I was recently interviewed on the release of The Viking Sword. Thanks to Leslie S. Lowe and the Historical Novel Society. It was a fun experience and really made me think!
Interview with the Historical Novel Society
Writing
Cozy?
There are lots of different subcategories within crime fiction. The term ‘crime fiction’ itself is an umbrella term, as I recently learned. It encompasses mystery, a story of the process of solving a crime or conundrum, and thriller, a tale of suspense with crime or espionage elements. Carolyn Wheat’s How to Write Killer Fiction compares mysteries to the ‘fun house’ at a fair, where the reader is misdirected, surprised, and presented with situations where things are not as they seem, like the reflections in funny mirrors. Wheat compares the thriller to a roller coaster, where the reader follows the wild ride of the protagonist’s flight or pursuit, dangers, surprises, and upsets.
Mystery readers typically like the intellectual challenge of following the clues and trying to guess ‘whodunit,’ while having the satisfaction of seeing justice done in the end. Thriller readers? No idea, because that’s not me. When I read a thriller, I finish exhausted and temporarily traumatized. Who would do that for fun?
Anyway, within mystery there are still more sub-categories. In my evolution from book shopper and library patron to author, I’ve had to learn about these categories because they affect how your book finds its readers. These categories include police procedural (where the police are the main characters), hardboiled or noir (think The Maltese Falcon), traditional, amateur sleuth, and “cozy.” There are still more permutations—I am condensing here—and of course there is “historical,” which can overlap with any of the above, but be set at a time prior to the author’s present day. All these have unique category codes called BISAC codes that are used by bookshops and libraries to determine how to shelve, group, and promote their titles. Amazon has similar but not identical categories and codes. A book can have more than one code.
My Anglo-Saxon mysteries are coded as historical fiction, medieval historical fiction, historical mystery, and traditional mystery for internet search and metadata purposes. A category I had never considered for them was “cozy mystery.”
But when someone recently described The Viking Sword as a cozy mystery, it brought me up short. I’ve come to suspect that the definition of a cozy mystery may vary quite a lot from one person to another. When you look at the Cozy Mystery section in a bookstore, what you see are titles like Murder and Muffins. The covers are brightly-colored, the title fonts are whimsical, and there is often a cat.
All right, there is a cat in my books as well. There may also be muffins or the Anglo-Saxon equivalent. But…are my books cozy?
Everyone’s favorite online encyclopedia defines the cozy mystery as follows:
Cozy mysteries (also referred to as cozies), are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Cozies thus stand in contrast to hardboiled fiction, in which more violence and explicit sexuality are central to the plot. The term “cozy” was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. […] Cozy mysteries do not employ any but the mildest profanity. The murders take place off stage, frequently involving relatively bloodless methods such as poisoning and falls from great heights. The wounds inflicted on the victim are never dwelt on and are seldom used as clues.
Some of that is true of the Edwin stories—I share the attitude of the kid in the film The Princess Bride with regard to ‘kissing books.’ And since I don’t use profanity myself, I don’t see any reason to take down my characters’ bad language verbatim. Moreover, it’s hard to find any community in the Anglo-Saxon period that was not small and socially intimate. Maybe it’s those aspects that prompted the reader to use the term ‘cozy.’ Reading the Wikipedia description, though, it sounds like some of the sanitized aspects of modern cozies are shaped by the requirements of prime-time network TV. (Confession: I love a good episode of Murder, She Wrote or Death in Paradise, but can’t imagine reading them as novels.)
And my observations here aren’t meant to reflect negatively on the writers or readers of cozy mysteries. Sometimes cozy in the fullest Wikipedia sense is the ideal escape when our days are distinctly un-cozy. Sometimes we are just in the mood for a bit of fun. Sometimes our tolerance levels lean more towards the muffins than the murders. Thank goodness we have so many books to choose from, right? I just wouldn’t want someone to pick up my book as a cozy mystery and be distressed to find rigor mortis and blood stains, and the occasional fight with my protagonist having to strike a fatal blow.
As readers of this blog will know, my inspiration is the Golden Age of detective fiction, roughly the inter-war period of the twentieth century when Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and other great authors defined the mystery genre. The people who were writing and reading during this period were of the World War I generation. The First World War was definitely not one of our more bloodless wars. If you read Golden Age mysteries, you don’t get this sanitized-for-TV treatment of clues. For instance, the first chapter of Sayers’ Have His Carcase is hardly cozy in its treatment of “The Evidence of the Corpse.” Is it a coincidence that in the years after that senseless and tragic conflict, readers yearned for the triumph of the detective and the reasoning ability of the human mind over lawless acts?
I can imagine that the West Saxons of the late ninth century had a similar yearning for the stability of law and the restoration of order. Their homes and livelihoods had repeatedly been at the mercy of the Viking Great Army. They had seen many of their leaders killed in battle, and some had seen fit to change sides and collaborate with the Danes. There were food shortages due to interrupted farm work and trade, and of course the Great Army living off the land. There would have been swathes of the country that were badly affected to one degree or another, and pockets that had remained relatively undamaged. However, the country as a whole was in a state of shock and slow recovery in 879 when the Edwin stories start. I’ve tried to convey that in small ways, such as how characters in the story respond to the thought–ever present as a possibility–of the Vikings coming back, and in their attitudes toward food and clothes.
In another parallel with the World Wars, most of the men of fighting age would have either seen combat or have been required to send young men from their community to serve in the fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon militia or national guard. At home, they all participated in the sort of farmyard bloodshed required in having meat on the table from time to time. Some of my characters ostentatiously glory in the warrior role and find peacetime hard to cope with (like Edwin’s older brother Edmund), while others, like Edwin, do what they must and pay the emotional price later. Some, like Edwin’s retainer Buntel, are physically brave but genuinely squeamish—he excels at hunting and tracking, but wants nothing to do with combat.
Just think of a society like this, the far-off ancestors of the Golden Age detectives, returning from the tumult of the war years to the mundane daily routines of their rural society, and ready to turn their minds to the sort of intellectual puzzle that comes from a good riddle, or a death that’s not easily explained by disease, starvation, or a heathen’s battle-axe.
Authors and readers have to find the right balance (and this will depend on individual experience and temperament) between taking death seriously on the page, and gratuitous descriptions of suffering and gore. The best Golden Age mysteries do have that edge to them, that acknowledgement that death is messy and murder is horrible, but without crossing the line out of consideration for war veterans who may have seen the real thing.
If cozy means a fantasy world where the body is a sort of wax dummy, merely a jumping-off point for a story about some endearing characters and their muffins, that’s not what I want to achieve. I’m reminded of a time when I was talking about books with a friend, and another person—not a reader—joined us at that moment. “Murder mysteries?” she asked, sympathetically. “My cousin was murdered. They never found who did it.”
What do you say to that? Fiction to hard, hard reality in 0.2 seconds. Murder is a genuine family tragedy that leaves a mark for generations. Though it’s fiction, I want my stories to acknowledge that. I never want to make light of crime, but to show that life still has joy, hope returns, and in the end, justice will prevail.
The Swashbuckler as a Leader
By Joseph F. Springer
This is a posthumous guest blog by my dad, who wrote this piece as a young officer in the U.S. Army. His career also included stints in the Coast Guard and law enforcement. Dad passed away in May 2023. He taught me a lot about writing, military history, the warrior mentality, and real-life swashbuckling.
From earliest childhood, I wanted to be a military officer. Like most would-be heroes I looked to books, movies, and television for a role model. I read most of the military history books in the local library and I watched fascinated as John Wayne stormed across The Sands of Iwo Jima. The person I most identified with, however, was Errol Flynn. I saw all of his movies. When he played Robin Hood, I wanted to be a guerilla and live in Sherwood Forest. When he was Captain Blood, I wanted to be a sailor; and when he led the Charge of the Light Brigade, I rode with him in the cavalry. The characters that he portrayed were always correct in every situation and had the respect of friends and enemies alike. His characters seldom lost a battle; and when they did, they did it with style. Certainly, Mr. Flynn must have been doing something right as a military leader. I wanted nothing more than to be just like him. His philosophy of leadership became my philosophy of leadership, too. From a very early age, I was convinced that he showed how a military leader should act. I remain convinced twenty years later. Despite the public blasting that Mr. Flynn’s private reputation has taken recently, I submit that his old movies are good training films for aspiring leaders. Good script writers did not hurt Errol Flynn’s fictitious military career. However, he also subscribed to some of the standards of military leadership.
First, Mr. Flynn portrayed men of action. Action is precipitated by initiative and decisiveness—both are traits of the military leader. Many more battles are lost because leaders hesitate than because they act rashly. Of course, a leader cannot be expected to act decisively unless he knows what he is doing. However, the answer to every question is not found in “the book.” Initiative and decisiveness are the traits that make a leader. A person who possesses only those two qualities may be a poor leader, but he is still a leader. One who can claim all of the other leadership traits except those two is only a follower. Mr. Flynn was a master at sizing up a situation and taking appropriate action.
Second, Errol Flynn was easy to recognize as a leader because he was always in front of this troops. He was the first to cross swords with the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood and he was the first out of the door in Paratrooper. He did not spend a lot of time hanging around the TOC. “Follow Me” was no hollow slogan to Errol Flynn and it was clear that his men took courage from the sight of their leader out front, showing the way.
Military bearing was a third quality considered important by all of the Errol Flynn characters. They realized that the way a leader looks and carries himself has a major impact on the way he is perceived by his subordinates. A leader cannot ethically dictate a policy that he is unwilling to follow himself. An overweight officer will have a difficult time convincing his men of the importance of physical training. A commander who runs around frantically at the first hint of an emergency does not convey an impression of confidence to his men. When troops see a nervous officer, they conclude that there must be something to be nervous about. Errol Flynn displayed a great deal of military bearing and was nothing if not cool under fire.
Perhaps his coolness came from the fourth and most nebulous of all qualities—courage. I am sure that Mr. Flynn realized that heroes, like leaders, are made and not born. At some point, every combat arms professional must take a cold and objective look at the job that he has chosen for himself. One has to pay dues to be a member of the combat fraternity. At any time in the future, he must be willing to pay up. The dues may be his arm, his leg, or his life. Such ar the facts of combat. It does not always happen to the other guy. If he feels that the risks outweigh the rewards, he can move on to a less demanding branch of the Army or into civilian life. If he decides that, in his heart of hearts, he is a soldier, he can start preparing himself mentally to be resolute in the face of danger. Thus prepared, when the time comes, he has one less decision to make in the heat of combat. Apparently, those characters played by Mr. Flynn had completed this critical self-examination and had not found themselves lacking.
A fifth recurring theme in Errol Flynn movies was that of technical competence on the part of the hero. Whether he was dealing death with a bow and arrow in Robin Hood or with a Sopwith Camel in Dawn Patrol, he always did it well. Not only did he know what he was doing, but he also knew what those in his unit were supposed to do. A leader can do no less. Unless he can make use of all the resources at his disposal, a leader is not using his unit to its full capacity. Troops can tell when a commander knows what he is doing and they are reluctant to follow one who does not.
Next, Errol Flynn always saw to it that his soldiers (and sailors when he was in that role) received the best possible treatment under the prevailing conditions. Although they were living in the middle of Sherwood Forest, the Merry Men always had fresh meat on the spit and plenty of wine to pass around. Robin Hood did not feel it necessary to make his troops miserable the whole time they were in the field. Then as now, soldiers can understand which hardships are unavoidable and which are caused by thoughtlessness or poor planning on the part of their leaders. It is inexcusable for a leader to eat or sleep in a dry tent while his troops are shivering in the rain. Merry Men tend to stay merry much longer if their leader attempts to minimize their misery when it is not necessary.
A seventh leadership quality exhibited by Errol Flynn’s characters was that of forthrightness. Intrigue rarely figured in an Errol Flynn movie. The plots, like the heroes, were simple and straightforward. When things went badly, Mr. Flynn let his men know about it. When his troops were asked to storm an impregnable fortress or walk out from behind enemy lines, they knew what the odds were. They also knew that their boss would be with them all the way.
The eighth and final thing that I remember about Errol Flynn movies is that the characters that he played enjoyed what they were doing. They were swashbucklers and made no apologies for their profession. They did not do to the things that they did for the purpose of enhancing their careers. They were soldiers because they liked soldiering. They were combat leaders, not corporate managers; and they showed no desire to want to escape to any other forms of duty. Troops can detect such an attitude. They can tell when their leaders want to be with them and when they are doing troop duty only because they have to for the sake of their careers. Enthusiasm is contagious and Errol Flynn knew it. As I said earlier, I feel that the leadership qualities that I learned from Errol Flynn during my childhood are as valid now as they were then. In fact, the things that I have learned in the military reinforce the Saturday afternoon lessons taught by Errol Flynn. His movies were a graphic demonstration of accepted principles of military leadership. Real heroes from Robert Rogers to Evans Carlson and William Derby have used these same eight traits to good effect. To these eight leadership principles I add the moral principles of honesty, justice, and loyalty to complete my philosophy of leadership. I feel that this philosophy rests on a firm foundation. There is still room for the swashbuckler in the modern military. Now, if only they would bring back the horse cavalry.
Elizabeth Springer, Author 