We have both a "cozy" book discussion group, day and night, and hardcore book discussion group, Bloody Wednesday Group, all which meet one evening a month. The Bloody Wednesday Group discusses all types of mysteries: hard-boiled, soft boiled, suspense, true crime, and an occasion horror or cozy.

        You might ask what the difference is between a cozy and these other types of mysteries. Several years ago, an author visiting our shop gave the definition of the difference between the two different kinds of mysteries. It was perfect but, unfortunately, I didn't write it down. I gave the gist of the definition to our good buddy and former employee, Jay Catherman and asked him to come up with a definition. He came up with the following that pretty much says it all:

        In a cozy mystery novel, you have an amateur sleuth standing over a neatly laid out corpse, with a cat sleeping on the mantel, and water on the boil for tea.

        In a hard-boiled mystery novel the detective is some sort of professional sleuth, the mutilated corpse is hanging from the fireplace and the cat is boiling in the kettle.

         If you would like to be part of either book discussion group, please call us at (717) 795-7470 or email us at mysterybooks@comcast.net