Friday, July 12, 2024

The Cornish Campsite Murder - The Nosey Parker Mysteries #7

 



The Cornish Campsite Murder is the seventh Nosey Parker mystery by Fiona Leitch. Released 9th Dec 2021 by Harper Collins on their One More Chapter imprint, it's 267 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a very well written, whimsical, and appealing cozy series with a caterer as a former-police-inspector protagonist along with her ragtag catering assistants/family and geriatric (inherited) Pomeranian, Germaine. This installment sees Jodie, Nathan, et. al solving the murder of a body found on the beach during a festival. The mystery is well constructed and the characters are well rendered and believable. It's a cozy, with lots of silly dialogue and was an enjoyable, diverting read. 

The ensemble cast continues to develop, and the author does a good job with their interrelationships, dialogue, back-story, and setting. Each book feels like a visit with the cast of characters. It works well enough as a standalone, but readers should be aware that they develop over the course of the series, and minor spoilers should be expected if read out of order. Germaine is as adorable as ever, however.

Although it's the seventh book in the series, necessary info is deftly provided, and the mystery and denouement are self contained and satisfying. There are 7 books extant in the series now, with an 8th due out in 2025 from the same publisher, so it would make a good candidate for a long weekend binge/buddy read. There's a whole subgenre with caterers-as-sleuths and this is one of the better ones.

Four stars. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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