It’s been a while since I dipped my toe into the cozy crime genre. It’s a genre that I truly love but, like romances, it seems to be sold primarily in Ebook form which I can’t read. So when I got an email about a paperback copy of The Haunting of Mount Cod by Nicky Stratton* for the blog tour, you can bet I was waiting by my the letterbox for its arrival.
Lady Laura Boxford lives with her pug, Parker in the retirement complex of Wellworth Lawns, formerly her family home. One day she and her friend Venetia see the ancient actor, Sir Repton Willowby arriving. He’s Venetia’s cousin by marriage and Venetia says he murdered his wife. He lives at the Edwardian pile, Mount Cod and he says he’s being haunted by the ghost of an eighteenth century serving wench called Rosalind.
Laura is convinced he’s a charlatan using the ghost as a ruse for finding a new wife. She determines to get to the bottom of the mystery on account of Venetia’s daughter who stands to inherit Mount Cod. But did Sir Repton murder his wife and is the house haunted?
Something I really appreciated from the get-go was the age of the main characters! It’s very rare to read a book with older characters that aren’t just there to give wise advice to the youth. The Haunting of Mount Cod is not only jam-packed with older people, it’s set in a care home. And Laura, Venetia, Repton- the whole cast are still having adventures, going out and about, solving crime. It made me realise how much I want to read from this different perspective, and how many of my books seem to be unspoken dystopias where everyone disappears at 40.
As for the crime, it did get a little confusing as more and more characters got involved but I was flip-flopping back and forth about who did it and why until the big reveal. And then, of course, everything made sense! That’s the kind of experience I want with any kind of crime novel, cozy or not. I want to know everything the narrator knows and figure it out with them. Laura was the best kind of cozy crime narrator; nosey and determined!
One thing that let the book down for me was the representation. There is Bulgarian maid who leaves words out of her sentences, an “OCD headcase“, and g*psy is used a lot, which isn’t great- but these characters are older and I think its unfortunately a fairly accurate representation of the older generations. It’s a slur that some people don’t see as damaging but since they are portrayed as heavy drinkers and thieves, it’s something to consider. However, a character does describe themselves as Gender Queer which is pretty rare to see, and the female MC calls out a sexist comment made by a man.
Overall, I enjoyed my trip back into cozy crimes and I’m going to have to explore more into the genre as they’re such lighthearted reads that I can fit between the Victorian tomes that fill my reading list right now. If The Haunting of Mount Cod sounds like your kind of read, you can pre-order it for Thursday here! And make sure to check out my fellow blog tour hosts for their opinions and extracts!
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