The Missing Heirloom Mystery (Supermarket Mysteries #5) by Rachel Ward
Genre: Cosy Mystery
Read: 29th October 2024
Published: 22nd October 2024
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Meet Bea Jordan: a checkout girl with a heart of gold and a knack for solving murders.
With the annual Kingsleigh Flower and Produce Show fast approaching and a tomato thief on the loose, Bea and best friend Ant have had little time for each other.
Now a grizzly discovery is waiting for them by the pumpkin patch . . .
The body of Dylan Bradley, their old history teacher. Someone stuck a trowel in his head and left him for dead.
But who would want to hurt Dylan?
When the discovery of a second body throws the townsfolk into full-blown turmoil, Bea must juggle small-town secrets, rivalries and murder with her growing feelings for Ant.
Can Bea dig up the truth before the killer strikes again, or has she finally planted the seed for her own demise?
If you love Richard Osman, Peter Boland, the Reverend Richard Coles and Ian Moore, prepare to be enchanted by this gripping British cozy murder mystery full of twists and loveable characters.
MY THOUGHTS:
Finders keepers, losers . . . Dead?
Bea works as a checkout chick at the local Costsave supermarket where her best friend Ant corrals the trolleys and whatever else falls under his remit. The pair are an unlikely duo - best friends and amateur sleuths - and Bea loves hanging out with Ant.
Recently, Ant has taken up gardening discovering a love for growing things where he helps his older mates get ready for the upcoming flower and garden show...and with Marvin the marrow taking pride of place in their allotment garden. One afternoon after work, Ant asks Bea if she'd like to accompany him and to meet Marvin. Hesitant after her near miss (in a previous book, I daresay) but intrigued, she agrees and together they take a picnic to the allotment. All is going well until Ant discovers friend and fellow gardener Dylan Bradley dead in his locked shed, a trowel through his skull.
Soon the police are in attendance, the allotment is cordoned off and after giving statements the pair is dismissed, free to go home. After investigating alongside Bea, Ant has decided to uncover the culprit who murdered his friend but is surprised when Bea wants no part of it. So he and his friends at Costsave draw up their own investigation in their makeshift incident room at the back of Costsave.
Determined to uncover the truth, Ant and his friends decide to stake out the allotment at night with a metal detector to see if they can unearth some more treasures like the one Dylan had discovered shortly before his death. But what they discover instead is far more grisly than any of them anticipated. Human remains buried deep in one of the garden beds which open up a forty year old mystery.
Bea still declines to join in the investigations until Ant comes across a book Dylan had published about the history of Kingsleigh, marking some items with circles and dates. She decides to visit the council to view some of the artefacts but nothing prepares her for what she's about to uncover.
A delightful modern cosy mystery centred in the fictional village of Kingsleigh and its inhabitants, this series is an amateur version of Midsomer Murders with the local supermarket as its centrepiece. An easy read that was enjoyable from start to finish has a host of very well drawn characters (both good and bad). It's not easy to identify the villains and the end result is somewhat surprising but satisfying nonetheless. Given that this is book 5 in the series and I've not read any of the others, I didn't feel disadvantaged in any way as this can be read as a standalone.
Overall, an enjoyable and entertaining read for fans of Midsomer Murders and cosy mysteries.
I would like to thank #RachelWard, #ZoolooBookTours and #JoffeBooks for an ARC of #TheMissingHeirloomMystery in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Her first book, Numbers, about a girl who can see death dates won numerous awards in the UK and around the world, and was published in 26 countries and is optioned for film/TV.
Her cozy crime series, The Supermarket Mysteries, set in and around a supermarket in a small English town, has hit the Amazon top 20 Cozy Mystery chart, and starts with The Missing Checkout Girl Mystery. Rachel hosts a monthly crime book chat on X/Twitter, #cosycrimeclub, at 11.00am UK time on the first Tuesday of each month.
She has also written psychological thrillers (as R. M. Ward) including Safe With You, which was featured in Heat Magazine.
Her new non-fiction book, Write Your Cozy Mystery: A Practical How To Guide, was published in 2024.
Rachel has two grown up children, and lives in Bath, UK, with her husband and two little dogs. She is also an artist and photographer, and has exhibited locally. She likes to post a cheerful photograph every morning on social media (X/Twtter: @RachelWardbooks) to start the day off the right way.
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