*I received a free copy of this book with thanks to the author, Boldwood Books and Rachel Gilbey at Rachel's Random Resources blog tours. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
Blurb: Welcome to the beautiful English village of Inkbury. Tucked deep in the North Wessex Downs, its only claim to fame is the picturesque riverside that once appeared in a Richard Curtis movie. That is, until the murder…
Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she's having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she's genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer.
She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother's perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.
But before they have a chance, the local art dealer washes up distinctly dead in the village's famous river. His lover is in the frame, but Juno and Phoebe suspect that there is a deeper secret… One that relates to Phoebe's own past and Juno's present.
Will the unofficial Village Detective Agency solve the mystery before the killer strikes again? In sleepy Inkbury, as they soon discover, living one's best midlife can be murder.
An utterly gripping cozy crime mystery, from million-copy bestselling Fiona Walker, guaranteed to absolutely delight fans of Richard Osman, Janet Evanovich and the Reverend Richard Coles.
This is a very promising and entertaining start to a new cosy mystery series! And I really love that the main characters are older 'empty-nesters' still living life to its utmost in as many ways as possible - it's not a demographic we see as often as I would like!
Secretive Phoebe, vivacious Juno, and the prank-happy Mil make a great team and add a welcome dose of humour to the village murder investigations. And there's plenty to investigate in addition to the recent death, from Juno's mum's suspiciously multi-widowed new boyfriend, to art theft break-ins and the plot hangs together really nicely - neither too simple nor too over-complicated.
My only small quibbles with the story were my disappointment that the 'final word' didn't end up playing into the big reveal and final resolution of the mystery, and that I got a little bit lost amid the real and fake paintings and struggled to remember who owned what and what it was worth. But these really were minor aspects of the whole and didn't impact my enjoyment of the book.
The pace of the plot is slow, but the build-up of character development and backstory is worth it and I never felt like it was dragging as I waited to see what dramatics Juno would indulge in next or whether Phoebe would let slip any more clues about her past. And how Mil would 'die', of course - that particular running gag really made me giggle!
I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from The Village Detectives 'Merde/Murder' club in future and look forward to more secrets, silliness and general shenanigans from Inkbury's most wildly imaginative residents.
Since her abrupt departure from journalism, Phoebe had turned to a life of crime, the corpses piling up. Channelling her rage into writing detective novels under a pen name, she'd now plotted multiple dastardly deaths to vex her two amateur sleuths, a 1920s society hostess and her chaperone. Recently, she'd added dark 1980s crime thrillers to her oeuvre and was even toying with gothic Victorian mysteries to avenge the bloodlust. Her imaginary worlds were like holiday destinations now, into which she escaped to find peace by restoring order.
The books had been successful enough for her to scrape a living, a positive outcome from a period of depression so deep she'd almost lost sight of the surface, when career and medical crises had coincided, cash and marriage ones chasing them cruelly quickly.
Plotting a murder every six months or so had also been terrific therapy.
- Fiona Walker, The Art of Murder
About the author
Fiona Walker is the million copy bestselling author of joyously funny romantic comedies. Most recently published by Head of Zeus, she will be turning to cozy crime for Boldwood. The first in her new Village Detectives series, The Art of Murder, will be published in May 2024.
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