Not Mushroom For Death
TV Chef Luca Mazza Dies After Collapse at Food Show on the King’s Private Estate
Luca Mazza (38), who was taken ill during a food demonstration at the Fenn House Food and Wine Festival two days ago, is now known to have ingested poison. Lady Beatrice (36), the king’s niece, who is working on a refurbishment project at Fenn House with her business partner Perry Juke (34), is believed to be comforting Luca’s boss and close friend Sebastiano Marchetti (38), who she began dating last month.
Is he crazy? Why else would Detective Chief Inspector Richard Fitzwilliam suggest that Sebastiano poisoned Luca without any evidence? So now, with the help of her little dog Daisy and her best friends Perry and Simon, Lady Beatrice will have to prove to Mr Know-it-all Fitzwilliam that Seb is innocent. But with so many people having access to the food preparation area at the show how will she find out who did murder Luca before Fitzwilliam lets his personal dislike get the better of him and arrests Seb?
Purchase Links
Amazon –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BFBMT9BP (UK)
and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFBMT9BP (US)
Author Bio
Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my step-daughter, her two cats, our two dogs, sometimes my step-son, and our tortoise.
I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it.
It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes
Social Media Links
Insta: www.instragram.com/helengolden_author
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helengoldenauthor
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@helengoldenauthor
My Review
Who doesn’t love a punny title? It’s one of the best things about cosy mysteries, and it certainly caught my attention. I hadn’t read any of the others in the series but I am definitely planning to go back and check them out. By the way, the story works perfectly well as a standalone, I just want to know more about the key characters.
I’ll be honest, I did wonder if this would be a historical cosy given the main character is a proper Lady but I loved that it was a contemporary tale with a made-up Royal family of its own.
Lady Beatrice, together with her business partner, the fantastic Perry Juke, is working on a refurbishment project for the King while a cooking event is taking place starring Chef Seb – Lady Bea’s boyfriend – and a host of other chefs. When one of the main participants – Luca – takes ill and later dies, rumours of an unfortunate case of food poisoning run amok. And so begins the mystery. Had Luca been foraging and accidentally picked poisonous mushrooms? Did someone else plant the mushrooms in his dish?
So many questions, so many suspects, and so many secrets.
Let me just say that Lady Bea’s dog, Daisy knows the answer 😉
When it appears that Luca was murdered, Lady Bea’s nemesis in the form of DCI Fitzwilliam is brought in to investigate. Now, these two, I understand, have met before in other cases and he is not keen on her meddling. Which means, that’s the green light for her to “meddle” and solve the case before him. But will she? There’s a frisson of romantic tension bubbling away here which only adds to the fun.
Aided and abetted by the marvellous duo of Perry and Simon, not forgetting the instinctive reaction of her dog, Daisy, what follows is an entertaining mystery, and a tongue-in-cheek view of royal gossip. (Timely, indeed 😉 )
My only issue was the use of so many POVs which seemed to be used to reveal their inner thoughts and in so doing move the story forward. That said, each POV was presented with consistency and clarity. I loved the setting, the royal obligations to behave a certain way, and the inclusion of Lady Bea’s son brought a touch of youthful exuberance to the story (although Perry has his fair share of that too) I loved the characters, their relationship with each other, the behind-the-scenes details of the royal rooms being refurbished… in fact, it was a most amusing and engaging read with the promise of more to come. I’ll be back for more; I just need to catch up on the others in the series first.
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