The Murders in Great Diddling

Audiobook

English language

Published Aug. 13, 2024 by Dreamscape Audio.

ISBN:
978-1-6666-6835-3
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
1452301848
5 stars (1 review)

The best stories are the ones we didn’t know needed to be told.

The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories―author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers… Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she’s just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn’t just want this story. She needs it.

Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village’s grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos. The residents of Great Diddling, each one more eccentric and interesting …

3 editions

Cozy mystery with a bit of police procedural

5 stars

While attending a tea party in Great Diddling, author Berit Gardner witnesses the murder of Reginald Trent in the manor of his aunt, Daphne Trent. Reginald Trent is pretty universally disliked in the village of Great Diddling. Everyone there dislikes him. Berit Gardner, wanting to avoid writing her next book, investigates instead. Meanwhile the townsfolk, lead by tourist board chair, decide to take advantage of their sudden notoriety by holding a books & murders literary festival on short notice. At the center of the crime is who controls the books of Tawny Hall, Daphne Trent's massive collection.

It's a cozy mystery. It's a bit of a police procedural. It's an homage to readers, though there precious little of the point of view of readers. All the town's characters have backstories. My main nitpick is the ultimate solution to the mystery of the murder follows a pretty standard pattern, so whodunnit …