When Agatha Christie introduced an eager world to the Cozy Mystery, she knew how important settings were. She made readers feel the hot desert sun of an archeology dig and the opulence of a country estate whose host was about to be poisoned. She took us for an exotic ride on the Orient Express. But she also created cozy places like St. Mary Meade that we wanted to keep returning to. When I started writing the Delhi Laine mysteries, starting with A NOVEL DEATH, I wanted to create a world that people would find as comfortable as sinking into a warm bath. With a few murders, of course, to spice things up. I began with the battered farmhouse that Delhi and her in-and-out husband, Colin, rent from the university where he teaches archeology and writes poetry. The kitchen appliances are the original Harvest Gold and work when they feel like it. The living room furnishings of shabby couches and ancestral photographs haven’t changed since their oldest daughter Jane was a toddler. Delhi puzzles things out with a juice glass of wine, curled up in the oversized wing chair. Out behind the house, beyond the pond, is the barn where Delhi…