Murder Through the English Post is the 6th Beryl & Edwina English cozy mystery by Jessica Ellicott. Released 26rh July 2022 by Kensington, it's 256 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback large print format due out in fourth quarter 2022. It's
worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of
contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've
really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is a delightfully quirky, beautifully written historical cozy village mystery set in the interwar period in sleepy village Walmsley Parva. There's a poison pen campaign sowing distrust and discord in the village and intrepid enquiry agents Beryl and Edwina are soon on the case. As with the other books in the series, there are lots of side plots which are engaging in themselves, but which also enrich and entwine with the main story.
There's a very golden age feel to the whole and the author has a deft touch with dialogue and characterization. The characters are nuanced and delightfully rendered with drawing room wit. Although it's not at all derivative in any way, the feel of the story and the narrative voice remind me a lot of why I love Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce books.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours and is -masterfully- narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. She has a beautifully modulated quite deep voice and the enunciation and perfection of characters' accents stupefied and delighted me. There is a moderate amount of quite rapid dialogue in the read and she hops from crisp cut-glass upper class British to indefinite English with quite distinct Scottish brogue, to a domestic servant's broad midlands, and midwest American without a single stumble. This is unquestionably the best audiobook I've heard this year.
The plot is slow and measured. Aside from the poison pen campaign, there's not a lot of action in the first third of the book apart from former gardener turned ready-made canned food magnate Simpkins' foray into greengage plum jam with en eye to adding it to his company's product line. I found the methodical plot development very relaxing and restful.
It could be read as a standalone, however, there will be major spoilers for earlier books in the series if read out of order.
Four and a half stars, five for the audiobook narration. This would make a superlative choice for public library acquisition, social reading (bookclubs, buddy reads, etc - in fact the author has suggested discussion questions on her website) as well as being a great candidate for a very well written series binge read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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