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? (Synopsis courtesy of http://www.Penguin.co.uk)
I’m not sure when I have enjoyed a novel more than I enjoyed Richard Osman’s debut, ‘The Thursday Murder Club’. That story was convoluted, sure, but it nipped along, the characters were charming and there was a frothy light touch like a glass of cooled Pimms on a summer’s afternoon.
What Osman has here managed to do, is navigate the difficult second album. He had left himself with some work to be done: the first book had bodies dropping like ‘The Wire’-era Baltimore, a killer revealed to be a beloved character and now the challenge becomes: do it again. But, you know, better.
Well, I’m delighted to say that he has. Here, Osman takes us inside Elizabeth’s murky past – her role with the Security Services, her rakish ex-husband and the way her history keeps peeking into her present.
There are less characters than in the whirlwind original outing but Douglas is joined by hopeless waitress Poppy, who may not be all she seems, as well local drug Queen pin, Connie Johnson and her ascendancy and a nasty little character called Ryan Baird. This wee hoodlum is, to my mind, one of the few people in Osman’s fiction who I would happily see shot in the face by Elizabeth from point blank range.
‘The Man Who Died Twice’ is a charming romp covering treasure hunts for twenty million pounds worth of diamonds, the exact way to disguise the exact identify of a body and the reason why MI:5 use a safe house in Godalming.
I am well aware that there are readers who dislike Osman’s work because he is famous to begin with. Others dislike the fact he does not write serious Dostoeveskian meditations on the nature of crime. But I find his writing charming, safe and as entertaining as an afternoon cup of tea at your nan’s house and I thank him for it.
Also, I listened to both the original and the sequel in audiobook form read by Lesley Manville. I listened on long car rides alongside a mother who has dementia and doesn’t take that much pleasure in long form stories these days. Both Manville’s performance and Osman’s writing delighted her, amused her and kept her entertained and, for that, they were cheap at twice the price and I shall be ever grateful to them for their work.
‘Murder At The House On The Hill’ by Victoria Walters
Once Upon A Crime…
Nancy Hunter and her grandmother Jane Hunter run the Dedley Endings Bookshop, selling crime, thriller and mystery books, in a small, quiet Cotswold village where nothing ever happens…
That is, until the wealthy and reclusive Roth family open up their mansion for the first time in twenty years, inviting the people of Dedley End to a lavish engagement party.
While everyone is thrilled to finally look around the mansion on the hill, the festivities are quickly cut short when beautiful Lucy, recently married to young Harry Roth, is found dead after being pushed over the first-floor balustrade.
But who among the guests could have been capable of her murder – and why?
Nancy and Jane decide to investigate – after all, not only do they own a crime themed bookshop, they were also both named after famous literary detectives – but soon wonder if they’ve taken on more than they can handle. Especially when it seems the killer has worked out that they’re hot on their heels…
Can they catch the murderer before the murderer catches up with them? Or will there be a deadly ending to this story?
Join the unlikeliest detective duo for the killer opener of The Dedley End Mysteries series, by a major voice in women’s fiction.
In my quiet moments, often when I am standing in front of a class of bored teenagers failing to inspire them to anything other than sleep, I can be found staring out of the window, dreaming of my perfect bookshop.
It will be Dickensian in its untidiness. Wobbling piles of books will adorn the floors, the steps, the shelves will be three deep with paperbacks. You will need to rummage for your trophies and, when you find them, you will celebrate like you’ve won the cup final.
There will be coffee and a bookshop dog. It will have battered leather armchairs and you will be allowed to sit in the armchairs, reading the books and the smell of musty books will mingle with the autumnal damp and freshly brewed coffee and you will be content.
More importantly, so will I.
Into this particularly vivid daydream which I can, in no way, finance, waltzes Victoria Walters and her charming opening instalment in ‘The Dedley End Mysteries’ series, Murder at the House on the Hill.
Walters introduces us to Jane and Nancy – channelling her literary influences perhaps? – and Charlie, the bookshop beagle. I love it – it is a novel which has pinched my dreams and populated them with capable women solving crimes in a picturesque village setting. What’s not to like?
Fans of Fiona Leitch and Martin Walker should be prepared to be bowled over by this charming little tale of murder up at the big house.
A cozy homicide of delight. I look forward to book two!
Author Bio – Victoria Walters writes up-lifting and inspiring stories. She’s the author of the bestselling GLENDALE HALL series, which continues with its third book HOPEFUL HEARTS at GLENDALE HALL in September, as well as two other standalone novels – SUMMER at the KINDNESS CAFE, and THE SECOND LOVE of my LIFE. She has been chosen for WHSmith Fresh Talent and shortlisted for two RNA awards. Victoria was also picked as an Amazon Rising Star, and her books have won wide reader acclaim.
Victoria is a full-time author. She lives in Surrey with her cat Harry, and loves books, clothes, music, going out for tea and cake, and posting photos on Instagram.
Find out more about Victoria by following on Instagram at @vickyjwalters,
‘A heartfelt, funny and romantic caper – a mashup masterpiece!’ – Sandy Barker, author of ‘That Night in Paris’.
Bertrand is King of the Pigeons…
Unofficially. From his perch atop a gargoyle on Notre Dame cathedral, he surveys his kingdom. He sees Sylvie Cloutier, art lover and ex-antiques dealer, making dinner for her bullying husband Henri, trapped in their loveless marriage like a bird in a gilded cage. He sees security guard, hopeless romantic and bookworm Philippe Moreau cycling through the streets of Paris in his crumpled uniform, late (again) for his night shift at the museum.
When Sylvie begs her husband to let her go to work, he gets her a job as an evening cleaner at the Louvre. He thinks such a menial position will dispel any ideas about independence she might have, but his plan backfires when she falls in love with kind, gentle Philippe. They decide to run away together, but there’s a major problem: neither of them has any money.
One stormy night in the Louvre, the answer to their prayers falls into their lap… But is it really the solution, or just another, even bigger problem?
What follows is a romantic, wistful but madcap adventure through (and under) the city of lights, involving a stolen painting, an art heist in reverse, and Eric Cantona. Will love find a way?
Here, Leitch crosses the Channel and lands us in the capital of love. ‘Falling in Lourve’ is a switch of pace to a light romantic comedy but it channels another writer I am a big fan of, Peter Mayle.
The caper aspect is well handled and the horrible husband a believeable enough turd to make you root for Sylvie and Philippe to succeed in their madcap adventure.
This is a novel designed for holiday reading and, as the nights draw in, I can only hope that this acts as beacon of light relief in our darkening days
Author Bio – Fiona Leitch is a writer with a chequered past. She’s written for football and motoring magazines, DJ’ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product called ‘Sod Off’.
After living in London and Cornwall she’s finally settled in sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo, walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed but awesome female characters.
Her debut novel, ‘Dead in Venice’, was published by Audible as one of their Crime Grant scheme finalists, and her bestselling cosy mystery series, The Nosey Parker Mysteries, is published by One More Chapter/HarperCollins.
‘A Lethal Arrogance-An Arabella Stewart Historical Mystery Book 3’ by D.S Lang
After returning home from her service as a United States Army Signal Corps operator in the Great War, Arabella Stewart’s goal, to save her family’s resort, seems within reach as the summer season progresses. She and her business partner, Mac MacLendon, look forward to re-establishing a successful championship golf tournament, once the signature event of the resort’s year. Problems arise when one of the contestants, an overbearing snob who has created problems at other competitions, clashes with more than one person. When he is found dead, the victim of a suspicious automobile crash, Bella once again helps Jax Hastings, the town constable and her childhood friend, investigate. As they pursue answers, Bella and Jax find several suspects who might have wanted to make the victim suffer for his lethal arrogance.
I’m not one for wishing I lived in another place and time. For all of the horrors of this world, I’ll take the advancements in medication, standard of living and ease of convenience of the 21st century over the rationing, rickets and shortened life expectancy of the mid-20th century or the powdered wigs and tights of the 19th.
But, if pushed, I would have certainly enjoyed a shot at the Jazz Age. Cocktails, tennis and parties – yeah, I’d have put my back into that particular set of activities.
And it is into this milieu that we Arabellla Stewart and her Scottish business partner and honorary grandfather, Mac MacLendon. Joined by her chum Jax Hastings, the trio fly through the period hunting Cadillacs which plunged into ravines in the best spirit of Raymond Chandler and set out to prove there are dastardly deeds afoot in the best spirit of Lord Peter Wimsey.
This is a pacey, well written crime story of the cozy variety: the dialogue crisp and well written, the plotting tight and convincing and the settings rendered for the reader in clear fashion. It has a lightness of touch to delight the reader.
There are some things which can trip a UK-based reader up. The description of Ballantyne as a resort that has been in the family for 30 years is confusing as this is seen as a long time, whereas this is just about enough time in this country not to be frowned at as a dangerous stranger. Additionally, Jax tends to be a female name which lead to the introduction of that character (or reintroduction as this is Book 3) a small measure of confusion.
But these are mere trifling quibbles which do nothing to take away the joire de verve of the piece and add attractive details to its US setting.
Overall, a very enjoyable read!
Purchase Links
Author Bio –
D.S. Lang, a native Ohioan, has been making up stories since she was a little girl, and she still is! Along the way, she studied English and social studies as an undergrad. After graduate school, she went on to teach government and American history in high school. She also taught English at the junior high, high school, and college levels. In addition, she has worked as a program coordinator, golf shop manager, and online tutor.
Now, she spends much of her time reading, researching, and writing. Most recently, she has delved into the Great War era and the years immediately after it. Her Arabella Stewart Historical Mystery Series was inspired by her Great Uncle Brice who served in the American Expeditionary Force during World War One, and by her love of historical mysteries. In her spare time, she loves to spend time with family and friends, including her dog Izzy.
When Ann-Marie Ross murders her abusive husband and feeds him to the pigs, she thinks she’s got away with murder and secured the future of her Scottish cider farm. But she soon finds herself having to keep more than one deadly secret to protect those closest to her. As four women embrace their new-found independence, Ann-Marie is tormented by the threat of discovery. A darkly comic tale of murder, friendship and Love.
Lorraine Turnbull’s ‘Mum’s the Word’ will probably get listed under the cozy crime or black comedy genre. And this is fair enough. It is darkly comedic, Turnbull has a love of the contrast and ironies of living and it does have the sweet, “oh well, never mind,” aspect which can make cozy crime so easy to read.
What is also has – especially if you’re a reader in rural Scotland who also has to care for an ill, elderly parent – is a sense of dismay at the way that society has trapped the women in this novel.
“Used” is the word which keeps coming to mind: for their inheritances, for their cooking, for their patience, for their bodies. It is a darkly comic novel, but it is just dark in its view of human nature and how society has trapped people in dependency and misery.
This is not to make ‘Mum’s the Word’ sound depressing or po-faced. It is a romp of rare humour and entertainment, with a Glaswegian’s eye for the humour of the macabre detail. After all, there’s more fun at a Glasgow funeral than an Edinburgh wedding. Just ask Ann-Marie Ross…
Author Bio – Lorraine Turnbull was born in Glasgow where she lived until 2005 when she and her family moved to Cornwall to run a smallholding. She relocated to France in 2017 where she continues to make cider, writes books and learns French.
“Why on earth am I here?” David wonders as he observes the juvenile antics of ex-classmates at the twenty-five year school reunion. Then he sees Bridget.
David draws up a list of all that he hopes to achieve to kick-start a new life now that his wife has moved in with his best friend – his ex-best friend. A relationship with Bridget is top of the list, opening an arts café is a close second.
Formidable women – an unfaithful wife, a reckless teenage daughter, a boss from hell, a disapproving policewoman – seem like insurmountable obstacles.
But it’s still OK to dream, isn’t it?
I don’t think I’m giving too much away to confess that I have a birthday coming up in the next couple of weeks. A “big” one. One with a zero at the end.
As it happens, it is a “big” birthday which puts me in close proximity to David, the lead character of ‘Dream Café’. Having decided against attending my own school reunion (to paraphrase a friend’s response, he’d rather defecate in his hands and clap) I really felt for the character as half remembered school contemporaries lunge at him as the novel opens.
As the book progresses, we learn that poor David has quite the complicated back story, with all sorts of unpleasant behaviour having been dealt to this rather nice, if vague, protagonist.
Personally, I think a nice romantic comedy which nips along with ease of reading and light touch charm and ‘Dream Café’ has this in abundance. David is a hero we can root for and, even including the necessary ups and downs which must befall all characters in this genre, it is comforting to know that all will – up to a point – turn out right with the world.
Incidentally, I too have a secret dream to abandon my career and relaunch ala David – but perhaps I’ll have to wait until nearer his age to do so 😉
Purchase Links –
Author Bio –
Richard writes under the pseudonym R J Gould andis a (rare male) member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). His first novel was shortlisted for the Joan Hessayon Award following his participation on the RNA New Writers’ Scheme. Having been published by Headline Access and Lume Books, he now self-publishes.
He writes contemporary literary fiction about relationships, loosely though not prescriptively within the Romance genre, using both humour and pathos to describe the tragi-comic journeys of his protagonists in search of love. ‘Dream Café’ is his sixth novel, following ‘The Engagement Party’, ‘Jack and Jill Went Downhill’, ‘Mid-life follies’, ‘The Bench by Cromer Beach’ and ‘Nothing Man’. [It is a rewrite of ‘A Street Café Named Desire’].
Ahead of writing full time, Richard led a national educational charity. He has been published in a wide range of educational journals, national newspapers and magazines and is the co-author of a major work on educating able young people. He lives in Cambridge, England.
This is the opening passage of Rat Island. It captures how I experienced the maelstrom of 1995 42nd Street in Manhattan and gives a pen-picture of the novel’s protagonist, Callum Burke, and his past.
For a review of John Steele’s ‘Rat Island‘ click HERE
Callum Burke was late for the Chinese taxidermist’s murder. He shoved a Camel between cracked lips and sparked his Zippo then leaned against the wall next to the subway entrance on 42nd. He lit the cigarette like a fuse. His watch read eight-twenty.
A handsome drunk black guy in khaki pants and a busted-up jacket caught his eye and sauntered over, flexing and weaving through pedestrians like the booze in his system had liquefied his bones.
‘Excuse me, man, you got thirty cents?’ Alcohol fumes seeped through Callum’s tobacco cloud.
‘No, I don’t have any change.’
‘Thirty cents, man. I just need thirty cents for my bus to Chester.’
‘Sorry. No change.’
‘Alright. God loves you anyway, man.’
The drunk lurched off as a Latino girl in a PVC miniskirt with a sweet face and glazed eyes strolled up.
‘Hey, baby. You all by yourself?’
‘Just like the song.’
‘You want some company? I got a half hour to spare.’
‘Not tonight.’
A wired, scrawny white youth made a move after the girl tottered away.
‘Hey, man, you got the time?’ His voice was drowned by the stream of traffic heading to and from 8th Avenue. Callum cocked his head toward the youth as a siren howled from somewhere behind Port Authority.
The youth leaned closer. ‘You got the time?’
Callum checked his watch. ‘Uh, it’s – ’
‘I got blow, speed, crack, H. What you need?’
‘No, I’m good.’
‘It’s aaaaall good, man’
Callum pinched the bridge of his nose. A cop was standing on the corner fifteen feet away working hard not to notice the wicked business going down on his patch. The buildings of midtown rocketed skyward, swallowed by low rags of cloud oppressing the early evening bustle of the streets. A tide of gossip, questions, information and bawdy profanity assaulted him. Before, in the other metropolis of Hong Kong, it had been just as raucous but most of it was Cantonese backwash, white noise he filtered out. Now it was rushing him, penetrating his skull and cannoning around in his head.
‘Thirty cents, man? Port Authority’s just across the street.’
The black man reappeared on his right, face bathed in yellow from a neon sign declaring, In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him.
‘I told you already,’ said Callum.
‘Hey baby, you busy?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You wanna’ get high?’
‘You wanna’ fuck?’
‘What time is it, brother?’
‘Thirty cents?’
Callum dropped the spent smoke on the sidewalk and ground it out with his boot. He sparked up another and imagined himself through their eyes: the hustlers, the hookers and pushers. He looked younger than his twenty-nine years, despite the dark two-day growth on his face. A thatch of unruly black hair cut short and a nose skewed by a couple of prime shots in the ring. A wide mouth and a funny accent, maybe Irish but not like that comedy Top-O’-The-Mornin’ brogue people put on for St. Paddy’s. Heavy black brows over affective hazel eyes that were tender or playful or flinty at the whim of his moods.
Those eyes were his greatest tell.
The cop had crossed 42nd Street and disappeared downstream among the mass of citizens heading toward Penn Station on 8th Avenue. Callum took in the parking lot opposite, Port Authority Bus Terminal diagonal, the huge Camel mural across 8th to his right, and wondered how long he could live with this noise and fury.
Amid the chaos, a beautiful woman dragged a small child by the arm toward the subway entrance where Callum stood. Her hair was darker than shadow, her skin amber under the lights of the city, like she was sculpted from gemstone. She was East Asian but looked nothing like Irene Chu. Yet her face as she swept the child into her arms pulled Callum back to Hong Kong and his estranged wife. The child burrowed her head deep by her mother’s neck and Callum felt the memory leave a cold crater in his chest as he thought of his daughter, how Tara would do the same. Tara’s hands could barely meet as they encircled his neck back then.
The mother and child passed him by on 42nd and disappeared down the steps to the subway and he felt a part of him descend with them.
Callum pulled hard on the cigarette. That was his problem – he always went hard. Drank too hard. Gambled too hard. Maybe he loved too hard, now that his family was gone. He’d blown it with them and almost blown it with his job.
And now he was in New York.
He’d been here once before, a short trip with Irene but that had been the Empire State Building, Central Park and museums. This, tonight, was low cloud crawling through midtown, the buildings monoliths scattered with pinpricks of light. Rain was close. He dropped his smoke.
He scratched his head. No one likes to watch a man murdered but Callum couldn’t duck this one, so might as well get it over with. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen plenty of bodies. But this time, he’d watch the Chinese taxidermist’s life snuffed out while he sat with a coffee and a cigarette. As he turned to enter the subway, he checked the change in his pocket and snorted.
Thirty cents.
PRAISE FOR RAT ISLAND AND JOHN STEELE:
‘A nonstop thrill ride… a lyrical, super read filled with plenty of intrigue, action and suspense and sent against an exotic and seldom explored corner of crime fiction’ Gerald Posner
‘RAT ISLAND speeds and thrashes with the dangerous energy of the Manhattan streets which are so vividly recalled’ Gary Donnelly
‘John Steele writes with grit, pace and authenticity’ Claire McGowan
Purchase Links
Author Bio –
John Steele was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1995, at the age of twenty-two he travelled to the United States and has since lived and worked on three continents, including a thirteen-year spell in Japan. Among past jobs he has been a drummer in a rock band, an illustrator, a truck driver and a teacher of English. He now lives in England with his wife and daughter. He began writing short stories, selling them to North American magazines and fiction digests. He has published three previous novels: ‘RAVENHILL’, ‘SEVEN SKINS’ and ‘DRY RIVER’, the first of which was longlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger award. John’s books have been described as “Remarkable” by the Sunday Times, “Dark and thrilling” by Claire McGowan, and “Spectacular” by Tony Parsons. The Irish Independent called John ‘a writer of huge promise’ and Gary Donnelly appointed him ‘the undisputed champion of the modern metropolitan thriller’.
To read an exclusive extract selected by John Steele for this blog, click HERE
Rat Island by John Steele
‘A REAL CONTENDER FOR CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR’ David Peace
‘FANS OF DON WINSLOW WILL LOVE THIS’ Claire McGowan
New York, 1995. Cop Callum Burke arrives in New York from Hong Kong, drafted in as part of an international investigation into organised crime.
With the handover of Hong Kong to China only a couple of years away, gangsters are moving their operations out of the territory and into New York ahead of the looming deadline.
Burke’s experiences with East Asian crime and the Triads’ links to the Irish Mob make him the perfect man to send in undercover.
But as he infiltrates these vast and lethal criminal networks, bodies start to pile up in his wake and his conscience threatens to send him over the edge.
And when Burke’s NYPD handlers push him to continue the investigation at all costs, he may have to cross the line from cop to criminal just to stay alive…
Readers of Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, Steve Cavanagh, Richard Price and John Sandford will love this dark and morally complex novel which presents a searing portrait of mid-1990s New York as you’ve never seen it before.
Reviewers of novels, especially novels in this milieu, should be exceedingly careful about bandying around what I call the “Winslow Card”. Don Winslow is a giant of the sprawling novel, reflecting society back on itself and using the contemporary Escher nightmare of the facile “War on Drugs” to reflect our complicity in its pointlessly prolonged form.
That’s a big card to drop on anyone’s desk as they make their name. But, what we absolutely do have in John Steele’s novel Rat Island is a writer who has produced a tautly atmospheric portrait of New York at that tipping point in its history as it moved from pimps and hoes, No-Go Zone to the sanitised tourist trap it was to become.
And Steele certainly comes equipped with the writing chops to sustain our interest and intrigue across its nearly 400 page span. He writes with a cinematic eye. As his narration scans a street, a character chancing to pass, has hair “darker than shadow”.
Likewise, he has that sardonic touch that Ian Rankin rings to the best of his work. “The DEA had wanted to greet the Hong Kong policemen…but they were swamped with guys on temporary assignment from Miami playing Crockett and Tubbs with the Colombians.”
All of this is played out against a complicated investigation which brings to mind the best of ‘The Wire’ while Callum Burke juggles enough demons to put McNulty to shame.
Overall, this is powerfully rendered period piece in the pre-9/11 age where the good guys wear black as much as the bad and no one’s motives can be left unquestioned.
PRAISE FOR RAT ISLAND AND JOHN STEELE:
‘A nonstop thrill ride… a lyrical, super read filled with plenty of intrigue, action and suspense and sent against an exotic and seldom explored corner of crime fiction’ Gerald Posner
‘RAT ISLAND speeds and thrashes with the dangerous energy of the Manhattan streets which are so vividly recalled’ Gary Donnelly
‘John Steele writes with grit, pace and authenticity’ Claire McGowan
Purchase Links
Author Bio –
John Steele was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1995, at the age of twenty-two he travelled to the United States and has since lived and worked on three continents, including a thirteen-year spell in Japan. Among past jobs he has been a drummer in a rock band, an illustrator, a truck driver and a teacher of English. He now lives in England with his wife and daughter. He began writing short stories, selling them to North American magazines and fiction digests. He has published three previous novels: ‘RAVENHILL’, ‘SEVEN SKINS’ and ‘DRY RIVER’, the first of which was longlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger award. John’s books have been described as “Remarkable” by the Sunday Times, “Dark and thrilling” by Claire McGowan, and “Spectacular” by Tony Parsons. The Irish Independent called John ‘a writer of huge promise’ and Gary Donnelly appointed him ‘the undisputed champion of the modern metropolitan thriller’.
When Sam Dee moves to the beautiful Wiltshire village of Bishops Well, he expects a quiet life of country walks and pub lunches. OK, so his new neighbour, Maggie Kaye, is a little peculiar, but she’s very nice – and his old pal Richard Ruta lives just down the road.
But when Richard throws one of his famous parties, things take a sinister turn. Sam, Maggie and the rest of the guests are dumbfounded when Richard falls down dead. A horrible tragedy – or a cunningly planned murder?
With a village full of suspects – and plenty of dark secrets – just who exactly would want to bump off their host? Is there a connection to another mysterious death, nearly twenty years before?
Armed with her local knowledge, Maggie – with Sam’s reluctant but indispensable help – is soon on the case. But when the body count starts to rise, will sleepy Bishops Well ever be the same again?
I recently wrote glowingly of Simon Whaley’s novel ‘Blooming Murder’, describing it as “essentially, what would happen if Gardener’s World had an illicit love child by Midsomer Murders via the work of Tom Sharpe.
Anna Legat’s ‘Death Comes to Bishops Well’ has something of the same spirit but strikes me as more what would happen if ‘Midsomer Murders’ was crossed with ‘Escape to the Country’.
Here we have the obnoxious Richard bumped off – despite his boasts of eternal youth and his swimming pool – while new resident Sam is swept along in the investigation by his neighbour Maggie.
Legat has clearly worked at her writing craft and is an especially wonderful observer of human posture. Richard is described as “an old man, whether he cared to admit it or not: his frame was hollowed and his skin leathery and wrinkled, the hue and texture of tea-soaked parchment.”
Likewise, Sam is an, “ex-full back, he had a boxing-glove textured body, heavily padded with raw muscle.” The vivid nature of these descriptions offers a telling insight into the characterisation of Legat’s players.
‘Death Comes to Bishop Well’ is a straightforward cozy crime mystery set against the picturesque backdrop of the English countryside. Legat handles dialogue with a pleasingly assured hand, although the shift from a third person to first person narrator early in the book threw me at first.
However, as the opening instalment of what Legat is calling the ‘Shire Mysteries’ I hope that the unconventional pair of Maggie and Sam will be back thwarting murderers and struggling with ethical dilemmas in the near future.
Author Bio – Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. Murder isn’t the only thing on her mind. She dabbles in a wide variety of genres, ranging from dark humorous comedy, through magic realism to dystopian. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.
PAJ Newman 