Following a tip-off from notorious spy Fredrick Fredricks, Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane of British Intelligence find themselves in the hustle and bustle of Egypt. But ancient mummies aren’t the only bodies buried in the tombs of Cairo.
When a young French archeologist is found dead in a tomb in the desert with his head bashed in, and an undercover British agent goes missing, the threat moves closer to home.
As they dig deeper, soon Fiona and Kitty uncover a treasure trove of suspects, including competing excavators, jealous husbands, secret lovers, and belligerent spies! Fiona wonders if the notorious Fredrick Fredricks could be behind the murders? Or is the plot even more sinister?
One thing is clear – If Fiona and Kitty can’t catch the killer, they might end up sharing a sarcophagus with Nefertiti.
With humor as dry as the Arabian desert, and pacing as fast as a spitting camel, Fiona and Kitty are back in another sparkling adventure, this time in WW1 Egypt.
Covert in Cairo is an enjoyable trip to Cairo in December 1917. Fiona Figg is on a mission to prevent the Suez Canal from being attacked, as she finds a Cairo overrun with British troops, very much a Britain away from home, complete with good tea and marmalade.
As in the previous book, Fiona Figg longs to make a name for herself and finally win free from the confines of being a file clerk at the War Office, but not everything goes her way. Kitty Lane is on hand to add her skills to the investigation, and Clifford, their chaperone, but really, a man with an eye for the ladies and very much embodying all that was wrong in the thinking of an early twentieth-century man, including thinking women were fragile, can add his skills as well, most notably being able to talk to anyone.
What ensues is a tale of murder, antiquities, camels and donkeys, night-time shenanigans, and an all-round good mystery.
An enjoyable jaunt to the Cairo of the past, including several well-known historical personalities, and ensuring that Fiona must continue her pursuit of an errant spy and, as such, win-free from returning to dreary London for the time being.
Check out my review for book 1 in the Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane Mystery books Chaos at Carnegie Hall
Meet the Author
Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She is bringing new titles in the Fiona Figg series to Boldwood, the first of which, Chaos in Carnegie Hall, will be published in November 2022.
A quirky and funny series for fans of a good mystery and compelling characters. Can you solve the crime before our dressmaking duo?
After losing her job at an exclusive London hotel, Penny Slipper is only too happy to help when her grandma asks her to take charge at the Cozy Craft sewing shop in charming rural Suffolk.
With cousin Izzy on hand as the expert dressmaker and Penny’s head for business, what can possibly go wrong?
But Penny’s in town for less than a day when the local librarian is poisoned and Penny fears she might even be accidentally responsible. Penny and Izzy are forced to turn detectives to uncover the true cause of death, while finishing a costume commission for their first customer.
Matters take a further deadly turn when a second body is discovered.
Can Penny and Izzy unpick the mysteries of the past and sew the pieces of this puzzle together before it’s too late?
If you enjoy fast-paced mysteries, charming country towns and characters who you want to spend hours with then you’re going to love the Cozy Craft Mystery series.
The Wonderland Murders is a delightful and very well-plotted contemporary cozy mystery set in Framingham, the UK.
Penny and Izzy are cousins thrown together by the illness of their mutual grandmother, who normally runs a crafting shop. Izzy is somewhat scatty and filled with new ideas. Penny is more down to earth and determined to make a profit from the shop. But no sooner has Penny arrived than a murder takes place in the local library. While they’re not obsessive about who is responsible, they do begin to consider who might have been to blame as they work on an Alice in Wonderland costume for the upcoming World books day for one of the librarians.
What ensues is so well-plotted and delightful that I genuinely didn’t guess the ending. These stories have a lovely lightness of touch, genuine warmth and humour throughout, and Izzy and Penny really complement each other as main characters.
I loved this first book so much that I’m busy devouring the rest of the series, and the series is consistently as enjoyable and delightful. I’m so glad I took a chance on The Wonderland Murders, and if you love a cozy crime, you won’t be disappointed, either.
Giveaway Prize – The Wonderland Murders, a cross stitch book, a floral notepad, a note writing set and a grass bunny.
Millie Ravensworth writes the Cozy Craft Mystery series of books. Her love of murder mysteries and passion for dressmaking made her want to write books full of quirky characters and unbelievable murders. Millie lives in central England where children and pets are something of a distraction from the serious business of writing, although dog walking is always a good time to plot the next book.
A brand-new cozy crime series set in gorgeous Tuscany…It’s murder in paradise!
A glamorous film star…
Life as a private investigator in the suburbs of Florence isn’t always as glamorous as Dan Armstrong imagined it to be, until he is asked to investigate a recent spate of violent attacks on a Hollywood movie set in Florence. The star of the show, movie-star royalty Selena Gardner, fears her life is in imminent danger…
Foul play on set…
As Dan investigates, he discovers secrets and scandals are rife within the cast and crew. But with no actual murder, Dan believes these attacks could simply be warnings to someone…until the first body is found.
A dangerous killer on the loose.
Now Dan and his trusty sidekick Oscar are in a race against time to catch the murderer. But the more Dan uncovers, the more the killer strikes and Dan finds himself caught in the line of fire too! Is this one case Dan and Oscar will regret?
Murder in Florence is the third book in the Armstrong and Oscar series of cosy crime set in Italy, and book 3 is just as enthralling as the first two books in the series.
This time, Dan somehow finds himself forced to wear tights to blend into the film set he works on, where crossbows have been shot at those on set. It is all very perplexing. I loved the use of the movie to enrich the story with historical details of Florence. Always a history buff, it was great to see it put to good use while keeping me entertained.
As with the first two books in the series, there is a twisty plot where Dan gets to venture to many local beauty spots before getting even the sniff at a breakthrough on the case, and of course, none of it would happen without the aid of the always hungry, and always a bit ‘farty’ Oscar the labrador pooch.
A thoroughly entertaining tale.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my review copy.
T A Williams is the author of over twenty bestselling romances for HQ and Canelo and is now turning his hand to cosy crime, set in his beloved Italy, for Boldwood. The series will introduce us to retired DCI Armstrong and his labrador Oscar and the first book, entitled Murder in Tuscany, will be published in October 2022. Trevor lives in Devon with his Italian wife.
A murder shocks the small town of Walden. And it’s only the beginning…
Walden, 1921. Local reporter Iris Woodmore is determined to save her beloved lake, Waldenmere, from destruction.
After a bloody and expensive war, the British Army can’t afford to keep the lake and build a convalescent home on its shores yet they still battle with Walden Council and a railway company for ownership. But an old mansion used as an officer training academy stands where the railway company plans to build a lakeside hotel. It belongs to General Cheverton – and he won’t leave his home.
When the General is found murdered, it appears someone will stop at nothing to win the fight for Waldenmere. Iris thinks she can take on the might of the railway company and find the killer. But nothing prepares her for the devastation that’s to come…
Murder at Waldenmere Lake is book two in the Iris Woodmore Mystery series set in the very early 1920s onwards. Check out my review for Death at Crookham Hall here.
Book 2, Murder at Waldenmere Lake, begins not soon after the events of the first book, and it’s good to see some familiar characters return to Walden. As with book 1, the mystery is firmly rooted in the concerns of the period, recovering from the events of World War 1 while contending with changes in society. I really love how well-researched the two novels are. I love a cosy mystery, but I adore it even more when the author goes that one step further and adds so much more authentic settings to the novel.
As with book 1, there’s a murder fairly early on in the novel, which seems impossible to solve, and events more quite sedately until there is another murder and events really begin to move at pace. And yet, even with the devastation Iris feels at the murder, she can’t seem to work out who was responsible, and indeed, some personal betrayal strikes her low as well.
The mystery, when it is eventually solved, is delightfully nuanced. Looking back, there might have been some hints I should have read more into, but I didn’t, and so, as with book 1, the big reveal is a surprise but a really well-constructed one. I adored this book. Iris is a great character, as is Percy and the people she interacts with.
A fabulously well-researched historical cosy mystery, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series.
Meet the author
Michelle Salter is a historical crime fiction writer based in northeast Hampshire. Many local locations appear in her mystery novels. She’s also a copywriter and has written features for national magazines. When she’s not writing, Michelle can be found knee-deep in mud at her local nature reserve. She enjoys working with a team of volunteers undertaking conservation activities.
For Sophie it’s a trip home and for Hector it’s time to meet Sophie’s parents… Though their trip has village tongues wagging about a stop at Scotland’s notorious elopement spot, Gretna Green.
No matter what, it’ll make a nice break from the murder and mayhem that has been plaguing their beautiful Cotswolds village. But Sophie and Hector are barely on the road before they’re being hassled by reckless drivers and at their first rest stop a body is discovered.
Then comes a series of ‘accidents’ that leave poor Hector a little worse for wear. Is someone after Hector? Who could even know he was in the Highlands?
Accidents or not, can they find some way to keep Hector safe?
Murder in the Highlands is the latest book in the Sophie Sayers cosy crime series, usually set in a small Cotswold village, but not on this occasion. Sophie and Hector (who isn’t Scottish) are off to Inverness for a well-deserved holiday with her mother and father.
But as ever, dark going-ons and strange occurrences follow them on the long journey north, and Sophie is left feeling that there’s a mystery to solve, but unsure what it can be about, and even worse, that it somehow involves Hector.
I really enjoy this series of books – Sophie is a fun character, if troubled with an overactive imagination – as a writer, and her character is a writer, I’m right there with her. Hector is usually the more grounded of the two, but this time, even he’s starting to worry about what’s happening.
While there is no sighting of the Loch Ness monster, this is a fun mystery firmly rooted in Inverness, which the author has visited extensively, and the mystery is one of the stronger ones in the series that plays out, perhaps, in a more conventional way to earlier books in the series.
A great addition to the cosy crime series, which is going from strength to strength.
Meet the Author
Debbie Young is the much-loved author of the Sophie Sayers and St Brides cosy crime mysteries. She lives in a Cotswold village where she runs the local literary festival, and has worked at Westonbirt School, both of which provide inspiration for her writing. She is bringing both her series to Boldwood in a 13-book contract. They will be publishing several new titles in each series and republishing the backlist, starting in September 2022.
BREAKING NEWS Mystery Woman was in the Earl of Rossex’s car when it crashed
Reports are coming in that an unidentified woman was in the car that killed James Wilshire (24), the Earl of Rossex, when it crashed in Fenshire late on Tuesday evening and died from her injuries later in hospital. The police have not named the woman, but sources at Francis Court, where the earl lived with his wife Lady Beatrice (21) claim the dead woman was the wife of a member of staff.
The impertinence of the man! Who does this Detective Sergeant Richard Fitzwilliam think he is asking personal questions about the state of her marriage and insinuating that James was having an affair with the estate manager’s wife? Of course he wasn’t! She knew her husband and he wouldn’t do that to her. But what was James doing back in Fenshire on that fateful night when he’d told her he would be London? And why was Gill Sterling in the car with him when they barely knew each other? Unless, of course, she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought she did…
PLEASE NOTE: This is a prequel in the A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series and is not intended to be read as a standalone.
A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series is fast becoming one of my favourites, and An Early Death is a fabulous prequel novel, answering so many questions and leaving much more unanswered for those readers enjoying the series, which begins about a decade after the events of An Early Death.
I really, really can’t wait for the next book, A Dead Herring, which I hope might finally contain all the answers fans of the series are after.
The author makes it very clear the prequel shouldn’t be read until after reading the first three books in the series, and I echo this. Don’t spoil it for yourself:) Check out my reviews for the first three books below.
Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my step-daughter, her two cats, our two dogs, sometimes my step-son, and our tortoise.
I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it.
It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes
Today, I’m delighted to welcome a returning Alan Bardos to the blog.
The Ladoux Mystery – the spy who framed Mata Hari?
Marguerite Zelle MacLeod, better known as Mata Hari was a sensation in the last years of the ‘Belle Epoque’ for her wild and exotic dances. However it was her espionage activities that have ensured her name is a household word over a hundred years after her execution in 1917 as a spy. The question as to whether she was actually a double agent is still a contentious issue and may never be resolved.
The Folies Bergère where Mata Hari performed in 1913
By 1914 Mata Hari’s popularity had began to wain in Paris and she had to cast her net further afield and rely more on the favour of rich and powerful men to support her lavish lifestyle. It was this that many of her biographers believe she was ultimately judged on.
In August 1914 Mata Hari was performing in Berlin with a string of lovers. When war was declared the mood against foreigners changed. Desperate to return to France and escape the war fever sweeping through Germany, she broke her contracts and fled. Unable to go to France and forced to leave her money and possession behind, she retuned to her native Holland.
282 Boulevard St Germain, where Mata Hari was recruited by French Intelligence.
While there, she was approached by Carl Cremer, an Honorary German consul in Holland who offered her 20,000 Francs to spy for Germany. Mata Hari accepted the money but whether or not she actually considered herself recruited as a spy is questionable. She may actually have taken the money in compensation for everything she left in Germany.
When Mata Hari returned to Paris in 1916 she was recruited to spy for the French, by Captain George Ladoux, the head of French counter Intelligence. She planned to pull off an intelligence coup by going to Belgium and seducing the German Governor-General. She would then cultivate him as an intelligence source and sell the information to Ladoux for a million Francs.
However on her way to Belgium, Mata Hari’s steamer had to pass through British waters and during a routine customs check she was mistaken for the spy Clara Benedix. She was interviewed in Scotland Yard by ‘Blinker’ Hall the head of naval Intelligence and Sir Basil Thompson the head of Special Branch. At the end of it they were convinced that she was not Benedix, but thought she was suspicious. They contacted Ladoux who informed them that he thought she was a spy and that he was pretending to use her in the hope that she might give herself away as a spy. Hall and Thompson released her, but would not allow her to travel onto Belgium and sent her to Spain.
On her own and ignored by Ladoux, Mata Hari used her initiative and seduced Major Arnold Kalle, the German military attaché in Spain. He gave her some low grade information which Ladoux did not consider worth a million francs. She was arrested not long after her return to Paris, Ladoux had by this time compiled a dossier of evidence against her.
The former Élysée Palace Hotel where Mata Hari was arrested
Kalle had sent telegrams to his superiors in Berlin that incriminated Mata Hari. These telegrams had been intercepted by French intelligence and were the only real evidence presented at her trial that she was a double agent. French detectives followed Mata Hari when she was in Paris, but found no evidence that she actually gathered information or passed it on to Germany. However she admitted to taking their money on the understanding that she would.
France was swept with spy mania at the time, rocked by scandals of German plots to buy newspapers in an effort to undermine Frances will to fight, unrest was rife and the government needed to regain control.
Ladoux was therefore under considerable pressure to catch spies and there is evidence to suggest he doctored the telegrams to make them more incriminating and ensure her conviction. He certainly believed a ‘woman of the world’ like her to be guilty and her promiscuous lifestyle proved it.
However, Ladoux was also arrested as a spy three days after Mata Hari’s execution. This has given rise to speculation that he framed Mata Hari as a way of deflecting attention from his own espionage activities. Ladoux had been denounced by his former driver Pierre Lenoir, who had been arrested for buying a French newspaper with German money. When Lenoir was arrested he claimed that he had been set up by the Germans and that he was working for Ladoux.
While Lenoir was executed Ladoux was subject to extensive investigation, but was never put on trialand after his release continued to serve in the French army after the war. It is therefore unlikely that he was a spy. Nonetheless a cloud has hung over him ever since.
Vincennes. Mata Hari was executed in the grounds of this castle, Ladoux and Lenoir’s files are in the archive attached to the complex
The investigations into Ladoux and Lenoir are still sealed, over a hundred years after the event, while Mata Hari’s file is now open, giving rise to a lot of speculation, but the truth may never be known.
Here’s the blurb
November 1916.
The war of attrition is taking its toll on the Allied powers and cracks are starting to appear.
Captain ‘Blinker’ Hall, Head of Naval Intelligence, must strive to keep the alliance with France alive – and use all his guile to bring the Americans into the war.
Johnny Swift, a reckless former diplomat turned soldier, is convalescing in London, working for Naval Intelligence.
Hall knows how to use Swift’s talents for duplicity to their fullest and sends him to Paris to flush out a traitor undermining the French war effort.
Room 40, the Royal Navy’s code breaking unit, deciphers a telegram that presents Hall with a dilemma. Its use could recruit America to their cause – but also give away the secret that the codes have been broken and cost Britain the war.
Swift takes up his role in Paris and is soon caught in a web of intrigue involving Mata Hari, the Dreyfus Affair, and the catastrophe of the Nivelle Offensive.
The fate of the conflict rests on a knife edge.
The traitor still lurks in the shadows of Paris’s Art Nouveau grandeur and Swift must locate him before he can betray the Allied cause.
Writing historical fiction combines the first great love of Alan Bardos’s life, making up stories, with the second, researching historical events and characters. He currently lives in Oxfordshire with his wife… the other great love of his life.
There is still a great deal of mystery and debate surrounding many of the events of the First World War, which he explores in his historical fiction series. Through the eyes of Johnny Swift, a disgraced and degenerate diplomat and soldier.
The series starts with the pivotal event of the twentieth century. The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The second book ‘The Dardanelles Conspiracy’ is based on an attempt by Naval Intelligence to bribe Turkey out of the First World War. In the third book Johnny will be employed as a useful idiot to flush out a traitor working to undermine the Allies.
The start of a brand-new Cozy Crime series! Welcome to Hopgood Hall.
An unlikely duo…
When investigative journalist, Alexi Ellis, falls victim to cutbacks, she and Cosmo, her anti-social feral cat, head for beautiful Hopgood Hall, where they plan to lick their wounds in the boutique hotel run by her old friends, Cheryl and Drew Hopgood.
A missing woman…
But when she arrives Alexi discovers Cheryl and Drew both distraught. Their close friend, Natalie Parker, who recently settled in the area, has gone missing. Alexi’s sure the woman has just taken a trip somewhere, but she still has a nose for a story and agrees to look into it.
A case to solve!
So too does ex-Met Police detective turned private eye, Jack Maddox. Natalie Parker had been using his sister’s online dating agency and Jack needs to find her before his sister’s business is ruined.
Reluctantly, Alexi, Jack – and Cosmo! – join forces to find out what happened to Natalie. But soon they discover secrets that someone desperately wants to make sure are never revealed!
A Date to Die For by E V Hunter is a fast-paced, modern-day cosy mystery.
The two main characters, well three if we include our side-kick, Cosmo, the cat, are well-sketched. Alexi has run away from her old life in the city to her friends in the country. Jack already has a new life in the country. They’re both city bods, suddenly faced with the world of equestrian shenanigans; one a journalist and one an ex-police officer working as a private investigator. And Cosmo, is well, Cosmo. He’s an unusual cat who likes to travel and has no problem being on a leash.
The author has such an engaging writing style. I actually couldn’t believe how quickly I read the pages, the mystery burbling away as the point of view switches between the two main characters so that the reader gets to know them and begins to unravel the mystery of the disappearance of Natalie, the woman who ran a local flower delivery company, but who hasn’t been seen for days.
Events take a slightly darker turn as the story progresses. The mystery itself is well-developed, and while there is one particular scene that might have every reader shouting, ‘No, don’t do that,’ I found the resolution to be satisfying and twisty enough that I’d never have guessed it.
A twisty, tightly-plotted cosy mystery, with a fabulous writing style. Very enjoyable.
Meet the Author
E.V. Hunter has written a great many successful regency romances as Wendy Soliman and revenge thrillers as Evie Hunter. She is now redirecting her talents to produce cosy murder mysteries. 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.
A Notable Omissionis the seventh novel from Isabella Muir – all of them set during the 1960s and 1970s. Here Isabella Muir provides some insight into one particular resource that helped her set the story in this particular historical period…
Having fun with historical research
Online research is fun, of course, but right now I’m saying thank goodness for libraries! With all my novels being set during those iconic decades of the 1960s and 1970s I’ve built up a broad range of resources to support my research into all things ‘sixties’. And along the way, in my local library, I tracked down a fascinating book. The Neophiliacs was written by Christopher Booker and published in 1969. It turns out that it is now out of print and Amazon are asking over £100 for a copy! So, you can imagine my delight when my wonderful library managed to retrieve a copy from their ‘rare and out-of-print’ books.
Wanting to find out more about Christopher Booker, I did what many do nowadays in these times of instant ‘information’ – I Googled him. I discovered that back in 1961 he became the founder and one of the early editors of the satirical magazine Private Eye. He was the first jazz critic for the Sunday and Daily Telegraph and continued as a weekly columnist for the Telegraph right up to 2019, when he finally retired at the age of 81. As well as The Neophiliacs Booker has written a number of books studying British society, as well as commenting on wider issues, such as the European Union. Some of his views regarding climate change, health issues, such as the dangers of asbestos and cigarettes, have been controversial; he would appear to be someone who is not afraid to say what he thinks, even if it means going against the grain.
However, as much as Mr Booker and I do not see eye-to-eye over such issues as climate change, his insight into the long-term implications of social change during the 1950s and 1960s have really struck a chord with me.
This paragraph in particular made me sit up and think:
‘…the twentieth century has also provided two other factors to aggravate and to feed the general neurosis; the first being the image-conveying apparatus of films, radio, television, advertising, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines; the second the feverishly increased pace of life, from communications and transport to the bewildering speed of change and innovation, all of which has created a profound subconscious restlessness which neurotically demands to be assuaged by more speed and more change of every kind.’
From: THE NEOPHILIACS: A STUDY OF THE REVOLUTION IN ENGLISH LIFE IN THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES BY CHRISTOPHER BOOKER
Of course, now in 2023 the desire for speed is all around us – from the need for ever faster broadband, to high-speed rail links and non-stop Transatlantic flights. Some will point out that the changes started when the Industrial Revolution resulted in horse-drawn carriages and ploughs being replaced with the engine and the first railways. Social change is ongoing, but it does appear that some eras are more significant than others.
What is fascinating is to realise that at least sixty or seventy years ago Booker was able to identify ‘restlessness’ as it was happening, knowing that people would need more of the same, on and on until we reach the present day addiction to online and social media, where we constantly flick through images to gratify our seemingly ever reducing attention span.
Sadly, when my loan period expired, I had to return The Neophiliacs to the library, but not before making copious notes. Notes that helped no end as I drafted A Notable Omission, and insights that I hope have helped to set the scene for the novel, transporting readers back to an era when the pace of life was a tad gentler than it is today.
Here’s the blurb
A 1970s debate on equality is overshadowed by a deadly secret…
Spring 1970. Sussex University is hosting a debate about equality for women. But when one of the debating group goes missing, attention turns away from social injustice to something more sinister.
It seems every one of the group has something to hide, and when a second tragedy occurs, two of the delegates – amateur sleuth Janie Juke, and reporter Libby Frobisher – are prepared to make themselves unpopular to flush out the truth. Who is lying and why?
Alongside the police investigation, Janie and Libby are determined to prise answers from the tight-lipped group, as they find themselves in a race against time to stop another victim being targeted.
In A Notable Omission we meet Janie at the start of a new decade. When we left Janie at the end of The Invisible Case she was enjoying her new found skills and success as an amateur sleuth. Here we meet her a few months later, stealing a few days away from being a wife and mother, attending a local conference on women’s liberation to do some soul-searching…
Isabella is never happier than when she is immersing herself in the sights, sounds and experiences of family life in southern England in past decades – specifically those years from the Second World War through to the early 1970s. Researching all aspects of life back then has formed the perfect launch pad for her works of fiction. It was during two happy years working on and completing her MA in Professional Writing when Isabella rekindled her love of writing fiction and since then she has gone on to publish seven novels, six novellas and two short story collections.
This latest novel, A Notable Omission, is the fourth book in her successful Sussex Crime Mystery series, featuring young librarian and amateur sleuth, Janie Juke. The early books in the series are set in the late 1960s in the fictional seaside town of Tamarisk Bay, where we meet Janie, who looks after the mobile library. She is an avid lover of Agatha Christie stories – in particular Hercule Poirot. Janie uses all she has learned from the Queen of Crime to help solve crimes and mysteries. This latest novel in the series is set along the south coast in Brighton in early 1970, a time when young people were finding their voice and using it to rail against social injustice.
As well as four novels, there are six novellas in the series, set during the Second World War, exploring some of the back story to the Tamarisk Bay characters.
Isabella’s love of Italy shines through all her work and, as she is half-Italian, she has enjoyed bringing all her crime novels to an Italian audience with Italian translations, which are very well received.
Isabella has also written a second series of Sussex Crimes, set in the sixties, featuring retired Italian detective, Giuseppe Bianchi, who is escaping from tragedy in Rome, only to arrive in the quiet seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, to come face-to-face with it once more.
Isabella’s standalone novel, The Forgotten Children, deals with the emotive subject of the child migrants who were sent to Australia – again focusing on family life in the 1960s, when the child migrant policy was still in force.
The brand new instalment in bestselling author T. A. Williams’ Armstrong and Oscar cozy mystery series!
A brand new cozy crime series set in gorgeous Tuscany…It’s murder in paradise!
Murder in broad daylight…
When millionaire magnate, Rex Hunter is found with his head bashed in on the eighth hole of his prestigious golf and country club in beautiful Chianti, it’s a clear case of murder. Hunter was rich and successful and the envy of many, so retired DCI Dan Armstrong thinks the case will be a hole in one to solve….
A despised victim…
But as Dan and his trusty sidekick Oscar begin to dig deeper into Hunter’s lifestyle, they discover a man despised by many. A renowned womaniser, ruthless boss and heartless family man, it seems no one is particularly sorry to see Hunter dead. And the list of possible suspects is endless…
A murderer covering their tracks.
Dan is determined to catch this clever killer, but it seems every new lead brings another dead end. Will this be one case Dan and his canine companion won’t solve?
Murder in Chianti is the second book in the Armstrong and Oscar series of cosy crime stories set in modern-day Italy.
I thoroughly enjoyed book 1, and book 2 is even better. Now that Dan is living in Tuscany and is known as someone the local police can call on for assistance, the story can focus much more on the mystery to be solved.
And what a mystery this one is. For ages, it seemed as though no resolution could ever be found. Everything Armstrong and Oscar uncovered contradicted something else they already knew, and wow, there are many characters that the reader could suspect of the foul deed. There were several ‘big reveal’ moments, and when the ‘big reveal’ moment finally arrived for real, I was annoyed that I’d not thought of it before. After all, and looking back, the clues were certainly there, but very well concealed.
A thoroughly entertaining and well-plotted cosy mystery. Highly recommended.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my review copy.
T A Williams is the author of over twenty bestselling romances for HQ and Canelo and is now turning his hand to cosy crime, set in his beloved Italy, for Boldwood. The series will introduce us to retired DCI Armstrong and his labrador Oscar and the first book, entitled Murder in Tuscany, will be published in October 2022. Trevor lives in Devon with his Italian wife.
MJ Porter 