‘Death Comes to Bishops Well’ by Anna Legat

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.

Purchase Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Comes-Bishops-Well-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B093XV385N

US – https://www.amazon.com/Death-Comes-Bishops-Well-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B093XV385N

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.

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