I write in a variety of genres. Not coincidentally, they are some of my favorite genres to read and watch movies in. Aside from zombies, there is one genre that I love that I don’t write in and that is mysteries. Sure I’ll have a little mystery in my books, like in my current work in progress, but for the most part I like to read mysteries.

And while I love the forensic aspect of mysteries, I do love cozy mysteries.

Except… except when you give me every bit of red herring evidence but when it comes to the actual evidence that points to the killer, the writer announces that she’s found it but doesn’t tell the reader what it is.

What?

I mean if we have to learn about the heroine’s dysfunctional family, if we have to learn about her bizarre love life, if we have to learn about her pets, and if we have to find out all the reason why someone could have done it but didn’t, don’t you think we should be able to read about the actual killer.

I just finished 2 books by a promising author. In the first, the killer was in the first couple of chapters then didn’t appear again until the last minute. The two clues that identified the killer were not on the page but announced, then at the last chapter they were exposed and quite frankly they could have pointed to anything. I read two books to give the author the benefit of the doubt. The same thing happened in both books.

Not my style of mystery, so I won’t be reading her again. But there are plenty of cozy mysteries out there.

Mysteries with dysfunctional families, bizarre love lives, pets, and red herrings. Mysteries that bury the clues through out the stories so that when the book is over and the mystery is solved, I get that sense of satisfaction of being part of the story.

Because keeping clues to yourself is just rude in a mystery, and that’s my pet peeve.