What Was That Mysterious Moan?

Three years ago, I wrote an article about changing real life mysteries into cozies. Here ’tis once more:

How many of us remember when we were children, telling scary stories at night or listening to a spooky tale that some one else told? Those stories gave us a satisfying case of the shivers. Satisfying only because we knew we were safe but our imaginations went on wild tangents of  what if they were real? I think that same feeling holds true for those of us who love to read mysteries.

My mother told me about the ancient cemetery on the farm where she grew up. She and her sisters and brother stayed away from that old place of unknown graves. Can you imagine the stories swirling in childish imaginations about spooky happenings at that abandoned site?

Ghost lights would also rise up now and then when the night was dark and someone was by himself on a lonely country road. Were they real? My cousin had a personal story about a spooky, round light which followed him one night. He probably established a new speed record as he outran the mysterious glow that bounced along the ground or floated above the bushes.

These are some of the stories which led me to writing cozy mysteries. A cozy doesn’t go in for blood and gore. A cozy mystery is rather like the scary tales I heard as a child, sitting before the wood-burning stove and listening to wind moan around the corner of the house. I was safe and snug with my family  but what if…oh, my goodness, what if?