We Have a Teapot; It Is Massive

This blog will explore the world of "tea cozy mysteries," which is generally regarded as the subgenre of puzzles that are not relegated to the "mean streets" of noir and hardboiled detective fiction. In point of fact, we plan to stretch the definition of "tea cozy" just about to its breaking point. This particular tea cozy is more like the covering of a domed city on a far-off planet.

Mystery aficionados usually categorize police procedurals as a third group within the mystery world—or place them within the "hardboiled" framework. This blog, however, will cover some procedurals, provided they have a cerebral component and a lot of dialogue of a quality such that the proprietress of the blog doesn't want to bleach her ears out after hearing it.

(The term "hearing" may be taken literally or metaphorically, since we will discuss both crime novels and television/movies. But after this entry ends, we will try to stop mixing metaphors.)

There may absolutely be some "action" sequences within our liberally defined tea cozy mysteries: people may have to do dangerous things, run after people, break doors down and the like. But what makes a mystery fun is the sense that there is a genuine puzzle at its heart, and that we are catching someone in the act of solving that puzzle. If the reader/viewer gets to experience that himself or herself, it can be even sweeter: the light dawns within the human mind. Inspiration occurs.

And suddenly, it is dawn.

That is what we like.