23: The Dog Sitter Detective Plays Dead – Antony Johnston
One of my favourite finds of last year was Antony Johnston’s Dog Sitter Detective series. A cosy series with a wonderfully feisty main character, and being a dog-sitter, the cast of cute side-kicks is ever changing. This new instalment is set on the spooky set of a Dracula re-make and is fantastic (fang-tastic?) fun.
Read the full review: Review: The Dog Sitter Detective Plays Dead – Antony Johnston
24: Murder in Tuscany – T A Williams
Retired Detective Dan Armstrong dreams of being a writer. As a retirement gift, his colleagues club together and give him a place at a writing retreat in Tuscany… for erotic fiction! With an estranged wife who couldn’t take his commitment to the job any more, and a grown up child, Dan has nothing to lose by heading to Tuscany to fulfil his writing dream. When a body is found, Dan finds himself pulled back into the detecting game. A captivating cosy mystery, and a series I think I may be a little bit obsessed with.
25: Murder in Chianti – T A Williams
Following the previous adventure in Tuscany, retired Detective Dan Armstrong decided to stay full time in Tuscany. With his marriage over and his child grown, and now the owner of a labrador, there was nothing really to go back for, when he could spend his time in warmer climes, writing.
And yet there’s more murder, and having befriended the local police chief in the last investigation, Dan is once again called upon for his detective and language skills when the victim and suspects aren’t native Italians.
I don’t know why I haven’t picked up this series sooner – it’s great comfort reading, and I can’t wait to dive into the rest of the series.
26: The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules – Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
On the surface, it’s a really funny heist story, as a group of pensioners break out of their retirement home and stage an audacious art theft from the nearby museum, which leaves the police baffled.
It does, however, ask a lot of questions about social care for the elderly. They decide to break out and stage a heist because they feel they’d get better treatment and food in prison. Their care home is run by a private company who put business and profit over the care of their charges – a situation that has not changed in real life since the book was written in 2012, a situation that pushes the delinquent pensioners to take extreme action. It’s also a comment on the invisibility we gain as we age – the pensioners are not seen as serious suspects. No one can believe old people would behave this way so are immediately discounted.
For the pensioners that refuse to sit in a home locked away and rotting, the adventure unlocks a new lease of life for them. While some are timid in the beginning, each finds their own confidence and fun in their new criminal enterprise, and I’m looking forward to their further adventures
27: Date with Death – Julia Chapman
In March this year, the Dales Detective series will come to an end after 10 books, so I decided to go right back to the beginning and enjoy one of my favourite comfort-series all over again.
Village black sheep Samson O’Brien left the village years ago under a cloud, working in the Police force in Leeds and later down in London. Now suspended from the Force, he’s come back to his home village of Bruncliffe to start his own Dales Detective Agency. The welcome he gets at the start of the book is one he won’t forget.
The villagers have long memories and don’t forgive or forget, but the landlady he’s leased the office from, Delilah Metcalfe, needs the rent money.
When the mother of a suspected suicide victim hires Samson to investigate, the death becomes linked with other fatalities – the common thread being all the men had signed up to Delilah’s Dales Dating Agency, a reputation which is the last thing her business needs.
This is a wonderful novel that introduces us to the wonderful residents of Bruncliffe in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. Cosy crime at its best with warm, witty characters and sinister skullduggery.
28: Death On Ice – RO Thorp (ARC)
Welcome to the Dauphin – a ship heading to the Arctic Circle with a mix of scientific researchers, and high paying guests looking for a trip with a difference. Scientist twins Drs Rose and Finn Blanchard are on board to work on Finn’s research on the Greenland Shark, making use of the Dauphin’s submersible.
The ship is filled with strong characters, the wealthy elite and the best of the best in Science, and when the two groups mix, hackles are raised, personalities clash.
After a trip down to the seabed in the submersible, Rose and Finn surface to find that one of the more objectionable characters has been harpooned, away from the ship on the ice sheet.
To solve the death, the scientific mind of Rose Blanchard teams up with two British detectives whose work on a smuggling ring had taken them up to Svalbard – Tom Heissman and Titus Williams.
A wonderful debut mystery, with strong quirky characters. It’s been a long time since I sat up until 4 am because I couldn’t put a book down but this had me downing coffee so I could find out whodunnit. A captivating story with characters I just loved.
Thank you to NetGalley and publishers Faber and Faber Ltd for an advance copy for review.
29: Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
Possibly more accurately titled “Shades of Grey, No Not That One”.
I… dont’ even know how to begin to describe this book.
In a dystopian world, Shades of Grey is set in a time after Something Happened. There’s evidence of past civilisation, but now it’s a world where your position in life is governed by what colours you can see. Eddie Russet is a Red, hoping to marry a better class of Red, colour swatches are dealt on the beige market, everyone lives by a prescriptive set of rules. There are a limited number of facts that people are taught, and questions and curiosity are taboo. And then Eddie meets Jane, a Grey, the lowest of the social ranks, the workers, and she sparks something in him that is absolutely unheard of – a desire to see beyond colours, to seek the truth.
I find dystopian reading quite uncomfortably close to current reality so tend to avoid it, although Fforde’s dystopia is of a more surreal nature. Fforde has a habit of building a cosy world of absurdity, and as you begin to love the characters, there’s a punch to the gut that stays with you long after the book ends.
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