainer, shop owner, reporter). Like other amate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. History The '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (''Arabian Nights'') contains the earliest known examples of crime fiction. One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellis Peters
Edith Mary Pargeter (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her ''nom de plume'' Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translations of Czech classics. She is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern, and especially for her medieval detective series The Cadfael Chronicles. Personal Pargeter was born in the village of Horsehay (Shropshire, England), daughter of Edmund Valentine Pargeter (known as Ted) and his wife Edith ''nee'' Hordley. Her father was a clerk at the local Horsehay Company ironworks. She later moved with her parents to Dawley where she was educated at Dawley Church of England School and the old Coalbrookdale High School for Girls.Article by Toby Neal, part of series on West Midlands worthies. She had Welsh ancestry, and many of her short stories and books (both fiction and non-fiction) are set in Wales and its borderla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carola Dunn
Carola Dunn (born November 14, 1946) is a British writer of regency romances and detective fiction. Life Dunn attended Friends' School, Saffron Walden, and graduated from the University of Manchester. authorities file. After university, she relocated to the United States and married an American. She has lived in since 1992. Books Of Dunn’s 59 books (as of 2018), 32 are regency novels and 27 mysteries (of which in turn, 23 are part of the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series, and four belong to the Cornis ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barista
A barista (; ; from the Italian/Spanish for "bartender") is a person, usually a coffeehouse employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks. Etymology and inflection The word ''barista'' comes from Italian where it means a male or female "bartender" who typically works behind a counter, serving hot drinks (such as espresso), cold alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and snacks. Prieto (2021) shows that the word ''barista'' has been documented since 1916 in both Spanish and Italian. The native plural in English and Spanish is ''baristas'', while in Italian the plural is ''baristi'' for masculine (literally meaning "barmen", "bartenders") or ''bariste'' for feminine (literally meaning "barmaids"). Application of the title While the title is not regulated, most coffee shops use the title to describe the preparer of coffee and operator of an espresso machine. Baristas generally operate a commercial espresso machine, and their role is preparing and pulling the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village. Its name comes from , Dutch for "Green District". In the 20th century, Greenwich Village was known as an artists' haven, the bohemian capital, the cradle of the modern LGBT movement, and the East Coast birthplace of both the Beat and '60s counterculture movements. Greenwich Village contains Washington Square Park, as well as two of New York City's private colleges, New York University (NYU) and The New School. Greenwich Village is part of Manhattan Community District 2, and is patrolled by the 6th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Greenwich Village has underg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cleo Coyle
Cleo Coyle is the pen name for American mystery writers Alice Alfonsi in collaboration with her husband Marc Cerasini, best-known for the '' Coffeehouse Mysteries'' ( Berkley Prime Crime), a series of cozy mysteries set in and around a fictional coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Biography Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini both grew up with Italian parents in working-class neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Alfonsi graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cerasini graduated from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. In New York, Alfonsi worked as a journalist and book author; Cerasini as a magazine editor, literary critic and fiction and nonfiction author. The couple met in Manhattan and married at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. They live in New York City. Alfonsi was the ghostwriter for ''Hidden Passions'', a novelization of the NBC soap opera ''Passions'', which spent seven weeks on the 2001 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaize Clement
Blaize Clement (August 18, 1932 – July 20, 2011) was an American writer. She is best known for her series of "Dixie Hemingway" mystery novels published by St. Martin's Press, a division of Macmillan. The series has been carried on by her son, John Clement. "Dixie Hemingway" novels in order #''Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter'' (2005) #''Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund'' (2007) #''Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues'' (2008) #''Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof'' (2009) #''Raining Cat sitters and Dogs'' (2010) #''Cat sitter Among the Pigeons'' (2011) #''Cat sitter's Pajamas'' (2012) #''The Cat Sitter's Cradle'' (2013) (by John Clement) #''The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives'' (2014) (by John Clement) #''The Cat Sitter's Whiskers'' (2015) (by John Clement) Other publications * ''Kids Stay Free'' (Kindle Edition 2011* ''I, Malcolm'' (Kindle Edition 2011* ''In The Beginning – An Introduction to Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism" (Kindle Edition 2010* ''The Loving Parent – A Guide to Grow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery ''The Mousetrap'', which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. ''Guinness World Records'' lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies. Christie was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miss Marple
Miss Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Jane Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterized as an elderly spinster, she is one of Christie's best-known characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in ''The Royal Magazine'' in December 1927, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of ''The Thirteen Problems'' (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in ''The Murder at the Vicarage'' in 1930, and her last appearance was in ''Sleeping Murder'' in 1976. Origins The character of Miss Marple is based on friends of Christie's step grandmother/aunt (Margaret Miller, née West). Christie attributed the inspiration for the character to multiple sources, stating that Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my step grandmother's Ealing croni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Caudwell
Sarah Caudwell was the pseudonym of Sarah Cockburn (/ˈkoʊbərn/ KOH-bərn; 27 May 1939 – 28 January 2000), a British barrister and writer of detective stories. She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred on the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln's Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a professor of medieval law (whose sex is never revealed), who also acts as detective. Biography Early years Sarah Cockburn was born on 27 May 1939 in Weir Road, London. Her father was Claud Cockburn, the left-wing journalist, and her mother was Jean Ross, a journalist and political activist who was the model for Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles character of ''Cabaret'' fame. Her parents were unmarried and her father left three months after Sarah's birth. Caudwell's three half-brothers Alexander Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn, and Patrick Cockburn are journalists. She was the half-sister-in-law of Leslie Cockburn and Micha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deep South
The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war, the region suffered economic hardship and was a major site of racial tension during and after the Reconstruction era. Before 1945, the Deep South was often referred to as the "Cotton States" since cotton was the primary cash crop for economic production. The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s helped usher in a new era, sometimes referred to as the New South. Usage The term "Deep South" is defined in a variety of ways: *Most definitions include the following states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. *Texas, and Florida are sometimes included,Neal R. Pierce, ''The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven States of the Deep South'' (1974), pp 123–61 due to being peri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op. Genre pioneers The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by James M. Cain and by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. Its heyday was in 1930s–50s America. Pulp fiction From its earliest days, hardboiled fiction was p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
