Anna Campbell

April 2022

Recommended Reading – Mysteries

I love a good mystery, especially when there’s a romantic subplot, which there usually is. This month, I’m going to talk about three recent murder mysteries that I thought were terrific.

First up, I’m going to go for an Australian writer, Pamela Hart, who has recently launched a really fun, clever series of mysteries. Digging Up Dirt (2021) is set in Sydney and features intrepid TV researcher Poppy McGowan. When Poppy discovers ancient bones under her kitchen during a house renovation, her old Nemesis Dr. Julieanne Weaver turns up in her role as archaeologist to close down all work on the house and forbid Poppy use of her abode.

This launches a madcap, suspenseful, funny story where Poppy turns out to be the prime suspect after Julieanne’s murder. The plot thickens when Poppy falls in love with Julieanne’s former boyfriend, the gorgeous, but rather mysterious Tol. This story has a little bit of everything – history, TV glamour, political shenanigans, a dodgy evangelical church, romantic entanglements, Poppy’s hilarious family.

The best bit of the book is Poppy’s snarky, ironic, self-aware voice. The story is told in the first person and Poppy is fabulous company through the plot’s labyrinthine twists and turns.

Believe me, you won’t be sorry you picked up Digging Up Dirt. I’ve recommended it all over the place and I’m yet to hear from anyone who hasn’t loved it. I’ve already got my order in for book 2 in the series, An A-List for Death which is out on 1st June.

My next recommendation is The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood (2021). If you watch a lot of British TV, you would know Robert Thorogood as the creator of the popular series Death in Paradise, featuring murder mysteries on the idyllic (if rather lethal!) island of Ste. Marie in the Caribbean.

I almost didn’t pick this one up, because it looked to me to be a carbon copy of The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, right down to the cover and the title. I adored The Thursday Murder Club and included it in a favorite things column in February last year which you can read here: https://annacampbell.com/my-favorite-things/2021-2/february-2021/

Anyway, I’m so glad I overcame my immediate prejudice and gave this one a go, because it’s great fun. It’s definitely along the lines of The Thursday Murder Club – eccentric ageing protagonists, murders that are a mixture of the macabre and the darkly humorous, middle- to upper-class English setting. But it’s different enough to carve out its own niche in what is clearly a new murder club genre of British crime. And the ageing British eccentrics in this one are wonderful company!

77-year-old Judith Potts, the main character, is very much her own woman. She lives alone in a dilapidated Thames-side mansion and arranges life to suit herself. One evening, she’s out swimming in the river when she witnesses a brutal murder. Shades of Rear Window! But ageism is alive in the Marlow police force and nobody believes her when she reports the crime.

So Judith sets out to investigate, with the help of a quirky dog-walker and the vicar’s prim and proper wife. As they get closer to the murderer, the stakes rise and all three women discover strengths and talents they never suspected they had – and in the process form a lifelong friendship.

As you can probably gather, this isn’t exactly gritty realism, but it’s charming and entertaining and a lovely way to pass a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. If you like your crime with a heaped teaspoon of sugar, this one’s for you!

My last choice of murder mystery is The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware (2018). This one took me right back to the books I loved when I was in my early teens – Victoria Holts and Mary Stewarts, where an intrepid and clever young heroine pits herself against the forces of evil and through sheer guts and determination prevails. Not to mention that this one’s very much a gothic. I’ve always loved creepy old houses and mysterious servants and secrets hidden behind the wainscoting.

Since her beloved mother’s death, Harriet (Hal), our heroine, has been eking out an existence in a very seedy Brighton as a tarot card reader. But money is tight and now she’s got loan sharks after her. When she receives a letter from a solicitor saying that she’s received a handsome inheritance from Mrs. Hector Westaway of Trepassen House in the West Country, it seems like a miraculous rescue from an impossible situation.

Hal is well aware that she can’t possibly be the granddaughter mentioned in the will, but she’s desperate and afraid. So she decides to go to the funeral and see what develops from there. At least it will get her out of Brighton where things have turned nasty.

But with every step she takes closer to the Westaway family, the mystery deepens. And so does the danger. Is Hal’s infiltration of Trepassen House her passport to a new life or is it the worst mistake she’s ever made?

Well, clearly you have to read the book to answer that particular question!

One of the many things I loved about The Death of Mrs. Westaway is that it’s a marvelous mixture of the modern and the old-fashioned. Hal is very much a woman of the present time, but the story itself harks right back to something like Jane Eyre with its eerie atmosphere and brooding sense of evil looming only a breath away.

Another great Sunday afternoon read for people who like to hear a squeak on the stairs and a hint of devilish goings on in the past when they pick up a romantic suspense story.