A Peridale Cafe Mystery, book 22: Scones and scandalAgatha Frost2021

With Julia South-Brown enjoying her newborn daughter’s every milestone safe in her cosy cottage, and with maternity leave cutting her off from the rumour mill of her café, she doesn’t realise just how much local news and gossip she’s missed. Between a wave of break-ins and thefts, Peridale isn’t quite the safe little village she remembers.

But when the leader of Peridale’s Eyes, the local neighbourhood watch group, meets her end on the same day Julia’s neighbour Leah’s house is broken into and robbed, Julia finds herself pulled back into the familiar world of clues, suspects, and motives – not to mention her gran’s rival neighbourhood watch group.

Dot South knows this is her moment to shine. For years, she’s been dreaming of starting a neighbourhood watch group of her own. Now, with a murder on her doorstep and a bunch of hapless amateurs bungling every attempt at solving it, who better to form and lead a newer, better version of Peridale’s Eyes?

Or should she say … Dot’s Detectives?