“Eve Mallow Series.” Mystery on Hidden Lane, at Apple Tree Cottage, and at Seagrave Hall. Many readers of this blog know that the COVID-19 pandemic has driven me to more reading as well as writing (my finished manuscripts are stacking up—one is displayed below). In particular, I have binged on several series of British-style mysteries. Reading an entire series has been a lot more fun than watching TV reruns, cable TV’s old movies, summer game shows, and “family specials” (wasn’t that John Legend show last week a sappy mess—hey, John, I know you can sing because you were good in Jesus Christ, Superstar, but I really didn’t need to see how families of the rich and famous performers were getting on).

I’ve digressed. I’m happy to write I’ve discovered a new author, Clare Chase. I’ve read only the three novels indicated so far. All take place at Saxford St. Peter, a fictional village on the fictional river Sax (she admits the village is fictional, but so is the river, as near as I can tell), all in Suffolk, England. These are excellent mystery/crime stories with a dash of modern themes added to the Christie-like stew of suspense and intrigue. They will keep readers guessing right along with Eve Mallow. She’s the main character who uses her obituary writing business as a cover for doing some sleuthing (an original idea, to be sure, giving real meaning to Murder She Wrote).

All the village folk are well-drawn characters (in the real as well as literary sense), from the vicar who knows the villagers’ secrets, to the irrepressible woman who hires Eve to work in her tea shop because Eve makes such good scones. The latter nicely complements Eve’s main source of income, a necessary complement because her ex is an overbearing arse. Maybe the scone making justifies the classification “cozy” on the books’ front covers—that almost ended my desire to purchase the books, by the way—but I’ve lamentably read enough cozies to know this author’s novels aren’t well described by that mystery subgenre. They’re well-written classic mysteries. (The author uses that description on her website, although a more correct description would be “traditional mysteries with a modern flavor.” “Classic” make me think of Holmes and Watson.

Like Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove in the TV series Murder She Wrote (one of the few good mystery shows, along with Columbo, that make the Hallmark mysteries seem like Harlequin romances), it’s hard to imagine that such a small village like Saxford St. Peter has so many murders. (I preferred to set my “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” and “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series in large cities for that  reason, although Esther does a lot more globe-trotting than Rolando Castilblanco and, of course, Eve Mallow.) The author solves the Cabot Cove problem in her little imaginary village in two ways: (1) villagers who have left often return, some to do dastardly deeds…or become victims; and (2) new people come through, some doing the same—with Eve having to sift through both sets of suspects to solve the crimes.

Readers who want to sit down with their tea and scone to enjoy all the village’s hidden secrets and meet the villagers there as well as the people who visit will find many hours of interesting and entertaining reading in these three novels—nothing earth-shaking but very pleasant.

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Comments are always welcome.

A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. Readers of this blog know I don’t write romance or erotica, but I’ve met those popular genres halfway with this sci-fi rom-com—that’s sci-fi romantic comedy. Enrico Fermi wasn’t the last physicist who was both an experimental and theoretical genius, but Professor Gail Hoff will never receive the Nobel Prize. She goes time-traveling through several universes of the multiverse, never to return to her little lab outside Philly. Jeff Langley, her jack-of-all-trades electronics wizard, accompanies her. Their escapades, both amorous and adventurous, make this novel a far-out road-trip story filled with dystopian and post-apocalyptic situations, first encounter, robots and androids—those and more await the reader who rides along. An excellent distraction from the pandemic that’s coming soon!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

 

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