An Open and Shut Case

To the authors who read my blog: As you write your new book, do you find that you have some chapters you prefer to other chapters?

To the readers who read my blog: As you read a cozy mystery, are there chapters that stand out to you?

And then, of course, there are favorite parts within each chapter. Here are a few excerpts from my current Darcy and Flora work in progress:

“Darcy?” came the quavery voice of Miss Georgia. “Darcy, honey, do you believe in ghosts?”

 “What is it?” Mom asked, as I stood there with my mouth open. “Is someone sick?”

  Covering the mouthpiece, I said, “I don’t know. Miss Georgia just asked me if I believe in ghosts.” 

Another favorite tidbit:

If Judge Jenkins still came around to check on his spinster daughters and make sure they were behaving, he wouldn’t have swiped an apple pie. Not the austere old stickler for the law I had heard about. And he wouldn’t have been flitting through the yard dressed in white. If he were a ghost, he’d be more the slamming doors and stomping down hallways kind.

And yet, a third:

Grant’s white Ford truck was parked in front of Shuggart’s when Mom and I arrived. Inside the door, Miss Sugar met us.  She took first Mom’s hands then my icy hands in her warm ones and smiled.

  “Now, just don’t you all be upset,” she said. “It’s going to be all right. I don’t know what Grant told you but you are going to be a real strength for Pat. I know you are. Come on into the back parlor. Would you like a cup of coffee? A glass of tea?”

Anyway, I like to think of each cozy as an open and shut case. The reader opens the book to a mystery and doesn’t shut it for the final time until that mystery is solved. Then and only then does she reminisce about her favorite passages.

Getting Darcy and Flora, as well as Ned into and out of scrapes is an intriguing business. But, as I write, I’m beginning to think they are pretty good at getting themselves out. I simply record what is happening.