Death At The Abbey by Jan Durham
A cliff-top murder. A clever canine. A seaside sleuth.
After the death of her husband, Liz McLuckie has taken early retirement and moved to Whitby, a picturesque fishing town on the North Yorkshire coast. She thinks the renovation of two ramshackle fishing cottages will take her mind off things, but soon discovers Whitby isn’t quite the peaceful retreat she imagined.
When she discovers the body of a local Professor near the medieval Abbey, Liz reluctantly finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation. The post mortemreveals death by drowning. So how did he get onto the clifftop? And why did he have a fish in his pocket?
Liz follows the trail of the murderer, and many red herrings - both literal and metaphorical - in the company of her friends, including an almost-reformed burglar, a disgraced archaeology student and Nelson the bull terrier - the ugliest (and bravest!) dog in Yorkshire.
Book 1 in the Kipper Cottage Mystery Series. Book 2 in the series, Death at Neptune Yard, is now available.
About the author
Jan lives just outside Edinburgh with her husband, three kids, a one-eye whippet, and a fat black pug. Born in a colliery village in the North East of England, she cut her literary teeth on the great storytellers of the 60's and 70's - Wilbur Smith, Frank Yerby, Mary Renault, and Sergeanne Golon. She began her writing career as an advertising copywriter and has since had novels published by Random House and HarperCollins, and original audio series produced by Audible UK. She also writes for tv.
Jan enjoys psychological thrillers and crime fiction of all kinds, from the coziest of cozies to the blackest of noirs.
Death at the Abbey is her first cozy mystery in the Kipper Cottage series with Inkubator Books. Book 2 in the series, Death at Neptune Yard, is also available now.
Review
There is so much great crime fiction coming out from, or set in the north east at the moment - Mark Richards, J.R. Ellis, L J Ross, Glenda Young etc but Jan Durham is sure to be named alongside them now! ‘The Death at the Abbey’ is more a cozy mystery a la Miss Marple or Agatha Raisin and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I love that there is more crime books that have older characters as the main protagonist and Liz is great! Recently retired and relocated to Whitby she has bought two cottages next door to each other and plans to live in one and rent the other out. Accompanied by her bulldog Nelson she comes across a body whilst walking in St. Marys churchyard and is soon immersed in finding out what happened to the poor man!
Apart from Liz there are a merry bunch of fellow detectives who all play Mahjong together. I must say that I have a soft spot for Tilly though. Growing up in Scarborough with a wannabe hippy for a mother we used to go on trips to Whitby and trawl through all the alternative shops and then go for a fish supper! She was also Glaswegian hence the ‘supper’. Tilly made me remember those happy days, so thank you Jan!
Jan seems to manage to bottle the essence of Whitby and sprinkle it over her pages, as whilst reading the book I was managing to picture everything so very clearly. I honestly can’t wait to see how Jan deals with ‘Goth Week’ in a future book in the series as I feel that one might be a hoot.
This is the first in the series but the second book is already been published and I know what my weekend reading is going to be!
Buy Links
Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Abbey-Kipper-Cottage-Mystery-ebook/dp/B09SLYMWLP
Amazon US - https://www.amazon.com/Death-Abbey-Kipper-Cottage-Mystery-ebook/dp/B09SLYMWLP
It's also on kindle unlimited!
