Thursday 5 May 2022

An English Garden Murder - Katie Gayle

 Meet Julia Bird: recently single, reluctantly retired, and… an amateur sleuth?


Julia Bird has left London for a fresh start in a picturesque Cotswolds village, and the rustic charm and cosy fireplaces of her little cottage are everything she’d hoped for. But when she tears down the old garden shed to make way for a chicken coop, she unearths much more than she’d bargained for… the body of a young woman, apparently buried for decades, thrusting Julia into a baffling mystery.

With only one copper on the case in Berrywick, Julia decides to solve the who and whodunnit herself, taking her wayward puppy 
Jake along for the ride. And so begins a whirlwind tour of the village – from the dotty 90-year-old to the delightful doctor and the village gardener, it seems everyone has something to hide.

Soon, Julia is convinced she has discovered the killer’s identity, until Jake, a true Labrador, finds a new love of the local lake’s waterfowl and instead ends up catching her chief suspect… drowned. Back at square one, with potential culprits galore, Julia – newly nicknamed the Grim Reaper – despairs at ever solving the murders.

But as Julia ruffles feathers village-wide, the clock is ticking. There is someone in the village who has killed twice already. Will they be prepared to make it third time lucky to keep their secret safe?

This totally addictive page-turning cozy mystery is perfect for fans of M.C. Beaton, Faith Martin and Betty Rowlands.

Author Bio:

Katie Gayle is the writing partnership of best-selling South African writers, Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel. Kate and Gail have, between them, written over ten books of various genres, but with Katie Gayle, they both make their debut in the cozy mystery genre. Both Gail and Kate live in Johannesburg, with husbands, children, dogs and cats.

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My Review

I do enjoy a good, old fashioned murder mystery and that's certainly what An English Garden Murder is. Even the title has that feeling of Midsomer murders or similar. I was really looking forward to getting stuck into this one and I really wasn't disappointed when I did.

There are plenty of twists and turns in this story and I have to admit that I really didn't know who was behind it all by the time we got to the big reveal at the end. I'd been barking up all kinds of wrong trees as I'm sure was the intention, as each time I was sure who was behind it all, it would all suddenly be blown out of the water and I'd be back to scratching my head over who was behind it again.

I hope that this book is going to be the start of a new series, because I really enjoyed reading about Julia Bird and the village that she's moved to. It's marked as book one, so fingers crossed book two won't be too far away.




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