The temperature in Wisconsin is starting to drop, and as it does you might find yourself wanting to cozy up with a good book — maybe even a cozy mystery.
Some, including author Mindy Quigley, call cozy mystery novels a “vacation for the mind” — a chance to relax while still offering the genre’s essential elements of murder and intrigue. And her new novel’s setting is based on a popular vacation spot in Wisconsin.
Quigley is the author of the “Deep Dish Mysteries” series, which takes place in Geneva Bay, a fictionalized version of Lake Geneva. She spoke with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” about the series’ fourth and most recent installment, “Sleep in Heavenly Pizza.”
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This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Kate Archer Kent: What makes this mystery genre “cozy” and how does it appeal to you as a writer?
Mindy Quigley: Cozy mysteries are a lot like a traditional mystery, but a lot of the gritty details that might take place in a usual mystery are stripped away from the page. You’re not going to see explicit sex or language or violence on the page. And a lot of times, for that reason, this genre is kind of dismissed as fluff or light reading. They’re light hearted. They’re fun.
But for me, telling stories in this format is about a choice and how we confront some of these big issues of life and death and challenges that do happen in our lives. And personally, facing some of those big issues is a little bit easier when you set it next to a crackling fire with a cozy cup of cocoa and a big fluffy cat.
KAK: How did you land on Lake Geneva as the inspiration for your setting?
MQ: When I first pitched this series, I pitched it as being set in Chicago, which is where I’m from. I knew I wanted the restaurant that’s at the heart of this to be a deep dish pizzeria, so it made sense to put it in Chicago. But my agent and my editor both encouraged me to relocate it to a small town setting, which is often the kind of place where cozy mysteries take place — in these small towns with an “everybody knows everybody” kind of a feel.
I’ve been coming to the Lake Geneva part of Wisconsin for basically my whole life. And I knew that Chicago and Lake Geneva have connections going back more than 100 years. All of that history came into play. One of the main characters in the book is Detective Calvin Capone. I didn’t need to change anything about him, because Lake Geneva also has a lot of connections to that gangster past of Chicago. So Al Capone, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, all of those guys spent time in that part of Wisconsin.
Lake Geneva also gave me a lot of fun things to play with that Chicago would not have, like those ritzy mansions that ring the lake — and even the lake itself, which actually has become a huge part of the books.
KAK: How did you weave Wisconsin elements, like cheese curds and cranberry ketchup, into the book?
MQ: In a way, I think it benefits me that I’m not from Wisconsin. But I’ve spent a lot of time there. Some of those things that are daily life for people who live in Wisconsin strike me as a little bit exotic. They’re things that I want to share with my readers, and I think they make Wisconsin unique.
When I hear a Wisconsin-ism like “ya know” … I like to put it in the books as much as I possibly can, just to give that authenticity, and also to make it a little bit more fun.
KAK: The U.S. National Snow Sculpting Championship has a long history in the real Lake Geneva. How does snow sculpting collide with your cozy murder mystery?
MQ: Every year, Lake Geneva hosts this snow sculpting competition, and teams from all over the U.S. come and they carve these huge mounds of snow into beautiful and amazing sculptures.
And the first time I saw those sculptors working, my mystery writer brain kicked in and was like, “Oh my gosh, I have got to put a body inside one of those snow sculptures.” I built the entire book around that image.
KAK: At the end of the book, you share recipes, like the Tear-and-Share Christmas Tree Pizza Bread, the Hanukkah Donuts and Sonya’s Imperfectly Perfect Latkes. Why did you share those particular recipes?
MQ: When the reader finishes the book, I hope they have that feeling of, “I don’t quite want to leave these characters yet.” So, the recipes are all written in the characters’ voices, and you get to hear a little bit about the backstory of why they made that food.
I think that’s a fun way to end the book. I always try to pick recipes that were important to the action of the story, or something that when people see it, they’ll hearken back to something that happened in the book, and they’ll just get to spend a few more minutes with those characters.
