so here's a thing no cozy mystery ever really deals with

let's say you're the heroine. you've just been dumped or left at the altar, so you decide you're gonna move to this small town to take up a career as a bookstore owner/yarn store owner/librarian/baker/freelance lion tamer.

everyone's super friendly, friendlier than they'd be in real life. there is a woman who becomes your bestie. there's a single guy with attractive eyes. your bookstore/yarn store/librarian/bakery/lion act is going extremely well, and you're meeting quirky people up the wazoo.

the only real issue you have is with Myron Moneybags. ol' Myron lives in a big ancient (by US standards) house outside town. he's crotchety and everyone hates him. he threatens to shut down your store/library/circus for violating some obscure zoning ordinance, 'cause he's mean.

OH NO! Myron Moneybags has been KILLED! the cops think you did it, both because you're the stranger in town and because Myron was bludgeoned by one of your books/strangled by your yarn/poisoned by your cupcake/chewed on by your lion. you must solve the case to protect yourself.

after 250 pages of concerted effort and a whole bunch of coincidences, you discover who the culprit really is. it's Lucifer Greedbottom, that guy who was rude to you at the gas station in Chapter 3! Lucifer is taken away in handcuffs, shouting DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?. justice!

and in these books, that's the last we ever hear of it. our heroine is feted and taken to the small town's collective bosom, henceforward to solve many more murders of unpleasant people done to death in not super violent ways.

but I live in a small town. that's not how it goes.

in a small town, people would remember you FOREVER as the person who tagged Lucifer Greedbottom to the cops, and they would be leery of you, no matter how they felt about Lucifer. you'd hear people at parties saying, not quietly enough, "that's right, the poor Greedbottom boy..."

you would constantly be running into Lucifer's kin, who would either shun you or make a point of announcing how miserable Lucifer is. "and it's ARBOR DAY next week, Lucifer's FAVORITE HOLIDAY, and he won't get to spend it with his FAMILY," Lucifer's aunt would wail to you.

if you solve another murder in the next book, and have another person arrested? MORE ENEMIES. you'll soon be getting to the point where you can't shelve a book or pull a batch of muffins out of the oven or dance the Lion Mazurka without someone storming up to upbraid you.

your business, which is entirely dependent on goodwill, starts to fail. your off and on relationship with Mr. Nice Eyes falls apart because you've decimated his volleyball league. but you can't stop solving murders! it's become a compulsion. someone is murdered, you gotta solve.

I'd read a book about someone spiraling down like this. hear my call, writers!