14 September 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-4722-8572-0
The Seaview Hotel is set on the corner of King’s Prade overlooking Scarborough’s North Bay on the Yorkshire coast.
It is Helen Dexter’s pride and joy. And having now been awarded a long desired four stars rating her joy is unbounded. Well, it would be if she could get the precious plaque to hang straight. Comments from her cook Jean, didn’t help. Especially when the plaque fell off the wall.
The early arrival of the crazy-golf team didn’t help either, or their specialist requirements. Jean who she had inherited when she and her husband Tom, sadly now deceased, had bought the Seaview, is none too impressed to have received a list of breakfast requirements, Chia seeds, goji berries, manuka honey and Alfafa sprouts. Jean is a no nonsense Yorkshire cook famous for her breakfasts, with emphasis on the no-nonsense.
The crazy-golf team are captained by Alice Pickle who makes it clear that her disciplined team are here to WIN, by fair means or foul, but mainly to beat their arch-rival Ricky Delmont and his team.
Complication arise when her next-door neighbour Miriam, owner of the Vista del Mar, and the most disagreeable woman on the planet, tells Helen that she has a team of crazy golfers booked in, but that she has overbooked and their Captain, one Ricky Delmont is threatening to sue her. Could she put him up at her hotel?
In this the third book in the series, Helen is struggling, but is not sure why. Plain speaking Jean says Helen has ‘lost her sparkle’. Then one of the guests is murdered, Jean quits, and people are receiving mysterious invitations to a party that Helen doesn’t want. It is said things come in threes.
So, with no cook, and no cleaner, oops! did I not mention that Sally the reliable cleaner is on her honeymoon. The suggestion is that Sally’s mother Brenda will step in. I will leave you to make your own minds up about Brenda, but I am not sure she would be my first choice for a replacement for Sally. Mind you she has got green fingers, oh! and she likes a tipple.
Can Helen find the killer? Will Jean return? The one character who does return is Jimmy, the Elvis impersonator who has been away with his troupe of Elvis impersonators on a gig. He had been seeing Helen, but Helen is confused about her feelings for him.
The
characterisation is brilliant. I was so delighted when I received this book and
had the opportunity to meet up again with the inmates at the Seaview
Hotel. A good mystery with flashes of
humour. I know that the question you
will all be asking is ‘will Helen find the murderer, and get the 4-star plaque affixed
to the hotel wall?’ Read it and find out.
Highly recommended.
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Reviewer:
Lizzie Sirett.
Glenda Young credits her local library in
the village of Ryhope, where she grew up, for giving her a love of books. She
still lives close by in Sunderland and often gets her ideas for her stories on
long bike rides along the coast. A life-long fan of Coronation Street, she
runs two hugely popular fan websites.
Thank you so much!
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