Murder Served Cold

by Paula Williams

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU

 

A quiet English village where nothing ever happens.   Until…..

After her boyfriend runs out on her with the contents of their joint bank account, Kat Latcham has no choice but to return to the tiny Somerset village of Much Winchmoor where she grew up.  A place, she reckons, that is not so much sleepy as comatose and she longs for something to happen to lessen the boredom of living with her parents.

But when she and her childhood friend, Will Manning, discover a body and Will’s father, John, is arrested for the murder, Kat suddenly realizes that she should have heeded the saying “Be careful what you wish for”.

Much Winchmoor is a hotbed of gossip and everyone is convinced John Manning is guilty.  Only Kat and Will believe he’s innocent. When there’s a second murder Kat is sure she knows the identity of the murderer – and set out to prove it.  But in doing so she almost becomes the murderer’s third victim.

Readers of Sue Grafton might enjoy the Much Winchmoor series of cozy murder mysteries spiked with humor and sprinkled with romance.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

If spreading gossip was an Olympic sport, Elsie Flintlock would be a quadruple gold medallist. They had no need of super-fast broadband in this village. Elsie and her cronies were quicker than the speed of light.

 

Take your time, sweetheart… You don’t have to sample all the chocolates in the box to find the one that’s right for you. He’ll come along soon enough.

 

… that’s a pretty top you’re almost wearing. What was it before? A handkerchief?

 

Eddie says living with me at the moment is like living on the edge of an active volcano, just waiting for the next eruption.

 

My Review:

 

Paula Williams is off to an excellent start for her new cozy series with an engaging mystery and lovable heroine. I enjoyed her breezy and amusing writing style as well as getting to know the hapless Katie. Katie had hit a rough patch after an unfortunate string of bad luck in her love life and career – as she had lost both. Her cad of a boyfriend took off with her friend as well as her car, money, and treasured Dr. Who swag. The nerve! After the further indignity of losing her job, Katie was forced to suck it up and move back into her parents’ home with her London style fashion of purple hair and ripped jeans. She chafed at having to leave behind the freedom and anonymity of the big city to return to a small village of busybodies where the majority of the population liked nothing more than plopping down in the pub and imbibing in the amusing and intriguingly named beer of Ferret’s Kneecaps while spreading malicious gossip.

Katie meant well but she was a bit of an idiot. She was young and gullible as well as oblivious, self-involved, and impulsive; yet always surprised when people became antagonized with her when she couldn’t stop snooping, or follow directions, or pay attention. She also had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time but luckily she was also well-loved and indulged by her parents. Katie was a mess, yet I kind of adored her, as I was once very much like her as a plucky young adult – before I became old and jaded 😉

Score – I extracted a few colorful new additions to my Brit word list with oik, which is British slang for low class or obnoxious; and the phrase “what a tip,” which Mr. Google indicated was a dump or pile of rubbish.

 

Author Bio –

Paula Williams is living her dream.  She has written all her life – her earliest efforts involved blackmailing her unfortunate younger brothers into appearing in her plays and pageants. But it is only in recent years, when she turned her attention to writing short stories and serials for women’s magazines that she discovered, to her surprise, that people with better judgment than her brothers actually liked what she wrote and were prepared to pay her for it.

Now, she writes every day in a lovely, book-lined study in her home in Somerset, where she lives with her husband and a handsome but not always obedient rescue Dalmatian called Duke.  She still writes for magazines but also now writes novels. A member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Crime Writers’ Association, her novels often feature a murder or two and are always sprinkled with humor and spiced with a touch of romance.

She also writes a monthly column, Ideas Store, for the writers’ magazine, Writers’ Forum and has a blog at paulawilliamswriter.wordpress.com.  Her facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/paula.williams.author . And she tweets at @paulawilliams44.

Not only that but when she’s not writing, she’s either tutoring, leading writing workshops or giving talks on writing at writing festivals and conferences and to organized groups.  She’s appeared several times on local radio – in fact, she’ll talk about writing to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to listen.

But, as with the best of dreams, she worries that one day she’s going to wake up and find she still has to bully her brothers into reading ‘the play what she wrote’.

Social Media Links –

Facebook.   https://www.facebook.com/paula.williams.author

Blog. paulawilliamswriter.wordpress.com

Twitter. @paulawilliams44