I feel ambivalent about knitter/bookstore owner style detectives. As a one-shot they can probably be okay, but I've read a couple that turned out to be a series in the cozy-mystery vein and it just feels so... IDK, improbable? How many murders can a bookstore owner realistically come across??
And also the protagonist so often turns out to be a doofy idiot who really should step back and let the police do their work, which is not the feeling you want to have about an amateur detective.
That said, sometimes you can get one that transcends the genre - I read one where the detective was a record collector and that one was pretty great. (Although I haven't read book two, I must admit.)
I do want to see your thoughts about the detective cats. I read one where the detectives were sheep once, which sadly did not deliver on the premise as well as I'd hoped. But detective cats have a lot of potential!
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And also the protagonist so often turns out to be a doofy idiot who really should step back and let the police do their work, which is not the feeling you want to have about an amateur detective.
That said, sometimes you can get one that transcends the genre - I read one where the detective was a record collector and that one was pretty great. (Although I haven't read book two, I must admit.)
I do want to see your thoughts about the detective cats. I read one where the detectives were sheep once, which sadly did not deliver on the premise as well as I'd hoped. But detective cats have a lot of potential!