Brill new #CosyMystery – Murder in the Village by Lisa Cutts – great read!!

Meet Belinda Penshurst. Castle owner, dog lover… crime solver?

Belinda Penshurst loves her home village Little Challham, with its shady lanes, two pubs and weekly market, and she’s determined to keep it peaceful. She may live in Challham Castle but she knows almost everything that goes on under her nose. So when irritable pub landlord Tipper is found dead in his cellar, she’s perfectly placed to investigate.

Retired detective Harry Powell moved to Little Challham for a quiet life. He didn’t expect to be dragged into a murder investigation. But the police don’t seem half as enthusiastic as Belinda about the case, and there are strange things happening in the village. Particularly the number of dogs that have disappeared lately…

Is there a dognapper snaffling schnauzers and luring away Labradors? Is Belinda barking mad to be worried that her brother Marcus was arguing with Tipper on the day he died? Belinda and Harry track down the suspects: the rival landlord, the outraged barmaid, the mysterious man in the black car following dogwalkers around. But are the dogged detectives running out of time to sniff out the killer, before he starts hounding them?

A charming cozy mystery full of laughs and eccentric characters. Fans of M.C. Beaton, H.Y. Hanna and Emily Organ will love the first novel in the Belinda Penshurst series!

My Review:

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley, too,
For my copy of this book - here’s my honest review:

Welcome to Little Challham, a village with a castle,
That’s where Harry Powell retired to for a life without hassle.
However he’d not known about Belinda Penshurst before
Or that murder mysteries they’d investigate there for sure!

Belinda knows most folks in the village and what goes on
But now there are mysteries to be solved - and not just one!
She has a knack for turning up when disaster strikes
And finding murder victims is something she definitely dislikes!

However, the discoveries have made her determined to find
Who has spoilt the village by being so unkind
With Harry working with her, she’s sure that they’ll discover
Just who did what, to whom and when - and hopes it isn’t her brother!

This is a story of village life with pubs, rivalry and more
But just who are the dognappers and who are they working for?
Are they linked to the murderer - and is there more than one?
Can Belinda and Harry find the answers before any more are gone?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this cosy mystery book
With a fantastic community, fun characters and, look,
As well as murder and dognapping, there's a possible romance!
I can’t wait for more in this series and hope you’ll also give it a chance!

Author Bio:

Lisa Cutts is a full-time detective constable investigating murders for a living. When off duty she writes a fictitious version of her day job. She lives and works within the county of Kent with her husband and Labrador.

She is the author of the DC Nina Foster books, Never Forget and Remember, Remember. Never Forgot was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award 2013 and the winner of the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award 2014 for Best Thriller. She has also written four books in the East Rise Incident Room series, Mercy Killing, Buried Secrets, Lost Lives and Don’t Trust Him. All four centre around DI Harry Powell and his Major Crime Team battling to solve the latest murders within the county. Currently she is writing the Little Challham mysteries, cosy mysteries set in a fictional village in Kent.

She writes a monthly column, Behind the Tape, for Writing Magazine answering police procedural questions from other writers. In early 2016, she was honoured to become the Patron of Rochester Literature Festival and help establish Murderous Medway, an annual crime fiction festival packed full of amazing author panels. As well as being on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book, Lisa has twice appeared on This Morning to chat about TV crime dramas Broadchurch and Line of Duty.

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Buy Link: Amazon: https://bit.ly/3mb60aM