"Cosy murder"

[Woollypullover]

Why is it that we love murder mysteries? Why do we find Agatha Christies, Minsomer Murders etc, such 'cosy', light entertainment, when surely the subject matter is quite the opposite?
Aren't we weird?! 🤣

Yes! But even worse is the true crime stuff presented as entertainment, as if real victims and their loved ones hadn’t already suffered enough without becoming tv or podcast fodder 😑

There’s a mystery and then it’s solved.

I thought it was a British thing until I was in a hostel in Australia backpacking and one night we all bedded down while watching Midsomer murders on the crap telly. There were women from 5 or 6 countries and everyone knew and loved the show.

I'm almost finished reading The Shining and I'm quite liking it

Yes! I listened to a podcast about this recently. Many family members of people who have been murdered object to murder being used this way in popular culture. They pointed out that no one would host a 'rape mystery dinner', which is very true!

New Tricks, too. I love the first seven series of that show and watch them frequently. It has the trick of being cold cases, so there isn't the tension of waiting for a murder to happen, and the bulk of the comedy is the interaction between the UCOCS members.

Midsomer Murders' trick always struck me as being setting up extremely unlikeable victims.

I think Agatha Cristie made a point of never letting the reader know too much about the murdered person, so they couldn't really feel for them. Thus, the reader could enjoy the journey of solving the crime without guilt.

And then probably everyone copied her playbook! Certainly David Thingy admitted to this wrt Ludwig.

Midsomer Murders' trick always struck me as being setting up extremely unlikeable victims.

Yes! And killing them in an outrageous manner - drowned in a vat of wine, hit by a rolling cheese - so that you focus on that and not the horror.

It's cosy because you start watching knowing that there is a neat ending so actually there is very little tension. And in that context it makes sense that the golden age was inter-war when people really needed to know things would be ok.

• The murder interrupts/reveals an imperfect world.
• After a struggle, it is solved.
• Order is restored and we are all reassured that that there are clear answers to complex problems.
• As a bonus by-product you may get to feel smug that you spotted some.of the clues distributed by the writer.

I don't think the real murder stuff is in the same category at all though.

It's interesting you say that - we were watching a very old Midsomer Murders tonight and it was much darker than the ones over the last 10 years or so. It seems to have definitely got frothier and I wonder if that's because they're deliberately trying to move away from the more disturbing cases to the more 'cozy'

Many times the families take part as it's a way to ensure their loved one is at the forefront, not the murderer.

People like a mystery, usually right from childhood - but I think the intrigue is often about the characters not the murder itself.

One thing I do find quite weird is to think my Gran was reading Agatha Christie books when the setting was contemporary as I think of them as old-fashioned escapism.

Very interesting points, thank you!

I think Agatha Cristie made a point of never letting the reader know too much about the murdered person, so they couldn't really feel for them.

And the murdered person often wasn't very likeable, so you don't regret that they're dead. And so there can be several people with a motive for killing them, too, of course.

New Tricks, too. I love the first seven series of that show and watch them frequently.

I love the series with the original cast too. I love the humour, and spotting the London locations. Some of the crimes are based on real cases, and I did learn some interesting things about forensics and investigative techniques.

They used to get quite big name guest stars, too (and almost everyone who ever worked with Denis Waterman).

🎵It's all right, it's OK
Doesn't really matter if you're old and grey... 🎵

Murder mysteries are a very different kettle of fish to true crime.

Whenever I look for Kindle books I might like on offer, nowadays the titles are often edited in the list to add other words they think will help it sell. Often ‘cozy murder mystery’ (never ‘cosy’). Gives me the ick a bit. I’m all for Agatha Christie etc but I don’t think she made murder sound twee.

It's one of what's known as ' The Seven Basic Plots' which the majority of films, novels etc largely adhere to. This is
' The Quest ', a mystery to be solved, which is why it's so satisfying...

I read an article one that argued that the golden age of crime (Christie etc) was a response to the national psychological trauma of WW1- that people were yearning for stories of death “put right” (ie perpetrator brought to justice) as a response to the reality of thousands of deaths that could not be put right.

No idea whether that’s right but it’s an interesting theory- that the idea that a murder can be solved is comforting in suggesting that death can somehow be solved, which of course in reality. it never can.

Yes, their murders were so often utterly bizarre - and there was always the wonder of why anyone lived in a place with so many serial killers rampaging around. Most profitable jobs there would have been funeral director or estate agent, but they were getting bumped off, too.

I absolutely love cosy murders, always set in a beautiful English village, lovely cottages to drool over and a grissly murder to solve, what’s not to love?

Yes! And killing them in an outrageous manner - drowned in a vat of wine, hit by a rolling cheese - so that you focus on that and not the horror.

And the woman killed in the tumble dryer…. 😱

I have to agree.

I only really like the Old Midsomer Murders, I never took to the new Barnaby, bring back Tom and Joyce!

A good number of the Dorothy L Sayers books don’t actually contain a murder, as it turns out.

I love Agatha Christie! Dark tales of a gone by age. I love the contrast of the cosy Miss Marple and the dark goings on.

Real life stuff I hate. Partly because you never find out who did it and also because it’s just tasteless, entertainment out of people’s misery. I hate reality TV too!

Chesterton write about why people love these stories so much and is well worth looking at for anyone interested.

He said that part of it was that people enjoy order coming out of seeming chaos; they sudden moment of understanding is satisfying; there is moral satisfaction in the resolution of the crime; and also, if I am remembering correctly and not mixing him up with someone else, he thought that there was an element where death and meaninglessness were confronted in stories like this, and then made meaningful.