Healthy, Wealthy and Dead

The talk show on the radio was full of praise for Suzanne North's first mystery novel (Healthy, Wealthy and Dead, from NeWest) so I paid a visit to the local mystery bookshop to buy a copy and the clerk was excited about it too. "It's about time Canada had a writer who can write cozies," he said. I wasn't sure I wanted to know but I had to ask anyway: cozies, it turns out, are mysteries which are domestic and comfortable, and appear to be driven by character instead of plot. I bought the book anyway, but my worst fears were only confirmed by it.