30 January 2014.
ISBN: 978-0-425-26176-7
Lois Meade lives an idyllic life in an idyllic English village with her husband, Derek, and her widowed mother. Lois' daughter, Josie, lives nearby with her policeman husband and keeps the village shop. Lois runs a successful cleaning business, New Brooms, and, in her spare time, she investigates any mysteries that come her way. Although her husband disapproves of this hobby, Lois is aided and abetted by Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill, who is so besotted by Lois that he cannot deny her anything.
When a succession of exotic reptiles and amphibians invade Josie's shop, the police are inclined to believe it is due to a series of unfortunate mistakes at the local, private zoo, run by the eccentric Robert Pettison. Lois is suspicious of Pettison and determined to protect her daughter, so she and her trusty team of cleaner colleagues set out to investigate.
The wildlife invasions make Josie eager to rent out the flat above the shop and her new tenant, Justin Brookes, seems to Josie to be ideal, although Lois and Derek are less convinced by Justin's superficial charm.
A serious injury and a death occur at the zoo and it becomes evident that there are secrets which somebody is willing to kill to conceal.
Scandal at Six is the thirteenth in a
series of books featuring Lois Meade. It is a stereotypical cosy crime story,
which skirts around the serious issue of illegal trade in rare wild animals without
addressing it. It is a pleasant, easy read, ideal for readers who enjoy gentle,
English rural village mysteries.
------
Reviewer: Carol
Westron
Ann Purser lives in the East Midlands, in a small and attractive
village which still has a village shop, a garage, pub and church. Here she
finds her inspiration for her novels about country life. She has only to do her
daily shopping down the High Street to listen to the real life of the village
going on around her. Before turning to fiction, she had a number of different
careers, including journalism – she was for six years a columnist in SHE
magazine – and art gallery proprietor. Running her own gallery in a
400-year-old barn behind the house, she gained fascinating insights into the
characters and relationships of customers wandering around. She had no
compunction about eavesdropping, and sharpened up her writer’s skills in
weaving plots around strangers who spent sometimes more than an hour in her
gallery. Working in a village school added more grist to the mill, as does
singing in the church choir and membership of the Women’s Guild. She reminds
herself humbly that Virginia Woolf was President of her local WI…
Six years hard study won her an Open University degree, and when she faltered
and threatened to fall by the wayside, writer husband Philip Purser reminded
her that he was paying good money for the course. During this period, she wrote
two non-fiction books, one for parents of handicapped children (she has a
daughter with cerebral palsy) and the other a lighthearted book for schools, on
the explosion of popular entertainment in the first forty years of the
twentieth century. Ten years of running the gallery proved to be enough, and
while it was very successful she decided to sell. The business moved down the
street to another barn and owner, and Pursers stayed on in their house next to
the village school – another rich source of material for the stories. Time to
start writing novels.
Carol Westron is a successful author and a Creative Writing teacher. Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times. Her first book The Terminal Velocity of Cats was published in 2013. Since then, she has since written 6 further mysteries. Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. To read the interview click on the link below.
https://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/carol-westron.html www.carolwestron.com
http://carolwestron.blogspot.co.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment