Author Spotlight: G.P. Gottlieb

G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mysteries. In this fun cozy mystery series, the amateur sleuth is the owner of the Whipped & Sipped cafe, where the pastries are guilt-free, the coffee is strong, and the gossip might just get you killed.

Cozy Crime Reads Interview with GP Gottlieb

What attracted you to the cozy mystery genre?

A little over a decade ago, cancer treatments muddled my brain, and I started reading quick, cozy mysteries that weren’t violent and didn’t require a lot of thought. Not only was it fun to be able to guess who perpetrated the crime, but I enjoyed adventures around the world from my sickbed. I liked the emphasis on community and relationships rather than gratuitous violence, the devastations some people inflict on others, or the psychology of evil. I especially love historical cozies but Battered and Smothered take place in the late teens, Charred happens during the pandemic, and Pounded occurs about a year after life returned to normal.

What are a few of the essential elements that make a cozy stand out to you as a reader?

I just finished reading a beautifully written mystery, the sixth in a historical cozy series ostensibly written by an elderly woman recalling her years as one of the earliest female doctors in 1870s Old Los Angeles. The author (Anne Louise Bannon) has her protagonist, Dr. Maddie Wilcox, visiting her family in Boston. After a murder takes place, Maddie describes her search for the murderer along with social customs of visiting, parenting, and dining. Non-cozy mysteries might have you sitting on the edge of your sofa reading of torture, mass killings, or severe spousal abuse, but a cozy mystery, like Death of a Proper Bostonian, allows you to immerse yourself in a community of interesting characters who dress and behave in accordance with customs of the period, while trying to figure out who might have had a hidden motive to shoot the obnoxious brother-in-law. The victims in cozy mysteries are generally not the sweetest, nicest people in the room but the perpetrators might very well be just that that, the sweetest, nicest people in the room.

Do you have a favorite amateur sleuth?

Tough question, but among my favorites are Maddie Wilcox ( mentioned above), Mrs. Pargeter, Inspector Bruno, Hubie Schuze, Amelia Peabody, Armond Gamache, Flavia Albia, Mary Russell, Veronica Speedwell, Charlotte Holmes, Kat Holloway, Lady Emily, and Comisario Guido Brunetti (Here’s my incomplete list of All-Time-Favorite-Mystery-Authors. Yes, I know I’m missing some of the greats!)

What inspired your first cozy mystery?

As I healed from cancer, I had to figure out a way to make meaning for however many years I had left, and writing made me happy. I’d been writing poems, songs, and stories since childhood – mostly in my journals, but still! I’d once tried writing a novel, but it went on for hundreds of pages and lacked structure, focus, and a plot. Cozy mysteries need all that, plus a crime, red herrings, challenges for the amateur sleuth, and an ultimately satisfying conclusion. I decided to start with a stabbing, and since I planned to write a cozy mystery, planned to somehow mention that the rug upon which the dead man’s body fell was old and needed to be replaced anyway. It took three years of writing and rewriting.