Title: Murder Unexpected
Author: Anita Waller
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Publication Date: 25 January 2019 (paperback), 11 February 2019 (ebook)
Twitter: @anitamayw
Facebook: Anita.M.Waller
Blurb
Kat and Mouse are back.
Church Deacon Kat and her friend Beth, known as Mouse, have started a private investigation business in the sleepy village of Eyam.
Kat, whose estranged criminal husband, Leon, is on the run, has a lot on her plate running the new business whilst heavily pregnant.
When a widow asks the sleuths for help, Kat and Mouse find themselves searching for the birth mother of the widow’s husband. but when it becomes clear that the widow isn’t telling the whole truth, Kat and Mouse are drawn into a deadly chase where nothing is what it seems.
Meanwhile, Kat’s husband has come back to Eyam and has Kat in his sights.
Can Kat and Mouse solve the case and escape the dangerous Leon?
This time they might just be out of their depth…
Review
Murder Unexpected is the second book in the Kat & Mouse series (I believe it is intended to be a trilogy) from author Anita Waller.
Katerina (Kat) Rowe is the Church Deacon at Eyam parish church, and investigator at The Connection Detective Agency, the company she runs with friend Beth (Mouse) Walters and Beth’s grandmother, Doris Lester (Nan).
When widow, Judy Carpenter hires Connection to help find the birth mother of her late husband, it quickly becomes apparent that things aren’t quite as they first seem. This is a family with secrets, some of which they want to remain hidden.
If that wasn’t stressful enough, Kat is heavily pregnant, juggling two jobs and trying to avoid her murderous husband, Leon, who remains on the run from the police. She certainly has a lot on her plate!
The book would fall comfortably within the genre of a cosy mystery. It is an easy read; well-written and well-paced with a decent plot and enough twists and turns to capture the reader’s interest.
The characters are all appealing and believable. Kat, Mouse and Nan make a great crime-fighting team and the banter between the three of them is very entertaining. The supporting characters are equally as interesting. I very much liked DI Tessa Marsden, she seems to have a sensible but empathetic head on her shoulders. The author has also thrown in a few unlikable characters into the suspect pool, which makes for an interesting challenge when trying to decide ‘whodunnit’.
Overall, an entertaining, fun and enjoyable read, perfect for fans of cosy mysteries and crime fiction.
I would say that this is not really a standalone book and I would suggest that the Kat & Mouse books are read in order. There are a lot of references to the earlier book, plus the wrapping up of a few loose ends, which aren’t fully explained unless you have read Murder Undeniable. There are also a few loose ends not fully tied up in this tale and I am now keen to read number 3 for a final conclusion (that’s not a bad thing, but rather a great excuse to add another book to the reading pile!).
Thank you to Bloodhound Books and Emma (@DampPebbles) for inviting me to take park in this blog tour and providing a digital review copy of Murder Unexpected.
About the Author
Anita was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and has lived all her life there. She has three adult children and seven grandchildren ranging in age from 9 months to 21 years. Anita and Dave have been married almost 49 years!
She wrote Beautiful in 1985 and had it accepted for publication. They were at the contract stage when the publishing house went into liquidation.
Like many other books, it ended up in the loft until two years ago when she resurrected it, retyped all 100,000 words (it was originally written on an Amstrad 8256 and all she had was a hard copy!) and sent it off to Bloodhound Books.
She is now retired from life as a Patchwork Tutor and HGV driver’s wife and concentrates on patchwork for the pleasure of it and writing. She started writing at around the age of 8 – she clearly remembers writing ‘novels’ at an age which were actually short stories split into chapters!
Anita’s genre is murder – but murder with a good reason behind it!
BUY LINKS
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