So you know those days when you’ve read all your favourite authors’ latest books and their back lists and you really want to crack the whip at them and shout come on, write another one, on social media but you don’t because they are human beings not machines and they are entitled to a life regardless about how desperate you are for their next book? So you start looking for new super good authors and looking… and looking and out of the blue someone says why not try this? And you do and it’s always a gamble because they might be the next candidate for your keeper shelf, or they may be a DNF (did not finish), or they may simply be enjoyable but forgettable but you’re always looking and you enjoy reading so you go for it.
Well I did. I tried A Murder of Magpies by Judith Flanders and it was flippin brilliant. So brilliant I went straight out and bought the others in the series. Ms Flanders didn’t just hook me from the start, she made me fall in love with heroine Sam Clair and her policeman love interest. BUT here’s the thing. The affection that the author, through Sam who is a really nice, sharp, intelligent, person, has for her secondary characters shines through and I loved them all as a result. Sam’s mother is just a star- super competent and non judgemental and the neighbours, well they are so excellently drawn and enhance the book so much that they are jewels in their own right. Ms Flanders just does everything well.
As to the mystery- well I didn’t guess the perpetrator in any of the three Sam Clair books I read. To be honest I was so caught up in the joy of the story that I didn’t have the time or inclination to try working out who dunnit.
The author has a wry, dry, sly sense of humour throughout and the writing is very clever and kept me, as a reader, on my toes. She obviously knows her stuff. This is fresh, tightly written cozy crime with lovable characters.
Go on, what are you waiting for? Go and buy it now!
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