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In my limited experience, cozy mysteries come in two flavours: the Louise Penny sort which is a detective solving a murder but in a small village backdrop with somewhat eccentric characters ... it could be Agatha Christie or Gladys Mitchell inspired; the other being closer to "romantic mystery" where the hero is almost always female, often an amateur sleuth, such as Carolyn G Hart's Death on Demand series. In both cases, there is limited sex and while there is almost always at least one murder, it's not gory -- no forensics, morgue dissections, etc.
Contrast that to "thrillers" where there is often a lot of explicit detail and pulse-pounding suspense -- Ian Rankin or James Patterson. Or the more traditional "hard boiled" tales like Robert B Parker's Spenser novels which feature intelligent characters, sometimes very nasty villians, but where examining every drop of blood is not important and where romance is limited.
Sophie's Choice was a heart-breaking movie and created Meryl Streep's movie career.
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