Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic this week is Cozy Reads. My list is of Cozy Mysteries, all of which I’ve read or have waiting to-be-read*. A  cozy mystery is a mystery that doesn’t usually have any bad language, sex scenes, or gruesome details about the killing, and the main character is often an amateur detective.

Betrayed in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho – the fourth book in the Rose Trevelyan series. When a young man falls off a cliff in suspicious circumstances, Rose starts to make connections and things start to go terribly wrong. The characters are quickly drawn, but I still felt they were believable, the writing is fluent, and the Cornish location is superb.

The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett – the first in the Fethering Mysteries. It’s an easy read, set in a fictitious village on the south coast of England, where Carole Seddon has taken early retirement from her career at the Home Office. One morning she discovers a dead body on the beach, but by the time the police go to investigate it had disappeared.

Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody  – the first of the Kate Shackleton Mysteries set in Yorkshire in 1922, with flashbacks to 1916. Bridgestead is a peaceful mill village, until the day in 1916 when mill owner Joshua Braithwaite went missing after apparently trying to commit suicide.

Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn – the first Daisy Dalrymple book, a quick and easy read, a mix of Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse, set in 1923 at the Earl of Wentwater’s country mansion, Wentwater Court. 

Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham – a Midsomer Murder Mystery. I’ve enjoyed watching the TV series over the years. Midsomer is obviously a dangerous place to live with all those murders happening so regularly, but they are not the gory kind – it’s murder of a sanitised nature.

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood – easy to read and fast paced. Seventy-seven year old Judith, and her friends discover who killed Stefan, who was found dead in the Thames, with a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. The first book in the Marlow Murder Club series.

The Heiress of Linn Hagh* by Karen Charlton – the first book in the Detective Lavender Mystery series. Northumberland, November 1809. A beautiful young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The local constables are baffled and the townsfolk cry ‘witchcraft’.

Stealing the Crown* by T P Fielden – London, 1941: Major Edgar Brampton is found shot dead in his office in Buckingham Palace. All signs point towards a self-inflicted tragedy, but when Palace authorities hurry his body away and order staff to stay silent, fellow courtier Guy Harford’s suspicions are raised. The first book in the Guy Harford Mystery series,

Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House by M C Beaton – there are three deaths for Agatha to resolve when an old woman reports that her house is haunted and is later found murdered. More deaths follow. I thought this book was all rather silly and Agatha herself is a silly woman.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman – in a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. This is quietly humorous in parts, not laugh out loud funny, but it did make me smile in a few places. The murder mystery element is over complicated with far too many twists and turns, suspects and false trails. It didn’t turn out to be as good as I’d hoped!