I Read What You Write is pleased to host a stop on this tour for “Meddling With Murder” by Ellie Campbell. I invite you to read on to see my review of the book and don’t forget to enter to win an e-copy of the book.
Title/Author: Meddling With Murder / Ellie Campbell
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: Across The Pond Press
Date of publish: April 2016
Pages: 309
Purchase Links: Amazon
Book Site Links:
Goodreads / Riffle / BookLikes
About The Book:
Crouch End Confidential, the agency started by housewife and mother, Cathy O’Farrell, with ex-cleaner, Pimple is failing badly. Hardly surprising when Cathy’s too soft-hearted to charge their only clients, little old ladies seeking lost pets and a school kid searching for his stolen bike.
A new case involving a teenager in possession of an unexplained Glock pistol promises to change all that. Quickly Cathy’s deep in waters over her head, forced with hilarious results to pose as a mathematics tutor, a subject of which she’s truly clueless. There’s also the tricky situation of best friend and new mother Rosa hiring her to investigate her fiancé, Alec, plus the mysterious sabotage of Cathy’s friends’ cycle shop and a gang of yobbos dealing drugs at her children’s primary school.
Worst of all, an ill-fated trip to rural Norfolk has Cathy’s husband, Declan, intent on buying a post office and transplanting the family to safer climes, threatening to tear Cathy permanently from her beloved North London home.
Pretty soon Cathy’s risking her friendships, her marriage and even her life untangling all these messes. But that’s what you get for meddling in murder…
What Others Are Saying:
The pacing and tempo of Meddling with Murder simmered along happily until towards the end, where the tension mounted steadily and with great excitement.
~Back Porchervations
This laugh out loud, fast-paced story will keep you up reading past your bedtime.
~Shelley’s Book Case
It’s a fast-paced mystery, full of humor with really amazing and funny characters.
~LibriAmoriMiei
My Review:
Cathy and her friend Pimple have a neighborhood business with which they help neighbors with confidential issues. Thus far it hasn’t been much more than helping elderly clients find missing pets or the schoolboy with a missing bike. When Cathy accepts a job to help find a missing dog that isn’t actually missing, she finds she might actually have more going on than she can handle. Her friends are pulling her in many directions and her husband is thinking of moving to country to avoid the crime, murder and drug use that has suddenly spiked in their quiet neighborhood. Cathy realizes that her cases and the crime spree may have a connection but can she find it before someone gets hurt.
This isn’t a typical cozy story. The story line is quite original. While Cathy, does fit the mold of the determined small business owner woman out to prove herself, she really is just a middle aged wife and mom who is trying to make ends meet a little better with some self employment. She is a woman that I think many readers will identify with.
The plot, which of course includes a murder to be solved, doesn’t revolve around the murder itself. The mystery has many disparate seeming lines that keep the story moving and tie together beautifully at the end.
Lian once interviewed a fire captain and the question that everyone wanted the boy to ask was whether he had actually ever rescued a cat from a tree. Turns out that he had, twice. As I read the opening of this book I had to laugh as I wondered if he ever had been called out to rescue a mom rescuing a cat from a tree. The rest of the book, even through its serious moments, kept me laughing. As the story progressed, the situation seemed typically Cathy as she put herself into and got out one humorously awkward predicament after another. I snickered at how ineffective her attempt at disguising herself was. I actually guffawed at the waitress calling her out for fib about her Twitter followers. Cathy and her diverse group of friends were quite fun and I would enjoy spending more time with them in the future.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
About The Author:
Ellie Campbell is a pseudonym for sister writing team, Pam Burks and Lorraine Campbell. Running wild as tomboys in Scotland, playing imagination games, they couldn’t dream that one day they’d co-author novels despite an ocean between them. From boring clerical jobs in London to a varied life of backpacking and adventure travel, both started almost accidentally as short story writers, Lorraine when working in publishing, Pam as a fun hobby while an at-home mother of three.
By the time each had 70 short stories published internationally, Pam was settled in Surrey, England, and Lorraine had finally taken root in Boulder, Colorado. Long telephone chats about life and fiction led to their current collaboration. They have produced five acclaimed novels – How To Survive Your Sisters, When Good Friends Go Bad, Looking For La La, To Catch A Creeper and Million Dollar Question. They write contemporary women’s fiction laced with humour, romance, and mystery.
When not hunched over computers, Lorraine, a certified ROTH ‘horse whisperer’, can usually be found messing about with her four rescue horses and Pam on a fund raising bike ride, madly cycling over mountains to Paris, Barcelona or Gibraltar on the back of her husband’s bone-shaking tandem.
See Lian Asks: 5 Questions with Ellie Campbell for more about the author
Author Links:
Website / Twitter / Facebook / Amazon / Google+ / Pinterest / Goodreads /Linked In
Giveaway:
One of my favorite things about this story was the casual references to pop culture by Cathy. I find that Doctor Who, for instance, is a great way to connect with a character that I might otherwise have only a little in common with.
Leave a comment below telling us about your favorite pop culture reference in a book you have read. On May 2 I will randomly choose 3 comments to win 1 of 3 e-copies of Meddling with Murder by Ellie Campbell. My Thanks to the author and Great Escapes Book Tours for making this giveaway possible.
More Books By Ellie Campbell
Tour Participants
April 18 – deal sharing aunt – INTERVIEW
April 19 – Brooke Blogs – GUEST POST, GIVEAWAY
April 20 – Back Porchervations – REVIEW
April 21 – Shelley’s Book Case – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 22 – Omnimystery News – INTERVIEW
April 23 – 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, &, Sissy, Too! – SPOTLIGHT, GIVEAWAY
April 24 – Author Annette Drake’s blog – INTERVIEW
April 25 – LibriAmoriMiei – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 26 – Island Confidential – INTERVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 27 – I Read What You Write – REVIEW, INTERVIEW, GIVEAWAY
April 28 – Lori’s Reading Corner – GUEST POST
April 28 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
April 29 – Texas Book-aholic – REVIEW
April 30 – Christa Reads and Writes – REVIEW
May 1 – The Girl with Book Lungs – SPOTLIGHT
May 1 – Queen of All She Reads – SPOTLIGHT, GIVEAWAY
May 2 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW, GIVEAWAY
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