Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency by Josie Lloyd

 

Miss Beeton Mysteries #1

384 pages

Publisher: HQ

Release Date: October 24, 2024

 

Blurb

Alice Beeton never meant to wind up single and childless on the wrong side of fifty. Like her distant relative Mrs Beeton – yes, that Mrs Beeton – she had hoped to have her own spic-and-span household by now. In reality, she lives in an immaculate but dingy basement flat in a rather shabby block in Kensington with Agatha, her fiercely intelligent, if rather over-territorial, corgi-Jack Russell cross.

Now Alice runs the Good Household Management Agency, providing discreet domestic staff to extravagant townhouses and sprawling country piles. So when Camille Messant calls in urgent need of a new housekeeper, Miss Beeton sends out new hire Enya. She’s rather forward but she does come with impeccable references and is fluent en français.

But in the early hours of New Year’s Day, Alice is rudely awakened with the news that Enya has been found dead. As the police struggle to drum up an adequate investigation and the wealthy family and their party guests close rank, Miss Beeton takes it upon herself to solve the crime…

 

Review

Alice Beeton is a distant relative of the Miss Beeton of Miss Beeton’s Book of Household Management fame. She runs the Good Household Management Agency providing domestic staff to the rich and famous. When she employs a new hire named Enya on the same day that she is asked to provide the Messant household with a housekeeper immediately, it seems too good to be true. When, only a few days later, Enya is found dead, Alice Beeton feels responsible. With the police investigation not going anywhere, Alice decides to do some investigating of her own. After all, she’s a huge fan of murder mysteries. How hard can it be to unmask a murderer?

Alice with more than a little help from her friends Jinx, Helly, Barney, Jacques, and Massoud, to name but a few, soon discovers that investigating a crime is much harder than it looks between the covers of a book. And much more fraught with danger too. Going undercover in the Messant household to replace Enya, Alice Beeton finds herself taking risks and not getting anywhere fast. But, as she reflects 49% into the book: “Being stuck in the middle was part of the process.”

There’s a lot going on in this book apart from the murder which is not surprising since this appears to be the first book in a planned series which means that several characters and back stories had to be established. If I’m honest, it was a bit (too) much for me at times. More than once, I found myself wondering ‘who are you again?’ about secondary characters and some plot developments were outrageous enough that I found myself rolling my eyes. At the same time, the writing is smooth, and the story was intriguing enough to keep me turning the pages.

There are recipes in this book, some going back to the original Mrs. Beeton and others more modern. These recipes are placed right behind the place where a dish is mentioned right in the middle of chapters, and I’d love to tell you more about them. Unfortunately, the formatting of the ARC the publisher provided me with meant that they were literally unreadable. That is a shame since most of the dishes mentioned in the story sounded very yummy and I wouldn’t have minded trying my hand at recreating one or two of them.

Overall, this was a fast-paced, thrilling mystery, and captivating crime-caper with a few too many wtf moments for me to rate if five stars. If you like your cosy mystery with a large dose of mayhem, a host of larger-than-life characters, a cute little doggo, as well as plenty of action, and you don’t mind suspending disbelief once or twice, you’re going to love Miss Beeton’s Murder Agency.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

 

Thursday Murder Club Mystery #2

423 pages

Publisher: Penguin Random House

 

Blurb

It's the following Thursday.

Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?

 

Review

WOW

As soon as I finished The Thursday Murder Club—a book I didn’t write a detailed review for, for some unknown reason— I wanted to pick up this sequel. Unfortunately for me I had to wait about nine months but, now that I’ve finished The Man Who Died Twice I can say it was well worth the wait.

Here is the little I did write about The Thursday Murder Club:

This book was a revelation. I'm not sure what I expected, besides a mystery, but it wasn't this complex, charming, funny, touching, and enthralling story.

To be honest, I could simply repeat those two sentences and leave it there. The first book was indeed a revelation and I have to admit I was concerned that maybe the sequel wouldn’t live up to expectations. Fortunately, I worried about nothing. The Man Who Died Twice is at least as complex, charming, funny, touching, and enthralling as The Thursday Murder Club was.

Of course, at first glance, neither of these stories should work. For starters, it is impossible to classify these books precisely. Part cosy mystery, part crime caper, part suspense, and featuring spies, it is remarkable that not only do these stories work, they do so exceptionally well.

Of course, there are far more explanations as to why they do work so brilliantly, such as the fantastic cast of characters. It would be hard to find four people as unlike each other as Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron but it is exactly the differences between them that make them so good together. The host of secondary characters, both those who return and those only present in one of the stories, are as distinctive, original, and yet very recognisable as the four protagonists. The mysteries, while very well and cleverly plotted, lean toward being over the top but somehow manage to stay both believable and fascinating.

Away from the mystery and all the mayhem resulting from it, there is this deep and warm humanity to these stories. As much as they are mysteries, they are also stories about friendship and tolerance. Without ever getting sentimental, they show the fragility that comes with getting older. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron are all matter of fact about where they are in their lives. They're getting on with it. But between the lines and without ever getting sloppy you can read the fear, the insecurities, the loneliness, and the frustration.

I can’t help feeling that Richard Osman must like people and not only observes those around him but also really sees and understands them.

I can’t imagine anybody reading these books and not getting drawn in. As much as I want to avoid ever having to live in a retirement home or village, these stories almost managed to convince me it might be fun. And, if my accommodation came with the promise of mysteries and a group of friends like the foursome in these books to help me solve them, I might yet be persuaded. 😊

Finally, I want to say something about the title. But I can’t. So I’ll restrict myself to two words: utter genius.

Crime and Punctuation by Kaitlyn Dunnett

 

Deadly Edits Mystery #1

280 pages

Publisher: Kensington

 

Blurb

After splurging to buy her childhood home in the Catskills, recently widowed Mikki Lincoln emerges from retirement as a freelance editor. With her ability to spot details that others fail to see, it's not long before Mikki earns clients--and realizes that the village of Lenape Hollow isn't the thriving tourist destination it was decades ago. Not with a murderer on the loose . . .

When perky novice writer Tiffany Scott knocks at her door holding a towering manuscript, Mikki expects another debut novel plagued by typos and sloppy prose. Instead, she finds a murder mystery ripped from the headlines of Lenape Hollow's not-too-distant past. The opening scene is a graphic page-turner, but it sends a real chill down Mikki's spine after the young author turns up dead just like the victim in her story . . .

Mikki refuses to believe that Tiffany's death was accidental, and suspicions of foul play solidify as she uncovers a strange inconsistency in the manuscript and a possible motive in the notes. Then there's Tiffany's grandmother and husband, who aren't exactly on friendly terms over the local area's planned rejuvenation efforts . . .

Unable to convince police that they are focused on the wrong suspect, Mikki must rely on her keen eyes to catch the truth hidden in Lenape Hollow. As she gets closer to cracking the case, only one person takes Mikki's investigation seriously--the cunning killer who will do anything to make this chapter of her life come to a very abrupt ending . . .

 

Review

This was my first cosy mystery in ages. I used to read them all the time and enjoyed them thoroughly. As my 3-star (3.5 really, but that option's not available) rating indicates, I wasn't overly impressed with this story. I'm not sure if that is because this simply isn't a very good cosy or because I've outgrown the genre. Only time (and more cosy mysteries) will tell, I guess.

Without going into the details of this mystery I blame my reservations about this story on the following. Descriptions were too frequent, detailed, and, as far as I could tell, mostly irrelevant. The identity of the killer didn't come as a (huge) surprise. It felt like a lot of information was repeated time and again. And I didn't really warm to Mikki Lincoln and didn't quite buy her motivation for investigating the mysterious death either.

While I like the idea of a punctuation rule being the primary clue in this mystery, it wasn't enough to carry the whole story for me especially since a lot was made of the manuscript in question only for it to reveal little to nothing. In fact, a lot of questions posed by that document remained unanswered by the end of the story.

I’m fairly sure I’ll read more cosy mysteries in the future. Whether I’ll read more stories in this series or other books by Kaitlyn Dunnett remains to be seen.

Just Make Believe by Maggie Robinson

Lady Adelaide Mystery #3

287 pages

Blurb

A week-long house party in the country―why not? Lady Adelaide has nothing else to do, now that her year of mourning for her unfaithful husband is up, and her plans to rekindle her romantic life have backfired. But when her hostess is found dead on the conservatory floor, Addie knows just who to call―Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter of Scotland Yard.

Dev may not want to kiss Addie again, but he's anxious to solve the crime. Who would want to kill Pamela, the beautiful wife of one of Britain's greatest Great War heroes? Certainly not her devoted and wheelchair-bound husband, Sir Hugh Fernald. The other guests seem equally innocent and improbable.

But despite all appearances, something is very wrong at Fernald Hall―there's a body buried in the garden, and the governess has fallen down the stairs to her death. Who's next? Addie and Dev must work together to stop another murder, and they have some help thanks to Rupert, Addie's late and unlamented husband. Rupert needs to make amends for his louche life on earth, and what better way to earn his celestial wings than catch a killer?

Review

It’s been a while since I read a mystery and even longer since I read one with a historical setting. But, it has been nice to return to what used to be my favourite genre. As for the story? That was nice too. I hope that doesn’t sound as if I’m damning the book with faint praise. I enjoyed the tale; it just didn’t have the wow factor. Of course, that may be because I was reading the third story in a series without having read the first two.

 Lady Adelaide is a young aristocrat and has been widowed for a few years when this story starts. Her husband cheated on her all through their marriage and even after his death he won’t tormenting her. His ghost haunts her, mostly to assist her when she runs into murder, but he’s not beyond teasing and infuriating her. What is more, the information he shares with her, while usually right, is never complete enough to provide her with a solution to the mystery she’s facing.

Enter Dev Hunter. As a Detective Inspector he’s well out of Lady Adelaide (Addie’s) social circle and therefore league. The fact that he’s also half Indian, only makes the social gap between them wider. Unfortunately, none of that lessens the attraction simmering between them, although Dev is determined to keep his distance and, in this book at least, he succeeds in not repeating the kiss they (apparently) shared in an earlier instalment.

As for murder(s), there’s a lot going on in this book. It may start with the suspicious death of Addie’s hostess, but it isn’t long before a much older crime is uncovered and soon followed by another suspicious death. I think that’s where the story fell down a little for me. The reader doesn’t really get the opportunity to get involved in the investigation. Almost everything Addie discovers is the direct result of her ghostly former husband providing her with information. What’s more, very little of Dev’s investigation takes place on the page. We learn bits and pieces from his thoughts and his conversations with Addie, but for me there was a significant lack of clues and red herrings in this book. In fact, I had the culprit pinpointed early on in the book, not so much based on what was in the story but more as a result of having read a lot of mysteries in the part and this mystery followed a not unfamiliar pattern. What’s more, the murder(s) in this book aren’t really solved. The ghost provides the answer which, of course, means Addie can’t explain where she gets her information from, and the culprit confesses for reasons that are unclear and unexplained.

Having said all that, I did enjoy this book. In star ratings I would say this is a solid 3.5. It wasn’t a real page-turner for me but returning to the story was no hardship. I liked Addie and Dev and enjoyed reading about British society on the verge of major changes in social structure and female liberation. In fact, I liked it so much that I’m now determined to read the next book in the series too. The ending of this one introduced the next mystery and I’m looking forward to reading it.

 

 

Savage Sourdough (Cozy Corgi Mysteries #4) by Mildred Abbott

 294 pages

Buy links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Also available through KU

Blurb

Opening the Cozy Corgi in Estes Park is a dream come true: small-town charm, fresh-baked bread, hours by the fire reading mysteries, and… murder. 

For Winifred Page and her devoted corgi, Watson, the puzzle pieces of life are falling into place as they settle into their home in the Colorado mountains. Surrounded by family and friends, Fred begins to relax into the charm and beauty of being the owner of a bookshop and bakery. 

The buzz of possible romance—though Fred wasn’t looking for a relationship—has quieted as one of her suitors is no longer a viable option while the other has moved into the friend zone. But all thoughts of romance, wanted or not, fly out the window when Fred finds a dead body in the Cozy Corgi bakery… again. 

Things get stickier when Fred’s main suspect turns out to be a family member of one of the local police officers—the one who already despises Fred and her little dog. Determined not to let past grievances cloud her judgment, Fred tips her detective hat and pokes deeper into the murder investigation. But in a mystery that becomes smoke and mirrors, nothing is as it seems. 

The revelations Fred unveil threaten not only her picture-perfect world but her very life….

Review

Not too long ago cosy mysteries were a go-to genre for me. When I lost myself in (MM) romance a few years ago, my mystery reading disappeared to the back-burner. Reading Savage Sourdough both reminded me how much I used to love these and other mysteries and made me realise that I’m losing a lot when I (mostly) limit myself to one genre.

Because what’s not to enjoy about a book filled with charming and fascinating characters, combined with a well-plotted mystery and a satisfying solution? Savage Sourdough provides all of that in spades.

I don’t want to say too much about the mystery in question except to say that it is intriguing, involves long held secrets, and comes with a fair amount of danger for Winifred and her friends.

And talking about Winifred, I have to admit I really liked her. Of course, it would be hard for me not to be charmed by a character who has more or less created my dream; a bookshop come coffee shop. Throw in her moody but adorable Corgi Watson (how appropriate is that name for the investigator’s side-kick?), and this book had charmed its way into my heart.

Overall this was a most enjoyable read. A fascinating mystery, interesting and quirky characters, some tension, and the suggestion of romance; what’s not to love?

I didn’t read the earlier Cozy Corgi Mysteries (an oversight I’ll have to fix as soon as possible). While I have to admit that I didn’t feel I missed out on anything due to lack of prior knowledge, I also have no doubt that I might have gotten even more enjoyment out of reading this book if I had read those earlier instalments.

Overall I have to say that if you happen to be a fan of this genre, the Cozy Corgi Mysteries come highly recommended.

The Author

Reading the Cozy Corgi series is pretty much all you need to know about Mildred. In real life, she’s obsessed with everything she writes about: Corgis, Books, Cozy Mountain Towns, and Baked Goods. She’s not obsessed with murder, however. At least not at her own hands (nor paid for… no contract killing here). But since childhood, starting with Nancy Drew, trying to figure out who-dun-it has played a formative role in her personality. Having Fred and Watson stroll into her mind was a touch of kismet.

Detective Fox and the Christmas Caper by Isobel Starling - Pre-release Review

Detective Fox and the Christmas Caper (Dick and the Sidekick)

by Isobel Starling

124 pages

Release Date: November 1, 2016

Buy links: Amazon   Amazon UK   ARe

The blurb:

Every good Dick needs a sidekick…

Actor Tom Lewis’s world came crashing down when a honey trap and tabloid exposé outed him and put pay to his flourishing career. The housewives favorite was most well-known for his role as ‘Detective Fox’ in the quaint British series 'Malmesbury Murders'. But after the media speculation about his sexuality, the show is in hiatus and Tom hasn’t worked six months.

Now things are getting serious, the money he made from M.M is running out and he needs a job desperately. So when Tom’s agent offers him a six week seasonal acting job, he reluctantly agrees… and takes on the role of Santa for a top London department store.

This decision changes Tom’s luck. Not only will he have an income for the holiday season, he’ll also be working with a very sexy young elf that he spotted at the auditions, named Eli Mason.

The plot gathers pace when, during a break Tom overhears two unidentified store workers discussing a ‘job to get a little Christmas bonus”. He realizes the job is of the illegal sort. Now, Tom could call the police, but then again, wouldn’t it be great for his flagging career if Detective Fox saved the day?

So Fox is on the case, and as every good Dick needs a sidekick, Tom decides Eli will fit the role, in more ways than one.

My thoughts:

Oh but this book was fun; a cosy and humorous crime-caper come romance is probably the best description I can come up with. I pretty much smiled and laughed my way through this novella from start to finish.

There is a lot to like about this book. I loved both Tom’s gruffness and Eli’s sweet temperament, especially because the tables are completely turned once these two men get naked together. Sexy doesn’t begin to describe their bedroom (and living room for that matter) antics, but as hot as they were, they always erred on the side of sweet.

The crime in this book is rather ingenious and made me wonder about the author’s morality for a moment J I could actually see a set up as the one described in this book work in reality. The way the case ended on the other hand was all high jinks and far from realistic, but all the more fun for it. (And that’s all you’re getting, read the book if you want to know what I mean).

I’ve been a fan of ‘Midsomer Murders’, both the books and the TV series, and was delighted to see the author took her inspiration for Tom from those stories. Now that I’ve finished this story I can only hope the author will revisit Tom and Eli. Surely there are more mysteries and sexy-times in their future, and I for one, really want to read those.

If you’d like a lighthearted, sexy, and funny Christmas story look no further; Detective Fox and the Christmas Caper is exactly what you’re looking for.

About the author:

Inspiration strikes at the strangest of times.

Born in Germany, Isobel Starling spent most of her twenty-year professional career making Art. She relocated to the UK and, faced with the dreaded artist’s creative block, Isobel started to write and found she loved it more than making Art.

Isobel has just completed her sixth book. She adores the M/M genre and enjoys writing about wounded souls and the complexities of personal relationships.

Despite not having found proof yet, Isobel believes in love at first sight and endeavors to give her characters a thrilling journey and a satisfying ending.

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