"In all honesty, I don't like martinis except for the olive on the toothpick. I probably chose it because it made me feel like James Bond on a secret assignment".
"Not another death in Bishops Well! Our little community was turning into an abattoir."
At Death's Door by Anna Legat is an entertaining and amusing cosy mystery set in the sleepy English village of Bishops Wells. This is the 2nd book in The Shires Mysteries, which reads as a standalone.
As most cosy crime stories, it's packed with amateur detectives, family secrets and skeletons in the closet, the quaint locale, and plenty of eccentric characters.
Maggie Kaye enlists Sam Dee into joining the archaeological dig at the Bishops Well. The dig is in the swamp, and they hope to find the traces of the Bronze Age settlement.
"Maggie was bristling with enthusiasm for the project. She was the driving force behind the draining of the swamp to excavate what was believed to be ancient Celtic village".
When the body is found in the swamp, at first there is a great excitement. But the enthusiasm is soon dampened. "That corpse hasn't been buried here since the Bronze Age, no way. This grave dates back to the mid-twentieth century at the most. It can't have been here much longer than fifty years." The dig becomes a crime scene.
Maggie, with her psychic abilities and flair for drama, embarks on a spot of sleuthing.
Maggie runs to her parents for any possible information, as her Dad is an ex-bobby. "Dad was a walking Filofax of all noteworthy events that had occurred in the town and surrounding villages" prior to his retirement.
She's intent on digging out the secrets of the Bishops residents, confident that some of them must know things about the body discovered in the swamp.
Maggie's sidekick Sam is a relatively recent addition to the village. He moved here after the death of his wife Alice. "He had found new passions here, new pursuits, new friends and neighbours - one of whom admittedly was slightly eccentric, though he wouldn't swap her for anyone else in the world".
As Maggie and her sidekick begin to unravel the mystery of the body in the swamp, there is a new shock in store for our quirky sleuth. A face from the past appears in the village, and it opens a Pandora's box of dramatic events.
The danger is literally at Maggie's door. Can she discover the truth before it's too late?
At Death's Door is a cosy mystery with diverting characters and an enjoyable storyline, just right for curling up with, wrapped in a duvet, with a cup of tea on the side table.
The characters are delightfully outlandish. I'm not sure if Maggie is supposed to be endearingly eccentric, but she's awfully annoying. Imagine a person who talks non-stop, keeps interrupting you, always has to have the last word, meddles into everyone's affairs thinking it's their birth right, and on top of that, has a serious drinking problem. In real life you'd try to avoid anyone like that.
In her 50s, she behaves like a teen drama queen. Both Maggie and the other person (who I won't name so as not to reveal the spoilers) thrive on drama and are "incorrigibly reckless" and unhinged.
She ponders, "What sort of life did I have?... I lived in the depths of the Shires, communing with ghosts, digging up old pots, deadheading roses, eating cake and drinking copious amounts of tea, plus an occasional alcoholic beverage... On that note, I knocked down a double brandy and took myself to bed".
Sam, who appears to be a sensible soul, walks around Maggie like a sad puppy. It's not quite clear why he is besotted with the crazy neighbour. He seems to be the type who goes through life, being dominated by the others, his mother, wife (whose spirit still watches him), the neighbour.
And why is it so difficult for several characters in the book to understand what witness protection is supposed to be. You don't just blabber to the first met person what you know. That's not simply idiotic, but plain dangerous, compromising personal safety.
I enjoyed the gentle humour of the book, it might not be a laugh-out-loud type of hilarity, but a good chuckle nevertheless. The scene of the birdwatching , for example, made me smile, even my younger son asked me why I was smiling. Poor Sam's been persuaded to go birdwatching, when it's not his cup of tea at all.
"As hard as he tried, Samuel Dee would never become a country squire. It wasn't in his genetic makeup to revel in mud, rain and draughty barns. As he squatted, squashed like a sardine next to James, he escaped fondly into the memories of his favourite pastimes: West End theatre, Covent Garden restaurants, and infrequent recreational walks in St James's Park... He [James] was talking about the great bustard. Sam prayed to God that the bastard bustard would hurry up. "Patience is the name of this game," James added. Sam smiled faintly. He didn't want to play this game". I could so relate to that.
At Death's Door is a good old-fashioned British mystery, which will appeal to the fans of M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin series, Carola Dunn's Cornish mysteries or Cornwall Mysteries series by Janie Bolitho.
This post is part of the blog tour for At Death's Door.
Many thanks to Anna Legat and Rachel's Random Resources for my e-copy of the book!
Purchase Links
At
Death's Door: The Shires Mysteries 2 by Anna Legat | Waterstones
Author Bio
–
Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known
for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. Murder isn't the only thing on
her mind. She dabbles in a wide variety of genres, ranging from dark humorous
comedy, through magic realism to dystopian. A globe-trotter and
Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service
waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She has lived in far-flung places
all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting
precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and
breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.
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Thanks a million for this lively review of At Death's Door! x
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