Vicki Delany | Christmas Town and the Essence of a Cozy Mystery

The essence of a cozy mystery, as I see it, is real life, with some components
stretched and exaggerated for effect.

Cozy writers take the things we love – families, friends, hobbies, crafts, even
places – and write them with a loving hand to be slightly larger than life. And
then, we thrust murder and sometimes mayhem into the mix.

When it comes to real life, is there anything we love more than Christmas?

The food, the decorations, the lights, the gifts, maybe even the weather. Above
all the love of family and friends, and the enjoyment of celebrating with them.

In Rudolph, New York, they love Christmas so much they celebrate if all year
round. And no one loves the holiday more than Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs.
Claus’s Treasures, on Rudolph’s main street, Jingle Bell Lane. Merry’s father,
Noel, is the town’s Santa Claus. Merry knows her dad isn’t really Santa, but
sometimes she does wonder how he knows what people want before they so much as say
so.

Another element of the cozy is often ambition or competition out of control (or
perhaps just more out in the open than it is in real life). And Rudolph, New York,
is determined to beat out Snowflake, Arizona or North Pole, Alaska to be
officially known as America’s Christmas Town.

In the first book in the new series, REST YE MURDERED GENTLEMEN, when a reporter from an international travel magazine arrives in town to write an article on Rudolph, under the headline of America’s Christmas town, hopes are high for the future of the town.

But it wouldn’t be a cozy without a murder. And it wouldn’t be Christmas Town
without poisoned gingerbread, a sleigh-full of suspects, and an amateur sleuth
determined to see that the right person ends up on Santa’s naughty list.
Real life, writ large, with a touch of murder thrown in.

About Vicki Delany

Vicki Delany began her writing career as a Sunday writer: a single mother of three high-spirited daughters with a full-time job as a computer programmer. Sunday afternoon was – and at that, only now and again – the only time she had to spend all by herself, with a single candle on her desk for a bit of atmosphere, a Bruce Springsteen tape in the tape deck, and a nice cup of tea at her elbow. When she felt like really letting loose, the tea might have turned into a glass of wine.

The years passed, as they tend to do, and the three daughters, somewhat
hesitantly, flew the coop, leaving Vicki more time to devote to her writing. She
was able to write three novels of suspense, set in Ontario, two of which, Scare
the Light Away and Burden of Memory were published to critical acclaim by Poisoned
Pen Press of Scottsdale, Arizona.

In 2007, Vicki took early retirement from her job as a systems analyst with a
major bank and sold her house in Oakville, Ontario. At that time In the Shadow of
the Glacier, the first book in a police procedural series set in the British
Columbia Interior was published. After travelling around North America for a year
with her dog, Shenzi, she bought a home in bucolic, rural Prince Edward County,
Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch and can write whenever she feels like it.

Since settling in Prince Edward County, Vicki has continued with her writing
career, publishing books in several different sub-genres as well as a book for
adults with low literacy skills.

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About REST YE MURDERED GENTLEMEN

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES! In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…

As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate
homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa
Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s
float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.

Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…