If you’re looking for an exciting whodunit but want to avoid graphic violence or explicit sex scenes, a cozy mystery may be just the thing for you to curl up with.

These milder crime tales typically follow an amateur sleuth (who’s also usually a woman) with great deduction and observation skills.

Any violence and sex occur off the page, leaving the main focus on the protagonist’s efforts to solve the crime.

Authors like Agatha Christie are frequently associated with this subgenre of crime fiction, but there are also many modern examples of cozy mysteries, since these stories remain popular today.

Contemporary Cozy Mysteries

Below are 12 examples of contemporary cozy mysteries that take the best of Agatha Christie’s style to create lighthearted but thrilling whodunits.

1. Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chen

After breaking up with her boyfriend and leaving her unfulfilling job, Lana Lee returns to Cleveland to work at her family’s restaurant.

But after a delivery of shrimp dumplings, the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead. Everyone knew about his severe shellfish allergy, so now the whole restaurant is under suspicion for murder.

Lana will have to work hard and fast to catch the killer before her own number is up.

2. Still Life by Louise Penny

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, a modern Poirot, is called with his team of investigators to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal.

Jane Neal, who came from a small town just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. Locals dismiss it as a tragic hunting accident, but Gamache smells something much more sinister in the remote woods.

3. A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Collette

After graduating with her MBA, Bronwyn “Win” Crewse returns home to bring her family’s ice cream parlor back to life.

But when an old nemesis of the Crewse family turns up dead on the day of the shop’s reopening, Win realizes she’ll have to solve the crime herself to clear her family’s name.

4. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries. The first is the case of a drowned boy, while the second is a remarkable baby elephant that he receives as a retirement gift.

As his hunt for clues takes him across Mumbai, Chopra begins to suspect that there’s much more to this last case than he thought, and a determined elephant may be just the help he needs.

5. Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria Laurie

Abby Cooper is a P.I. (that’s psychic intuitive, of course). But she failed to foresee the death of one of her clients, along with the fact that the lead investigator would be the gorgeous guy from her recent blind date.

Now, with the police suspicious of her special abilities and a killer still on the loose, Abby’s future looks more uncertain than ever.

6. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist and investigator who got her start at 13 when her employer, Lady Rowan Compton, agrees to sponsor her education.

But the Great War interrupts Maisie’s plans, and she enlists for nursing service overseas. Years later, in 1929, Maisie sets up her own business after serving as an apprentice to the renowned Maurice Blanche.

Her first assignment involves a case of suspected infidelity, but it soon takes Maisie on the trail of a killer and back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.

7. Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett

Struggling actress Dayna Anderson just wants to make enough money to help out her parents. So after witnessing a deadly hit-and-run, she decides to pursue the $15,000 reward.

But Dayna soon finds herself leading a full-on investigation of her own, in search of justice for the victim. She gets lost in the thrill of chasing down leads at paparazzi hot spots, celeb homes, and movie premieres―until someone tries to kill her.

8. Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a bad breakup, her life takes the Hallmark movie route for a while: she’s tasked with saving her Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, and must also face a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment.

But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly becomes an Agatha Christie case.

9. Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon

Classical musician Gethsemane Brown never imagine she’d be teaching at a school in the Irish countryside, and now she has just six weeks to turn a group of rowdy schoolboys into an award-winning orchestra.

But that may be the least of her worries—her biggest shock comes when the ghost haunting her cottage contacts her from beyond the grave, and Gethsemane gets pulled into an investigation that could put her in serious danger.

10. The Accidental Alchemist by Gigi Pandian

After relocating to Oregon, herbalist and reformed alchemist Zoe Faust discovers a real gargoyle in one of her bags.

Dorian Robert-Houdin needs Zoe’s help to decipher a centuries-old text that explains what he is. But Zoe isn’t sure sure she wants to reopen her alchemical past—until the dead man on her porch leaves her no choice.

11. The Cracked Spine by Paige Shelton

Delaney Nichols was never much of an adventurer, but that all changes when she packs up her bags and moves to Scotland to work at a rare book shop in Edinburgh.

When she arrives, she’s happy to learn that the job and bookshop are both real and absolutely wonderful, but she also discovers that some people are willing to kill for rare literary artifacts.

12. The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren

Caught between a a break-up and an uncertain future, Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother and help her with her knitting shop, hoping the time away will allow her to catch her breath and figure out her next steps.

But Lucy’s grandmother has changed—she’s now a vampire, a member of the undead. The worst part is that she was murdered, but with help from the shop’s knitting club, Lucy is determined to solve a series of paranormal murders.

Origins of the Cozy Mystery

The rise of the cozy mystery is often attributed to Agatha Christie and her Miss Marple series, which follows an elderly woman who solves murder cases in her small English village.

Christie’s earlier work was considered part of the “Golden Era” of detective fiction, which was published predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s.

With World War II came a darker, grittier type of detective novel known as hardboiled crime fiction, which typically features a moody, hard-drinking protagonist who’s good at solving crimes because he’s willing to get his hands dirty.

Cozy mysteries were then a reaction to this darker turn, and an attempt to revive the lighter whodunits of the Golden Age. The term “cozy,” however, was applied in retrospect later in the 20th century.

If you want to try more classic cozy mysteries, be sure to check out our list of the 10 best Agatha Christie novels.

Do you have a favorite cozy mystery? Share it with us in the comments below!

 

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