We’re having a heatwave at the moment in the UK, and I bought a bag of chocolate buttons, and left them on the kitchen worktop. When I finally got round to eating them, it was basically one big chocolate button.
And on the subject of cursed chocolate…
Graduate criminology student Theo Chan has to make alternative plans for his summer, when a trip to France falls through. Needing to find paid work, he follows up on a mysterious advert, and ends up taking an internship with a mysterious detective agency. Primrose Ghaust-Lee, who is legally blind, and Philip Teebin, the more outgoing and eccentric of the pair, run the agency that has little digital footprint, yet appears to be held in high esteem. They’re looking for an assistant to take notes and make observations, while running the office.
Theo hasn’t been working for the elderly pair for long, before they are called out to a small Pennsylvania town to investigate mysterious goings on at a family-run chocolate factory.
With threats, murder, and a super creepy clown mascot, the small town setting adds a claustrophobic feel to this intriguing mystery, that keeps the readers guessing right until the end.
Seeing the case through Theo’s naive eyes, it’s a really engaging read that often throws up more questions than it answers. There’s an eerie feel to the writing, but moments of humour to keep it light. The detectives are skilled and perceptive, their appearance and age belying their skill, leading them to be underestimated, particularly by Theo himself. Ghaust-Lee and Teebin hold their cards close to their chest, and I suspect there’s a lot more to learn about these two – they’re a fascinatingly unconventional pair, and as this is the first in the Notes On A Murder series, I can’t wait to find out more in the next novel!
Thank you to the author for gifting me a copy of the ebook.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris earned his Ph.D. in criminology from Penn State and is presently an assistant professor at Purdue University. When not writing about fictional or non-fictional crimes, he enjoys reading, origami, and performing sleight of hand-based magic tricks. Chris lives in Indiana with his wife, daughter, and three cats.
BLURB
Criminologists, on the whole, do not solve crimes. So Ph.D. student Theo Chan is out of his comfort zone when a pair of enigmatic private investigators hire him for what sounds like a sweet summer gig. Soon, he’s thrust into the puzzle-box world of a classic small-town whodunnit, with few sleuthing skills to rely on.
“A clown climbs up the skeleton tree; A curse on you, a plague on me.” The cryptic prophesy was discovered in Antonia Pruskain’s pocket after her mysterious death at the Clumindell Chocolate and Confectionary headquarters four years ago. Ever since, a ghostly clown has haunted the grounds, always accompanied by inexplicable deaths and disasters. Now one of Clumindell’s founders is murdered inside a locked building, and the clown is the prime suspect.
To survive his first case, Theo must reckon with an unusual murder weapon, endangered tree frogs, paranormal YouTubers, and the shadowy motives of his own employers—who may be the biggest mystery of all.
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