Ignoring the Body in the Library: The World of Farthing
Written by Jo Walton
I’ve always liked cosy mysteries like those of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and most especially Josephine Tey. You know the kind of book; there’s a ridiculously contrived murder in a country house and a detective and lots of suspects. You can settle down into their lives and try to guess who’s guilty while the servants bring tea and buttered crumpets. It’s easy to lose track of the fact that somebody really has been violently killed, an event that would in any normal circumstances be horrifying. The way they’re written is soothing, with lots of physical detail and lots of complicated relationships and motivations and somehow the violent death gets lost in the cosiness. Continue reading on the Tor/Forge blog.
