Characteristics of a Cozy Mystery: Murder is Binding Book Review
Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett is a cozy mystery and Book 1 of her Booktown Mystery series. It includes the elements of a classic mystery in a succinct and compact writing style. I often turn to cozy mysteries when I want the suspense and intrigue of a good mystery but in a Hallmark-type of setting. I enjoyed putting my detective hat on for this mystery and ended up being half-right at the end. It was challenging since the story went some place I hadn't expected, and I found myself constantly going back and forth with uncertainty about the culprit's identity, their means, their motive, and who or what was a red herring. It was a fun read, but it does have its faults.
Summary
In the quiet town of Stoneham, New Hampshire, Tricia Miles finds the dead body of her neighbor, Doris Gleason, in Doris's Cookery bookshop during a fire. Tricia and her sister, Angelica, do their own investigation since the local sheriff is trying to pin the crime on Tricia. While she's looking for the killer, Tricia is also looking for the valuable pamphlet that was stolen from Doris's shop. Tricia starts to get involved with Mike Harris, who plans on becoming the next selectman, and she has to deal with her snobbish sister who has decided to move to Stoneham, much to Tricia's dismay.
-- Spoilers --
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| Photo by Sam Lion |
Characters
Tricia "Trish" Miles: Owner of the Haven't Got a Clue bookshop; early 40s, divorced and introverted; has light brown hair and blue eyes; has a grey longhair cat named Miss Marple; feels stuck in Angelica's shadow; because of their upbringing, Angelica has always made Tricia feel unworthy.
Angelica "Ange" Preston: Tricia's sister; married four times and is having issues with her current partner; imposes herself on Tricia; they don't have a good relationship because their mother encouraged competition between them; is boisterous and loves the city life; rich and snobbish; discovers a passion for cooking and takes over the shop next door, deciding to move to Stoneham.
Ginny Wilson: Tricia's store assistant and former employee to Doris; has red hair and is in her twenties; is engaged to a man named Brian and plans on starting a family once they buy a house.
Mr. (William) Everett: Tricia's only regular patron; former owner and manager of an independent grocery store; is silver-haired and elderly; is polite; arrives at the bookshop when it opens and reads until closing because he's retired; eavesdrops while at the shop; knows many people in town since he grew up in Stoneham.
Doris Gleason: Septuagenarian bookseller of The Cookery bookshop and Tricia's neighbor; has dyed jet black hair in a page boy's hairstyle; gets in people's faces and isn't liked by most; wears glasses.
Mike Harris: Tricia's love interest; has sandy hair that's starting to grey and a dazzling white smile; in his mid-forties; running a campaign to become the next selectman for Stoneham; is tending to his mother's affairs since she's in a care facility.
Bob Kelly: Benefactor to Tricia, Doris, and other Stoneham booksellers; President of the local chambers of Commerce; looks very similar to Tricia's ex-husband; has his own real estate business.
Deirdre Gleason: Twin sister to Doris; also a septuagenarian; dressed professionally and wears designer glasses; has short and dyed jet-black hair in a sever hairstyle; is energetic; has cancer.
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| Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash |
Cozy Mystery Elements
The author of a cozy mystery presents all of the necessary information in a minimal amount of pages. In Murder is Binding, we're introduced to the majority of the characters and gain their basic backstory in Chapter 1. Cozy mysteries tell a lot of information to the reader, but this makes it easier for them (me) to find the contradictions in dialogue and focus on solving the mystery before the end. Information is succinct where the author does not spend a whole paragraph poetically describing the setting as you would find in a Kate Morton book, for example. Sometimes, you just want the facts and this suits the cozy mystery genre.
A cozy mystery doesn't have only murder. It often includes other crimes. At the beginning of Murder is Binding, there is a murder, a theft and arson. Crimes that happen separately from the murder help to make the mystery all the more interesting and allows the detective or amateur sleuth to know when they're getting too close to something (often it's the culprit's motive for committing the crime) that the culprit doesn't want discovered.
Unlike the real world, justice prevails and the culprit is caught or stopped in some way, providing the reader with a satisfactory ending and a sense of triumph. In many series, the culprit is caught in each book, meaning that the main mystery of the book is wrapped up at the end while subplots continue into the next book. In this case, the subplot of Angelica moving to Stoneham will continue in Book 2.
Another expectation of the cozy mystery genre is its tone. I mentioned above that cozy mysteries have Hallmark-type settings. By this, I mean that there is no vulgar language as you would find in a pulp mystery, and there is an absence of graphic violence, which you would find a contemporary mystery that focuses on forensic science. With these two boundaries in place, the mystery becomes 'cozy' despite there still being murder and other crimes.
What I Liked
Cozy Atmosphere
I always enjoy reading about mysteries in small towns and bookshops. Since it takes place in a small town, it has small town elements, such as everyone knowns each other's business and/or past. Additionally, people gawk the labelled outsider (Tricia) after Russ prints his first newspaper article on the murder that insinuates that Tricia is guilty.
Poor Law Enforcement Cliché
When the local law isn't doing their job, it makes it all the more satisfying when the amateur sleuth solves the case. It also raises the stakes when the local law is trying to arrest the amateur sleuth for the crime they didn't commit. In Murder is Binding, I like that both Tricia and readers are in the dark about why Sherriff Adams won't investigate anyone else except Tricia, especially since the evidence they keep finding in her store is circumstantial. I'm interested in seeing how her character develops in the next book; in all honesty, the Sherriff should lose their job for allowing their personal feelings to cloud their judgement and for possibly disclosing police business to a civilian who ended up being one of the culprits
Pushy Media Cliché But with a Twist
The pushy newspaper editor, Russ Smith, demonstrates how heartless the media can be all in the name of selling papers by printing false information and playing up the innocent as villains. But the author turns this around by fleshing out Russ's character who has a sense of common decency and becomes an ally and friend to Tricia.
Sister Sleuths
I enjoyed the dynamic between Tricia and Angelica. Angelica is both purposefully and inadvertently helpful to Tricia in her sleuthing. Their relationship and Angelica's current issues provide a good side plot. Without Angelica, Tricia may not have solved the case. I look forward to seeing how their relationship develops in future books. They are like a version of The Snoop Sisters, which may have been referenced in the book.
What I Didn't Like
Murder is Binding has a few instances that didn't agree with me.
Victim-Blaming (Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault)
When Tricia is over at Mike Harris' family home to evaluate his mother's books, his intentions and feelings towards her become much clearer; she catches him looking at her body and it makes her uncomfortable. He also refers to her as "my girl" when they went out for lunch once and had under five conversations. Mike also suggests a tour of the house, specifically the bedrooms. The scene as is heightens the tension, making the reader wonder how Tricia gets out of there. The tone of the book dictates nothing too bad will happen.
However, the book doesn't deal with the aftermath well. After Mike forces Tricia into an embrace and finally understands that she's clearly panicked, he lets he go but Tricia continues to be civil, smile and be polite while strategizing how to get out of the empty house. Once she leaves, Tricia "[feels] like an absolute idiot for her behavior" when she shouldn't. Her behavior was absolutely justified in that situation. Additionally, Tricia tells her sister about the incident and Angelica dismisses it as a panic attack due to the murder investigation. She doesn't show any concern about Tricia and doesn't realize that her sister was in a potentially dangerous situation. These two scenes made me very angry. This book was published in 2008, so I feel that these scenes could have been written with more awareness and sensitivity.
Word Choice
Continuing along the lines of missing sensitivity, Tricia refers to Doris' daughter, Susan, as "retarded" when the narration refers to the girl as "mentally disabled" on the same page. I'm not sure if the author is trying to make Tricia a flawed character or if the sensitivity was forgotten in her dialogue.
In a later scene with Susan's aunt, Deirdre, she tells Tricia, "You can call Susan retarded. It doesn't offend me, and it didn't offend Doris." How about we fight against using that word or leave it out of the book altogether? People use it as a weapon, like in Quantum Leap's "Jimmy" episode, and even when I was in grade school, that was thrown around as an insult.
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| Photo by AlteredSnaps |
Confusing Driving
During the intense driving scene towards the climax at the book, Tricia is forced to drive a car with Mike in the passenger seat and her sister and Doris in the backseat. Tricia is on the right side of the street since they're in the U.S., and she swerves into an oncoming car in the left lane to show that she's in trouble. Mike tries to get her to stop accelerating by pulling her leg (and foot) off the accelerator peddle, and Tricia swerves back into the right lane to avoid the oncoming car. Then, "Mike grabbed the steering wheel, jerking it left." I don't understand why he'd jerk it left into the other lane. Also, wouldn't it be hard for him to push the steering wheel to the left instead of pulling it towards himself (steering right)?
In the following scene where the car is in the creek and Tricia is trying to get everyone out, it was hard for me to following the description of her maneuvers and I was trying to understand how the car was positioned. For the whole scene, my mental image kept changing based on the new information that was provided. I feel the descriptions could have been a bit clearer.
No Knowledge of CPR?
I was surprised to learn that Tricia doesn't know the basics of CPR. I know that my high school made it mandatory to learn and pass a CPR class as part of our gym sessions, but Tricia is older. Let's say that the story takes place in the same year the book was published, 2008, and since Tricia is in her early 40s, she'd have been born in the late 60s, so it does stand to reason that none of her schools taught it. Tricia chides herself for never having voluntarily taken a class.
However, she bragged much earlier in the story to the Sheriff that she reads contemporary mystery books that have forensic science in them. I would find it hard to believe that none of them have some sort of drowning-related scene that requires a character to perform CPR. Not to mention that the bear minimum of CPR is in many television shows and movies, even those that are not mysteries or deal with forensic science (Quantum Leap had an episode where this "future" (1980s-90s) knowledge was applied in 1964). Did Tricia not watch any television or movies growing up? I find it very hard to believe that Tricia is ignorant of CPR. If the roles were reversed, such as Angelica having to give Tricia CPR, then that would have been more believable given what we know about Angelica's lifestyle and interests.
Possible Mistake
Tricia arrives at her store in the evening to find the alarm going off and one of the sheriff's deputies standing outside. Once she and the deputy are in the shop, the narrator says "[Tricia] didn't recognize the deputy, whose name tag read "Placer." But this isn't true because earlier that day (in the previous chapter), the deputy was with the sheriff when they were analyzing the stolen pamphlet and questioning the suspects. The sheriff even called the deputy by name.
Conclusion
Overall, I enjoyed the book because it kept me guessing, the writing is clear yet detailed enough, it has a nice setting and interesting characters that I want to learn more about. I have the second book and can't wait to dive in! I'm hoping there won't be any other sensitivity issues.
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