Tea and Cake and Death

In Tea and Cake and Death, the second book in the Bookshop Detective Series, Gareth and Louise Ward have written another cosy crime story about two former police officers who, although they are now bookshop owners, still find crimes to solve in their neighbourhood.

Garth and Eloise, with the assistance of their dog Stevie, are constantly involved in community book groups and promotions including the big annual event - The Battle of the Book Clubs - which they organise as a fundraiser for a group looking after people with cancer. All goes well until a month before the event when a member of the community is poisoned at a book event. Several other readers follow the same fate. 

When the bookshop owners investigate they discover a link with similar deaths in 2016. They also suspect that these attacks may be directed at them and relate to an arrest made in England before they left the police force and moved to New Zealand. As the day of the Battle of the Book Clubs approaches it is imperative that they discover the perpetrator of these crimes.

The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone

Eloise and Garth with their dog, Stevie, run the bookshop, Sherlock Tomes. They have a loyal clientele who regularly visit the store and keep them entertained. Then they are told that famous author, Isabella Garrante, wants her latest novel to be launched at their bookshop. There is so much to do to get the shop ready for the big event but then a strange envelope arrives at the shop with the message that they should investigate the disappearance of seventeen year old Tracey Jervis twenty years earlier.

Eloise and Garth were members of the police force in England before moving to New Zealand to start a new life. Their initial fear when they received the envelope was that it was connected to a criminal in England who they had helped put in prison. Before long they discover that they need to be worried about dangerous people closer to their new home including members of the Black Dogs motor cycle gang. As their investigation continues, with the assistance of a local police officer, they have a suspect for Tracey's disappearance but how are they to prove it?

The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth and Louise Ward is an entertaining romp as Eloise and Garth encounter danger as they investigate this cold case.