crime writing

A Song From the Heart

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‘To Kill A Troubadour’ by Martin Walker

Author Martin Walker was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to talk to me ahead of the release of ‘To Kill a Troubadour’. You can read that Q&A with him here:

It is summer in St Denis and Bruno is busy organising the annual village concert. He’s hired a local Périgord folk group, Les Troubadours, to perform their latest hit ‘A Song for Catalonia’. But when the song unexpectedly goes viral, the Spanish government, clamping down on the Catalonian bid for independence, bans Les Troubadours from performing it.

The timing couldn’t be worse, and Bruno finds himself under yet more pressure when a specialist sniper’s bullet is found in a wrecked car near Bergerac. The car was reportedly stolen on the Spanish frontier and the Spanish government sends warning that a group of nationalist extremists may be planning an assassination in France. Bruno immediately suspects that Les Troubadours and their audience might be in danger.

Bruno must organise security and ensure that his beloved town and its people are safe – the stakes are high for France’s favourite policeman.

What’s the point of life? Is it to work and strive to attain the baubles and trinkets of accomplishment and the trappings of a late stage capitalist lifestyle?

Or is it food and wine and friends and spending your days embraced at the bosom of those who love you?

I don’t know the answer to these tricky philosophical questions – although I have a suspicion I know what my own answer would be – but what I do know is that once a year, Martin Walker releases another instalment in the career of Chief of Police Bruno Courreges and I am welcomed back to the Perigord like one returning to the arms of their family.

This time out, Bruno has a pair of nationalist Spanish extremists on the loose in his region and they appear to have a sniper’s rifle with them. Police National colleague, and frequent lunch companion, JJ’s antennae is twitching and Bruno must be at his best if the concert in St Denis is going to go ahead safely.

Walker wields his pen lightly and his love of the Perigord comes through on every page like steam from the freshly lifted lid on a dinner dish.

Now, full warning, I’m not objective about this series of novels. I’ve read each one since the inception and am often at risk of just, you know, prosthelytizing over them. It is fair to note that this is not ‘The Wire’ – although they are often harder-edged than people give them credit for.

What Walker has managed, however, is to use his illustrious career from before he turned to writing novels in think tanks and the press to thread an internationalism and entanglements from the world of intelligence and the media through his storylines.

Allowing Bruno to interact with the various levels of the French bureaucratic state as well as balancing the politics of his Mayor, his eternal flickering flame Isabelle and the Police National, the Gendarmerie and the UK Security Services (as embodied by retired chief of the JIC, Jack Crimson), allows Walker to pull off the neat trick of turning St Denis into a crucible for international relations.

Fifteen novels into the cycle, perhaps this might be beginning to take on an air of contrivance but the warm glow of Walker’s prose manages to stop this being the case.

Instead, the stories feel like a warm bath for the body and soul. No investigation must be allowed to halt a good dinner or delay the town tennis tournament. These familiar, much-loved characters mean that each novel is like pulling up a chair around a family dining room and I, for one, am looking forward to catching up with them again at the earliest possibility.

Another delightful outing to the Dordogne, highly recommended.

Purchase Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?field-isbn=9781529413632&tag=hachetteuk-21

Book Depository (free shipping to the US): https://www.bookdepository.com/Kill-Troubadour-Martin-Walker/9781529413632?ref=grid-view&qid=1654698342492&sr=1-1

Blackwells: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781529413632

Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10403/9781529413632

Foyles: https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/to-kill-a-troubadour-brunos-latest-and,martin-walker-9781529413632

Author Bio:

After a long career of working in international journalism and for think tanks, Martin Walker now gardens, cooks, explores vineyards, writes, travels, and has never been more busy. He divides his time between Washington, D.C., and the Dordogne. You can find more about Walker at his website, http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com/about-the-author.html

Questions and Answers with Martin Walker

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Questions for Martin Walker

Author of the Bruno novel, To Kill a Troubadour, kindly took time out of his busy day to answer some questions around the publication of his latest novel and to speak about his writing life. You can find a review of the book, here:

PAJNewman: To Kill a Troubadour is book 15 in the Bruno series. How do you feel that this novel stacks up against your previous work? Are you pleased with it?

Martin Walker: Yes, I’m very pleased with the way I was able to bring in my growing fascination with the degree to which medieval Europe was civilised and educated by the Moors of Spain and also by the Saracens of the Holy Land. Our musical instruments and much of our lyrical tradition comes from them, transmitted through the court of the Dukes of Aquitaine. The more I learn about Eleanor of Aquitaine, the more I think of her as the most extraordinary person – not just woman – of her day. Courtly love, the Arthurian saga, regent of England, the only queen who went to the Holy Land on Crusade, and the only woman to have been married to a King of France and King of England – and the mother of Richard Lionheart. When the troops became dispirited on the way to Jerusalem, she rode barebreated – ‘to dazzle them,’ as she put it. What a woman!

Especially in the early parts of the novel, there are some observations regarding the issues role of the Russians in Eastern Europe which look positively prophetic at this range. How important is for you to root Bruno in real world events?

Very important, because it allows me to write something with which we can all identify. I have used the IRA, Basque and, Islamic terrorists, Russian agents, American FBI agents, East Germans and assorted bad guys because they are part of the mental and political furniture of our age. Moreover, I know Russia well, having been the Guardian correspondent in Moscow for over 4 years in the Gorbachev period and I have returned often. So I was not at all surprised, after Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, his grab of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, that he was aching to swallow the lot. He even wrote an essay on the great Russian space which signalled his intentions.

How long did To Kill a Troubadour take from beginning to end to write?

About nine months, half for research, half for writing.

You, obviously, had an illustrious career before you turned to becoming a novelist. Do you find the influences of your previous work seeping into the book?

Indeed, it would be odd if they did not, since you tend to write what you know. And it does not all stem from my years in journalism, but also from what I learned in my years in think-tanks, working on globalisation, AI, technology, demographics and so on.

Who are your biggest influences as a writer?

I revere Conan Doyle since Sherlock Holmes got me interested in detective fiction and his historical novels (Sir Nigel, The White Company) made me fascinated by the Hundred Years War. And I always like to read popular historians like Trevelyan, Michelet, Carlyle and so on. The biggest influence was probably a woman called Jean Stead, my news editor at the Guardian, who made me cut the flourishes and rambles.

What is the question you wish interviewers and readers would ask but never do?

Don’t you get bored writing Bruno?

The answer is never, because I can write other stuff in between: a wine column I write each month; travel pieces about the Perigord, a new book that comes out in Germany this year on the history and culture of the region called ‘Bruno’s Perigord.’ And I’m thinking of updating my 1993 non-fiction book, ‘The Cold War – a History.’

The novel obviously appears to exist pre-Covid. I know a lot of writers are grappling with this dilemma but will Covid play a part in your future work, do you think?

No, I think after the deaths and woes and sadness of the last two years, we are going to get used to it, as we did to TB and smallpox and AIDS. And being locked down in the Perigord with my chickens and garden and dog was hardly insufferable, and in my village we were relatively lightly affected.

What is a typical writing day for you? Has it changed as you have produced a novel a year?

Not much. In my days in journalism I regularly wrote between a thousand and two thousand words a day, and I learned to write anywhere; on trains, in aircraft, in famines, even in trenches and under fire. There was an old Fleet St motto – ‘Don’t get it right, get it written,’ and the Americans made it sound better by calling journalism ‘the first rough draft of history.’ Whichever one is nearer the truth, all of us hacks learned to write fast and often.

I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but do you ever think about Bruno being adapted for the screen? Is this something you would be interested in?

Yes, film rights have been sold but there are endless discussions over whether to film Bruno in English, French or German. I’m just a bystander in this process.

Am I correct in thinking that this year will finally see the English-language publication of Bruno’s Cookbook? How have you gone about sourcing the recipes for this?

Yes, Bruno’s Cookbook comes out next autumn in the US and UK, which is great because it has now been awarded by Gourmet International the title Best French Cookbook of the Last Twenty Years.’ The recipes come from neighbours, from some local restaurants, from hunting clubs in the Perigord, and from my wife (a food writer for the Sunday Times, Washington Post etc). I cook every single recipe that we use in the cookbook and in the Bruno novels, but with my wife watching at my side.

I know Donna Leon is not keen to have her novels translated into Italian as she is worried about what her Venetian neighbours will say. What sort of a readership do you have with the readers in the Perigourd and do you find people trying to spot themselves in the novels?

I was a little nervous when the books came out in French, but my friends and neighbours all seem delighted, and many claim to have been the model for various characters – even when they are not. I think what they love most is the remarkable impact the Bruno novels have had on tourism, which is why the French Foreign Ministry gave me a gold medal, and why the regional council named me ‘Ambassador of Perigord,. The winemakers made me a Grand Consul de la Vinee de Bergerac. Guess which one makes me most proud.

Will Bruno ever find happiness, or at least the wife and family he longs for?

I really don’t know. I keep putting interesting and attractive women in his way but Bruno seems to have a mind of his own. It’s wonderful in a way, as an author to have created a character who seems so real and independent to me, but I keep hoping that I’ll be able some day to write a chapter about his marital bliss. What a woman she would have to be!

Best Forelock Forward

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‘The Chase’ by Evie Hunter

When stable girl, Farah Ash, is sacked from her job, her only concern is the beloved horses she cares for. Farah suspects foul play and is determined to expose the secrets and lies she’s uncovered – no matter what.

Self-made millionaire, Isaac Fernandez witnesses Farah’s shocking dismissal and senses immediately that she has uncovered something dangerous – perhaps even deadly. And his fears are confirmed when Farah is almost killed.

And as more threats come Farah’s was, it’s clear someone is out to silence her for good. Unless Farah and Isaac can uncover the truth and put a stop to the deadly chase – before it’s too late.

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3LoN4ia

Whenever you come across a thriller set in the world of horses, you just automatically go to Dick Francis – or at least I do. Once one of the biggest names in the publishing world, latterly Francis’ work appears consigned to the history books even while the adaptations appear on obscure platforms like BBC Radio 4 Extra.

So, I was charmed to read this novel written by Evie Hunter, a non de plume of Wendy Soliman, a hugely experienced regency romance writer. So, was this going to be Dick Francis meets Bridgerton?

Thankfully for this reader, no.

This is a hard edged, gritty thriller in the best traditions of Boldwood Books, an imprint offering a platform for, often, women writers to unpack and expand the criminal underworld.

Hunter is talented writer and the reader is in no doubt that an experienced writer is at the helm. Tightly plotted, an enjoyable thriller packed with real world scenarios.

Author Bio –

Evie Hunter has written a great many successful regency romances as Wendy Soliman and is now redirecting her talents to produce dark gritty thrillers for Boldwood. For the past twenty years she has lived the life of a nomad, roaming the world on interesting forms of transport, but has now settled back in the UK.

Social Media Links –  

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wendy.soliman.author

Twitter https://twitter.com/Wendyswriter

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/EvieHunter

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/evie-hunter

Stoking the Fires

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‘Fallout’ by Edie Baylis

Secrets. Lies. Revenge.

With the odds stacked against her, Samantha Reynold is determined to prove she’s tough enough to be the boss. But when a secret from the past threatens to ruin Sam’s reputation, she suddenly feels very alone in this dark new world. There’s only one man she can turn to – rival club owner, Sebastian Stoker.

Seb knows first-hand how secrets and lies can tear a family apart. He wants to protect Sam at all costs, but siding with her could threaten his own position as head of the Stoker family and risk accusations of betrayal.

With loyalties divided and two families at war – the fallout could be deadly.

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3pYMsrB

I have made the point, several times now, that Boldwood Books are a company doing interesting work. They certainly seem to have a found a formula which works for them. Crime, often written by talented women such as Heather Atkinson, https://pajnewman.com/2022/05/08/they-aint-heavies-theyre-brothers/ Gillian Godden https://pajnewman.com/2022/02/02/whats-harder-than-nails/ and Caro Savage https://pajnewman.com/2021/03/01/jumping-for-jailbirds/ and often involving crime families and the internecine rivalries of the underworld.

Here, Edie Baylis presents the second in her Allegiance series, Fallout, which opens in 1995.

This is an interesting milleau – a world of stolen Spar sandwiches, Safeways’ own brand cider and bad dentistry. Basically, the Major-era Tories as a cost of living crisis bit the working poor.

So, no echoes of the present day at all then.

This is the type of fiction which Boldwood does so well. Interesting characters, hard-edged settings, sweary characters capturing the patois of the street.

If you want a read which flows and offers menacing characters embroiled in swirling tugs of loyalty and explosive conclusions, readers should fall in to Fallout.

Author Bio –

Edie Baylis is a successful self-published author of dark gritty thrillers with violent background settings. She lives in Worcestershire, has a history of owning daft cars and several motorbikes and is licensed to run a pub. She has signed a five-book deal with Boldwood.

Social Media Links –  

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/downfallseries

Twitter https://twitter.com/ediebaylis

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ediebaylis/

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/EdieBaylisnewsletter

They Ain’t Heavies – They’re Brothers

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‘Blood Pact’ by Heather Atkinson

To survive, they’ll need to stick together…

After the defeat of the rival Gordon and Thompson families, the Blood Brothers’ reputations as feared lieutenants of the McVay clan are firmly established. The Gallowburn has become an untouchable stronghold in their capable hands.

However, danger rears its head in another form – Jamie’s deadliest foe, Cameron Abernethy. Still fighting to be released from prison, Cameron decides to use the Lawson family, the Blood Brothers’ biggest rivals, to discover his daughter’s whereabouts.

With his enemies getting closer, and the police on his tail too, Jamie has some impossible choices to make. This is his last chance to live the life he’s dreamed of with the woman he loves, but first he’s got to make sure he’s not caught or killed…

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3KhTlf2

The opening instalment of Heather Atkinson’s Gallowburn series of crime novels, ‘Blood Brothers’, came out in December 2020. When I reviewed it, I noted that her publisher – Boldwood Books – were an interesting independent publisher making some interesting moves and that Atkinson was definitely one to watch.

I think by now, she must be a jewel in the crown.

Atkinson writes fast: usually people see this as a negative but in her case this is the fourth instalment in the series in just two years. Producing novels at a rate of one every six months is some going.

And clearly, you would expect a diminution in quality – but Atkinson is not declining. The dialogue is still punchy, the punches are still punchy as well and she lays the pipe of plot with aplomb.

Characters from previous novels, events which took place in seemingly insignificant moments in earlier books, are all threaded through the story.

It is, in the best sense of the word, like a soap opera. By now, we know the Blood Brothers, we know their families – we also know their enemies and the danger they are in as the Gallowburn estate remains as treacherous as ever to navigate.

For authentic Glasgow gangsters, crunching action and a sense of stepping back into a comfortable set of characters it’s a pleasure to revisit, readers will be very satisfied.

You can read a review of the third novel in the series here:

Author Bio –

Heather Atkinson is the author of over fifty books – predominantly in the crime fiction genre. Although Lancashire born and bred she now lives with her family, including twin teenage daughters, on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. Her new gangland series for Boldwood, set on the fictional Gallowburn estate in Glasgow begins with the title Blood Brothers and was published in December 2020.

Social Media Links

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/booksofheatheratkinson/

Twitter https://twitter.com/HeatherAtkinso1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heathercrimeauthor/

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/HeatherAtkinsonNews

Sweet Poisons and Perfumes

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‘Poison at the Village Show’ by Catherine Coles

With the war finally over the residents of Westleham village are trying to reclaim a sense of normality and the upcoming village show is proving to be a popular event!

Newcomer, Martha Miller, has high hopes for the village show. Since her husband Stan left for work one day and never returned, some of the villagers have treated Martha with suspicion – why would a good man like Stan simply up and leave? Was it something Martha did?

All Martha knows is that she’s hoping that she can win people over and hopefully they’ll but her delicious homemade plum gin, too and she’ll be able to make ends meet.

But as glasses of Martha’s gin are passed around, disaster strikes. Alice Warren, Chairwoman of the village show slumps to the ground after taking a sip. It’s clear she’s been poisoned!

Martha is shocked, but not surprised, when fingers of suspicion once again point her way. Determined to prove her innocence, Martha sets about trying to find the real culprit. But who would kill Alice and why?

Ably helped by the new vicar, Luke Walker, Martha quickly tries to get to the bottom of this mystery. But with the villagers closing ranks it quickly becomes apparent that the only person with a motive is Martha herself….

Will Luke and Martha discover who is behind the poisoning before it’s too late?

What is it about the English country village which breeds such malice, mistrust and murder in the novel?

Well, Miss Marple is always banging on about the village being a microcosm of wider society, its foibles, human failings and all too universal facets of greed, lust and the green-eyed monster which mocks the milk it feeds upon.

In ‘Poison at the Village Show’. Catherine Coles introduces a cast of characters beset by all of the usual accoutrements of country life, only here with the added delight of collapsing village worthies at – as the title suggests – the annual village show.

Any novel which combines country mysteries, dogs and petty village intrigues is worth investigating in my mind.

Grantchester with a quietly feminist ethos was the phrase which kept leaping to mind as poor Martha fights to clear her name, attempt to find out what happened to the long gone Stan and maintain a sensible conversation with her loving companion hound, Lizzie.

If you too have experienced the stilted small talk of the annual village fete, then ‘Poison at the Village Show’ will entertain and trigger memories of Victoria sponges gently warming in the sun of the vicarage garden like a Proustian memory.

Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3freNRj 

Author Bio –

On the #MondayBlog today, a review of @CatherineColes 'Murder at the Village Show'. Thanks as ever to @rararesources and

The daughter of a military father, Catherine was born in Germany and lived most of the first 14 years of her life abroad. She spent her school years devouring everything her school library had to offer! Catherine writes cosy mysteries that take place in the English countryside. Her extremely popular Tommy & Evelyn Christie mysteries are set in 1920s North Yorkshire. Catherine lives in northeast England with her two spoiled dogs who have no idea they are not human!

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CatherineColesAuthor

Twitter  https://twitter.com/catherinecoles

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/catherinecolesauthor/ 

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/CatherineColesNews

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/catherine-coles?list=about

Boldwood’s IG account – https://www.instagram.com/bookandtonic/

Bookshops, Bodies and Corpses in the Cotswalds

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‘Murder At The Summer Fete’ by Victoria Walters

A fete worse than death…

After finding the killer of Lucy Roth six months ago, life has settled back to normal for bookshop owner, Nancy Hunter, and her grandmother, Jane. The annual Dedley End village fete is just around the corner, and Nancy is delighted when bestselling author, Thomas Green, agrees to launch his first new novel in ten years there.

But then a series of sinister events lead Nancy to realise someone is trying to sabotage their fete, so she, along with Jane and their journalist friend Jonathan, must turn detective to discover who isn’t at all thrilled about the return of Thomas Green.

When a body is discovered at the summer fete, the death scene mirroring that in Thomas’ latest bestseller, they realise that there’s another killer in Dedley End, but can they outsmart someone who appears to have pulled off the perfect crime?

The clues are right under Nancy and Jane’s noses, if only they can find them. Because the answers to life’s questions can always be found in a book…!

A twisty, unputdownable cozy mystery that fans of Richard Osman, S.J. Bennett and ‘The Marlow Murder Club’ will love.

In September last year, I reviewed the opening instalment of The Dedley End Mysteries, ‘Murder at the House on the Hill’ and titled it “If Downton did Homicide” which, I thought, captured the gentle and charming tone of the novel.

I also said I was very much looking forward to book two and that – although I did include my ideal daydream about wanting a bookshop all of my own – didn’t include my belief that Walters may have stolen my thoughts from out of my brain: because that might have come across as odd.

The best news of all is that the gang’s all here: Nancy Hunter, nan Jane, local journalist Jonathan Murphy and – most importantly – Charlie the beagle.

In the motley crew’s latest adventure, Dedley End’s Summer Fete is playing host to a reading by Thomas Green, the most successful author working today due to the TV adaptation of his work and, as the novel opens, a body lies on the green, blood seeping, in a scene replicated straight from the writer’s latest work.

Walters has changed the structure of her writing up a little in this latest outing for her Cotswald crime fighters – we go back in time four days after this effective opening tableau adding a who’s-been-done-in aspect to the subsequent whodunit, which is fun. (Also, it’s not unentertaining to speculate as to which author Green might be based upon, although Walters’ is far too generous a writer for this to be a thing.)

However, Walters’ real strength for me lies in her ability to render the characters, setting and plot as a nice place for the reader to be. In these crazy times, Dedley End is a warm bath for the brain where evil will be rooted out and all will be right with the world in the end.

Roll on book three!

Purchase Links

AMZ: https://amzn.to/3HE7928  

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3JLSUtX

Apple: https://apple.co/3zDUyte

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, on Twitter at @Vicky_Walters or by visiting her blog at: https://victoria-writes.com/.

To Lose One Husband May Be Accident…

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‘The Mystery of the Lost Husbands’ by Gina Cheyne

Is murdering husbands an addiction or merely a bad habit?

This is the question facing Private Investigator Cat Harrington when rich builder, Tom Drayton, dies shortly after his wedding night. Suspicion falls on his widow, Anastasia Rodriguez, the survivor of three previous ‘lost’ husbands.

Two years later, Anastasia is engaged again, to Cat’s friend Angelo, an Italian snail collector.

Angelo’s sister, Gia, employs Cat and the SeeMs Detective Agency to discover if her brother’s financé is a killer.

The search for Anastasia’s lost husbands takes Cat and her team from Scotland to the South of Spain and on to Argentina.

They have just a few weeks before the wedding to discover if Anastasia is a murderer and save their friend from becoming victim number five.

For fans of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ and ‘The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency’

I once worked as a cleaner in a stone mason’s yard. It was odd work. Big men – and they were all men – lifted heavy rock and the sanded and sculpted it into fireplaces and kitchen counters any other form of home good which can be made of expensive rock.

In the mean time, I – at the time at student – would be a dog’s body, lugging rocks, emptying bins and trying to sweep up. All I really remember was all of us looking like apprentice Casper the friendly ghost impersonators as the limestone dust got everywhere. Smoking a roll up was nightmare.

The reason this book reminds me of that unusual summer? Firstly, because this novel has the same sort of madcap energy off-kilter joie de vivre which I associate with that time, but secondly – and more pertinently if I’m honest – the firm had been won in a divorce by the wife of the original owner and her new partner.

When the novel begins with a painter and decorator letting Cat know about Anastasia’s supposed murder of their boss, I did just wonder if maybe there was more to the stone mason divorce win than met the eye.

For the rest of you without such idiosyncratic associations, this novel does indeed combine elements of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ and ‘The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency’ but also does a charmingly campy drive by on Footballer’s Wives or Dynasty. There’s glamour, exotic locations and some truly boo hiss characters it’s fun to spend time with.

Plus, you know, a dog finding detective agency – perhaps there should be a cross over with KT Lee’s ‘A Nose for Mischief’.

Purchase Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mystery-Husbands-SeeMS-Detective-Agency/dp/1915138019/

US – https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Husbands-SeeMS-Detective-Agency/dp/1915138019/

Author Bio –

Gina has worked as a physiotherapist, a pilot, freelance writer and a dog breeder.

As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent the year after university bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia, where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth. After getting stuck in black sand in the Ute one time too many (and getting a tractor and trailer caught in a tree) she was relegated to horse-riding work only. After her horse bolted down the sand, straining a fetlock and falling in the sea, she was further relegated to swimming the horses only in the pool. It was with some relief the racehorse stables posted her off on the train into eastern Australia to work in a vineyard… after all what could go wrong there?

In the north of Thailand, she took a boat into the Golden Triangle and got shot at by bandits. Her group escaped into the undergrowth and hid in a hill tribe whisky still where they shared the ‘bathroom’ with a group of pigs. Getting a lift on a motorbike they hurried back to Chiang Rai, where life seemed calmer.

After nearly being downed in a fiesta in Ko Pha Ngan, and cursed by a witch in Malaysia, she decided to go to Singapore and then to China where she only had to battle with the language and regulations.

Since marrying the first time, she has lived and worked in many countries including Spain and the USA.

For a few years Gina was a Wingwalking pilot, flying, amongst others, her 64-year-old mother standing on the wing to raise money for a cancer charity. She was also a helicopter instructor and examiner and took part in the World Helicopter Championships in Russia and the USA.

She became a writer because her first love was always telling a good yarn!

Under the name Georgina Hunter-Jones she has written illustrated children’s books such as The Twerple who had Too Many Brains, and Nola the Rhinoceros loves Mathematics.

She now lives in Sussex with her husband and dogs, one of who inspired the Biscuit and Pugwash Detective Series about naughty dogs who solve crimes.

The Mystery of the Lost Husbands is the first in the SeeMS Detective Agency series and Gina’s first crime novel for adults.

Social Media Links – 

Website: www.ginacheyne.com

Canines and Crime

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‘A Nose for Mischief’ by KT Lee

When materials engineer Zoey Butler lands her dream job at Future State Energy, she believes her research in renewable energy will make headlines. Unfortunately for her, she’s right. Zoey is working on her latest experiment when FBI Special Agent Alexis Thompson and her K-9 partner, Waffle, raid Future State and arrest the head of the development for fraud. Zoey helps the FBI find answers in the aftermath, but she soon finds herself jobless and unemployable. Desperate and out of options, she reaches out to Alexis, the one person who knows Zoey was duped like everyone else.

Liam Graham is an FBI special agent and instructor at Riverbend K-9 Academy. When Alexis brings in a new recruit with an unusual background, Liam pairs her up with Tasha, a dog in need of a handler to stay in their competitive program. Zoey is thrilled to put her past behind her and give the mischievous rescue dog her own second chance. However, shortly after she arrives, the FBI realizes the Future State case is far from closed. And Zoey may be the key to solving it.

Zoey offers to go back to Future State to help the FBI end things once and for all. Only this time, she’ll have Liam and Tasha for backup. But, the problems at Future State are more explosive than any of them suspect.

This is one of those novels which just come along and you think, “That’ll do for me!” FBI and dogs? I need no more invitation than that.

What was very interesting is the link (unintentional? Intentional?) between this novel and VW Emissions scandal from 2016. So, this novel becomes a cross between Turner and Hooch meets the VW Emissions swindle filtered through Elon Musk. Which, if we’re being honest, kinda sounds plausible.

Personally, I enjoyed ‘A Nose for Trouble’ very much. In Zoey, KT Lee has created a very interesting central character: an innocent abroad unfairly tarnished with the events at an unscrupulous company out of her control. Slightly high on the control freak scale (“You mean I’m an excellent planner,” she tells her sister at one point), Zoey is also charming and very well equipped to analyse data for her new employers utilising her science background.

KT Lee is clearly in love with her core characters and wants to invite you in to spend time with her motley crew of FBI agents and charming hounds. It is a little like that 90s classic Northern Exposure in its gentle charm.

My own fearsome crime fighting canine poised for action

If I have a criticism at all, it is that perhaps Lee uses Zoey’s “disgrace” as a motivation to drive the plot along past the point at which anyone would really care and it takes Zoey too long to realise the power of her own abilities. On the other hand, haven’t we all worked with people who persist in not recognising how amazing they really are while over confident charlatans push past them on wings buoyed by hot air and unwarranted confidence? So maybe – unfortunately – not unrealistic.

Ann Richardson does a fine job as narrator and, most importantly, Lee gets the dogs right. I am delighted to know there are more books in the Riverbend series.  I can’t wait to revisit our crime fighting canines and their kindly trainers.

Purchase Links

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Nose-for-Mischief-Audiobook/B09RTKC6RK

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/a-nose-for-mischief-1

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/a-nose-for-mischief/id1605764153

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/K_T_Lee_A_Nose_for_Mischief?id=AQAAAEB8uQT5aM

Author Bio –

K.T. Lee is a writer, mom, and engineer who grew up on a steady diet of books from a wide variety of genres. She’s the author of multiple books, including those in the Riverbend K-9 Series and The Calculated Series.

Social Media Links –

https://www.instagram.com/ktleeauthor/

https://www.facebook.com/ktleewrites

Narrator Bio

Ann Richardson has been happily sequestered away narrating in her home studio since 2008. She narrates for large audiobook publishers such as Blackstone, Penguin Random House, MacMillan, Oasis, Tantor, and many others, in addition to smaller, independent publishers and directly with authors. Her performances have garnered several Earphones awards and glowing reviews in AudioFile Magazine. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but spent her youth in the Midwest, where she grew up surrounded by animals and cornfields. “I’m so lucky to have discovered what I was truly called to do with my talents and energy. I fall in love with nearly every book I narrate, and am also incredibly grateful to work with such talented authors and publishers in this cohesive, supportive industry.”

Social Media Links –

@hersmoothvoice

https://www.instagram.com/ann_richardson_narrator/

https://www.facebook.com/Annrichardsonnarrator/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annrichardsonnarrator/

Giveaway to Win 10 x Audio Copies of A Nose For Mischief via Author’s Direct. (Open INT)

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box linked above.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

Foraging for Murder, Finding Only Comedy Gold

/ PAJNewman / 1 Comment

‘Foraging for Murder’ by Simon Whaley

MORTIFORDE’S FOOD FESTIVAL IS A RECIPE FOR MURDER.

Three butchers. Two deaths. One four-hundred-year-old grudge.

It’s Aldermaston’s first food festival as the Eighth Marquess of Mortiforde and it’s not going well. One butcher is missing. Another has been threatened. And the Vegetarian Society has been sent a meaty ultimatum. 

Meanwhile, Lady Mortiforde desperately needs her husband to find some wild boar meat for her savoury pie entry into the festival’s Bake Off competition.

When the Council’s Chief Archivist disappears, along with the Food History Marquee’s star attraction, a seventeenth-century recipe book, Aldermaston has all the ingredients of a murder mystery that’s been marinating for over four hundred years.

Can he find the missing butchers before it’s too late? Will Lady Mortiforde avoid a soggy bottom in the Bake Off competition? And why do all the butchers take their pet pigs for a walk in the woods at night?

The first of Simon Whaley’s Marquess of Mortiforde Mysteries novels, ‘Blooming Murder’ was one of those novels which crept up on you unawares. I was completely bowled over by it and, in my review, describe it as, “essentially, what would happen if Gardener’s World had an illicit love child by Midsomer Murders via the work of Tom Sharpe. And it’s all the better for it.”

Whilst ‘Foraging for Murder’ can’t really harness the same take-you-unawares quality of the original, the sequel – set two years into Aldermaston’s reign as the Marquess – retains the same down to earth humour and, well, bonkers cast of loveable characters. 

This time, the butchers are being set against the vegetarians as the Borderlandshire Burger Competition looms. We are in safe hands with Whaley a man unafraid of capturing the class-based absurdities of British life.

Purchase Links 

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Foraging-Murder-Marquess-Mortiforde-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B09LZ8SC6F/

US – https://www.amazon.com/Foraging-Murder-Marquess-Mortiforde-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B09LZ8SC6F/

Author Bio

Simon Whaley is an author, writer and photographer who lives in the hilly bit of Shropshire. Foraging for Murder is the second in his Marquess of Mortiforde Mysteries, set in the idyllic Welsh Borders – a place many people struggle to locate on a map (including by some of those who live here). He’s written several non-fiction books, many if which contain his humorous take on the world, including the bestselling ‘One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human’ and two editions in the hugely popular Bluffer’s Guide series (‘The Bluffer’s Guide to Dogs’ and ‘The Bluffer’s Guide to Hiking’). His short stories have appeared in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special’, ‘The Weekly News’ and ‘The People’s Friend’. Meanwhile his magazine articles have delighted readers in a variety of publications including ‘BBC Countryfile’, ‘The People’s Friend’, ‘Coast’, ‘The Simple Things’ and ‘Country Walking’.

Simon lives in Shropshire (which just happens to be a Welsh Border county) and, when he gets stuck with his writing, he tramps the Shropshire hills looking for inspiration and something to photograph. Some of his photographs appear on the national and regional BBC weather broadcasts under his BBC WeatherWatcher nickname of Snapper Simon. (For those of you who don’t know, they get a lot of weather in Shropshire.)

Social Media Links – 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonwhaley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimonWhaleyAuthor