Agatha Christie is a leading role model, although the cozy has spun off into less bloodless branches in recent years, into the middle ground now known as soft-boiled. In some ways, the cozies are more honest. And yes, there are dozens of exceptions, ranging from splatterpunk to noir to hard-boiled romance. Some books are so clearly an examination of character and society that the genre jacket won't fit. The writers I've selected are well aware of the conventions but not bound by them.
Some debts are obvious, others less so.
Friedman owes something to the vigilante-violence humor of Daly's Race Williams, Mosley to Richard Wright. Any debt Grimes owes to anyone is a mystery to me, but the classics are a prime suspect. These novelists write about crime, violence, treachery, child abuse, conspiracy, corruption, and how humans create, participate in, and are affected by them. All rights reserved. All Rights Reserved.