Murder by Cheesecake

Murder by Cheesecake builds on trends in in cozy mysteries, the wider mystery genre, and even some thrillers, which increasingly feature older women as seemingly unlikely sleuths. This expands the genre’s reach into questions of gender, identity in older age, and family relationships. Though older women as sleuths are not new—Agatha Christie’s Golden Age Sleuth, Miss Marple, appeared in 1930s Murder at the Vicarage—these more recent offerings take on modern social questions and often include characters who are not British gentry or aristocrats.

Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series pays homage to the Golden Age of Detection but uses the whodunnit to explore questions of morality and mortality. The plots take place in the retirement community of Coopers Chase in Kent. The four sleuths come from radically different backgrounds—Joyce is a middle-class nurse, while Ibrahim Arif grew up in Egypt and worked as a psychiatrist. Ron Ritchie is a proudly working-class firebrand, while the mysterious Elizabeth has more elite roots and worked as a spy. Like the characters in Murder by Cheesecake, several of the four friends are widowed or have lost partners, so their grief and search for meaning fuel the plot.

Other cozy mysteries, especially those that take place in the modern United States, explore both multicultural identity and generational clashes. one recent series, beginning with Dial A For Aunties sees Jessie Q. Sutanto’s cast of Indonesian Chinese characters solve a murder while trying to save the reputation of their family wedding business. The protagonist, Meddy Chan, sometimes has conflict with her formidable aunts over her closer ties to American culture, but the family is ultimately tight-knit and loving. The second installment features at Meddy’s own wedding. Murder by Cheesecake thus reflects that the cozy mystery is expected to include personal and comedic elements, with weddings as a popular vehicle for exploring family dynamics. The third entry in the series sees one of Meddy’s aunts pursue romance, only to end up embroiled in scandal involving a crime family. Sutanto’s other mystery series also involves family dynamics and intergenerational differences. In Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice For Murderers the elderly title character chooses to withhold evidence related to a dead man in her tea shop because she believes she can solve his murder more efficiently. In the process, Vera builds new connections in her Chinatown community while also navigating her son’s adult independence, revealing how cozy mysteries provide space to explore questions of community and older women’s roles in society.

Cozy mysteries often center around food and cooking. Mia P. Manansala’s Arsenic and Adobo features a murder at a Filipino family restaurant, while Abby Colette’s A Deadly Inside Scoop and its sequels involve an ice cream business in the Cleveland suburbs. The inclusion of a cheesecake recipe and detailing of wedding menus positions Murder by Cheesecake within this common genre trope. Though it is an authorized tie-in novel built on a television sitcom, Ekstrom Courage clearly draws on established history within the mystery genre to appeal to readers as well as fans of the original sitcom.

These examples show that Murder by Cheesecake participates in a broader literary movement that uses the cozy mystery form to challenge cultural assumptions about age, gender, and community. By placing The Golden Girls in the role of amateur sleuths, the novel underscores how older women can be central, dynamic figures in both family dramas and crime-solving plots. At the same time, its emphasis on weddings, food, and comedic misunderstandings signals fidelity to cozy mystery conventions. The novel thus bridges television nostalgia and genre innovation, reaffirming that stories about older women’s resilience and friendship remain both culturally relevant and emotionally resonant.