The Killing in the Café
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The wickedly entertaining new Fethering mystery featuring chalk-and-cheese detective duo Carole and Jude
Polly’s Cake Shop has been a feature of the shopping parade for many years, but when its owner announces her retirement, the Fethering residents start to worry about the loss of this popular amenity. Alarmed by rumours that the café might become a Starbucks, a group clubs together to form the Save Polly’s Cake Shop Action Committee.
The plan is that Polly’s should become a community venture, managed and run by volunteers from the village. Roped in to help, Jude finds the committee meetings fraught with petty power struggles, clashing personalities and monstrous egos. Matters take a turn for the worse when she and Carole come across a badly-decomposed body on Fethering beach – and uncover a link to Polly’s. Not only do the two neighbours have to find out whodunit, they are also faced with the thorny question: is it possible to run a business on that most volatile of commodities - goodwill?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in British author Brett's witty 17th mystery featuring Jude Nichol and Carole Seddon (after 2014's The Tomb in Turkey), the reader learns that Carole is secretly addicted to a TV show featuring nuns and midwives, so she settles down "for an evening of prayer and placentas." On a more serious note, at Polly's Cake Shop, a popular eatery in the Sussex town of Fethering, a waitress, who's also a client of Jude's healing services, finds a body in the storeroom, but thinks she's hallucinating. A few weeks later, Jude and Carole witness a body pulled from the sea. Meanwhile, Polly's owner wants to sell out, and a group of residents, led by the delightfully blimpish Commodore Quintus Braithwaite, want to take it over with a volunteer crew. And the unemotional, uptight Carole goes bonkers over her new granddaughter. As mayhem ensues, Jude and Carole have few clues to go on. Only the low-key ending disappoints.
Customer Reviews
Complex plot with a surprise reveal at the end
Another fine Fethering mystery.