Why do I write murder mysteries and why choose 'cozy' murder mysteries? The answer has to do with the quest for the holy grail and my desire to write a new kind of hero: a sleuth who is a flawed and marginalized woman who needs others to succeed.
Think about it. Fictional detectives are summoned to go on a quest for a truth that has a big impact on the world of the book. They are questing knights looking for a holy grail of 'truth' that will transform the pain and hurt around them (the wasteland) into a good place (the grail's renewal of fertility). Cozy mysteries in particular, heal all the hurts discovered in the novel. Hardboiled or tough guy sleuths do solve the murders but discover them to be connected to a bigger web of corruption. Instead of succeeding with the grail, they become another character in the myth, the sick Fisher King, human emblem of the world as wasteland.
Therefore I write stories of rebirth and renewal in which my fictional detective, Mary Wandwalker, succeeds with the help of a chronically depressed woman, Caroline, and a formerly trafficked young woman, Anna. I write to find ways that impossible hurts can be ameliorated, illnesses that won't go away can suddenly bless, and the damaged person become an incredible hero. See my first Mary Wandwalker mystery with more to come. (her name means 'windtalker' old woman who talk to the gods).The Sacred Well Murders https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Well-Murders-Susan-Rowland/dp/168503005X
