*I beta read and received an ARC of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
Blurb: A bag of baffling clues
A string of mysterious deaths
A race to expose the truth …
When mystery author Tiggy Jones launches Mystery Week in her local town in Devon, she opens a donated bag of ‘mystery items’ to entertain the audience. But the first thing she holds up has a nasty stain on it. Is it blood? Or is someone playing a trick to embarrass her?
Tiggy rescues the moment and takes the bag home, only to discover it’s full of perplexing evidence. With her curiosity piqued, she begins to untangle the connections between the clues.
Why has the isolated distillery at Larrington Hall on Dartmoor seen so many deaths over the last twenty years?
Does the 500-year-old legend behind its exclusive blue liqueur hide a dangerous secret?
And when Tiggy gets close to uncovering one truth too many, will the purpose behind the bag of evidence turn deadly?
Join Tiggy Jones, with her dog Raider, as she discovers that researching a mystery novel is usually safe but investigating a murder or two is perilous.
A Deadly Concoction is the third book in the addictive Tiggy Jones Mystery Series – small town English mysteries with an edge – and a dog: A Scrap of Silk and A Missing Signature.
This is the third book in the Tiggy Jones mystery series and they just keep getting better and better! You don’t need to have read the previous books to read this one, as each story stands alone perfectly. I would still recommend reading them anyway, but that is because they are so good!
Mixing some local mythology with her uncontrollable instinct to uncover the truth, Tiggy (and Raider and Baxter) investigate a series of not-so-recent deaths that all seem to be connected somehow. Urged on by an anonymous source and Tiggy’s work on her next Piper mystery (which is loosely based around the clues they find), the trio can’t resist following up on the real-life trail, but are any of the deaths actually suspicious or are they just the accidents or suicides they appeared to be?
I really love the characters in this series, that feel like real people (and dogs – not forgetting Raider!) to me. Tiggy and Baxter make a really engaging sleuthing partnership based on mutual respect and a shared burning curiosity, and I have everything crossed that once Baxter finished his P.I. training he finally manages to persuade Tiggy to make it official (as long as she keeps writing her books too!).
The sense of place is particularly immersive, bringing to life the varied Devon setting with its cliffs and oceans, moors and bogs, and the local mythology of piskies and ‘Black Shuck’ seamlessly reinforces that authentic atmosphere in this story. And I was hooked in to the plot from the very first sentence – who doesn’t want to know more about a mysterious bag full of suspicious items, a trail of ominous gnomes and an ancient liqueur with mystical properties?!
I wholeheartedly recommend this book (and the rest of the series) to any mystery fans looking for a new British mystery series full of intrigue and interesting details, and characters you will wish you could hang out with.
“It’s got blood on it!” screams a small boy in the front row.
I’m standing behind a microphone facing a packed marquee. The skewer I’m holding up is stained dark red. My mouth has gone dry. I’ve just lost the light-hearted mood I’ve created.
– Virginia King, A Deadly Concoction
Purchase Link: A Deadly Concoction on Amazon
About the author
VIRGINIA KING has lived most of her life in Sydney, but has travelled to many places. Her books blend her love of mystery, travel and psychology with dashes of folklore in a fast-paced style.
Virginia has been a teacher, an unemployed ex-teacher, an audio-book producer, the author of over 50 childrenʼs books, a workshop presenter and an award-winning publisher. These days she’s a full-time writer who paints a bit, living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with her husband, three pet alpacas and four chickens.
Website: https://www.virginiakingbooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selkiemoonmysteries/
Bookshine And Readbows 