May Day Murder
It’s springtime and Whitstable is emerging from hibernation.
While neither the restaurant nor detective agency is too busy, Pearl resolves to spend some time at the family allotment. But her best friend, Nathan, has persuaded one of his favourite actresses to open the May Day festivities at Whitstable Castle and involves Pearl in his plans.
Like Pearl, Faye Marlowe is a Whitstable native, but having left the town more than two decades ago, the star has been living in the South of France since her agent’s phone stopped ringing. Charming but ‘sensitive’, she arrives with a small entourage and though her presence in the town causes a stir Pearl’s mother Dolly remains unimpressed, choosing to remember Faye Marlow when she was plain old Frankie Murray, the daughter of a local whelk merchant.
Nathan soon realises he has made a mistake with this invitation and his doubts are confirmed when Faye is nowhere to be found on the morning of May Day. And as ‘Jack in the Green’ puts on his impressive costume to lead the parade, the actress’s dead body is discovered – tethered to the maypole on the Castle grounds . . . and so it’s left to Pearl and DCI Mike McGuire to unravel the mystery of the May Day murder.
ISBN: 978-1472116468
Publication date: 07 April 2016
Page count: 320
Imprint: Constable
Reviews
May Day Murder
What Colin Dexter did for Oxford, Julie Wassmer is intent on doing for Whitstable.
A quiet, self-contained community is thrown into disarray by a vicious murder.
While Oxford had Morse, Whitstable, famous for its oysters, has Pearl, a restaurateur (there are lots of cookery tips) and part-time detective working in league with a friendly policeman whose intentions go beyond a cosy consultation.
Pearl’s latest adventure has her ranged against a killer who has dispatched a visiting movie star, a local girl made good by making profitable use of her sex appeal. Old flames and their families have good reason not to welcome her reappearance.
This, the third Whitstable mystery, finds Wassmer getting into her stride. True to the tradition of classic crime, she weaves a strong story into a setting that has more to offer than murder and mayhem. Can a television version be far behind?
May Day Murder
May Day Murder
Pearl is an engaging character, and while her two careers seems at odds, her motivations for sleuthing are convincing – Julie has created a genuine character here and, apart from the drawn-out when-will-they-get-on-with-it romance with MacGuire (which does gain some forward momentum here), Pearl is charming company throughout the book.
As for the mystery, armchair sleuths beware. The more experienced among you will probably guess part of the solution quite early on. I certainly did and was feeling rather smug about it – it was obvious who the murderer was… And while I was right about part of it, I was quite wrong about the big picture. I’ll say no more, but as with Murder On Sea, Julie managed to pull the wool over my eyes.
Julie mentioned something interesting to me in a tweet following the review of Murder On Sea – namely that I was the only male reviewer of that book so far. I presume that the combination of a female sleuth and the “cozy” tag (ugh) may out some readers off. I urge those blog readers who like a good mystery to check this out – just as with Chef Maurice, you may be pleasantly surprised. Highly Recommended. May Day Murder is out now from all good bookshops (and some bad ones too).
May Day Murder
What’s more appropriate reading for the merry month of May than a cosy crime book entitled, May Day Murder? In fact, finding a corpse tied to a maypole in the village of Whitstable on the Kent coast sets the scene nicely. If you feel that your neighbourhood is too full of strange or challenging characters, then consider Whitstable, where Pearl’s mother Dolly is feistier than even my mother and everyone has to be considered a suspect. If you like the TV series ‘Midsummer Murders’, then May Day Murder should be right up your alley, except that in this book we are only dealing with one dead body.
Fetching sleuth and restaurateur Pearl investigates when fading actress Faye Marlow is stabbed to death at a party she was catering for. She has to be subtle about her enquiries though, as it’s actually DCI Mike McGuire’s job to find out who did it and he doesn’t like interference with official police business – not even if the person interfering is so attractive and can cook! By the way, if I were Julie Wassmer’s editor, I would get her to include her recipes at the back of the book). So who will succeed first in this race to uncover both the motive and the culprit? Will Pearl get her man?
May Day Murder