Have to squeeze in one more review before the new year.
Antique Tragedy: A British Cozy Murder Mystery
(A Dotty Sayers Antique Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
5th in Series
Setting – Cotswolds, England
Kanga Press (December 17, 2022)
Paperback : 228 pages
ISBN-10 : 1915413168
ISBN-13 : 978-1915413161
Kindle (December 26, 2022)
ASIN : B0BJLF8G4Y
An antique fair. A dead stallholder. Can an amateur sleuth both bag a bargain and identify a killer?
Trainee antique expert, Dotty Sayers, is feeling vulnerable after being framed for art trafficking by a trusted friend. She welcomes the distraction of visiting a vintage sale but is alarmed when an exhibitor is found dead.
The police’s resources are stretched when a valuable antiquity is stolen at the same event. As Dotty conducts her own enquiries, this amateur detective can’t help thinking there is more at stake than one man’s death.
Can Dotty scratch off the varnish and expose the truth?
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Back to work after being framed for art trafficking by someone she trusted, antique expert trainee, Dotty Sayers is excited to keep learning more about antiques by attending a vintage sale. To make things fun her friend Keya goes along. But before the day is over Keya is pushed into service when one of the exhibitors is found dead. In a crime that may be related a valuable copper jug was stolen from another exhibitor’s booth. As Dotty tries to put clues together, she attends another event with her police friends tagging along, and again Dotty finds a dead body. Can she appraise all the evidence and find who is killing off people at the vintage sales? Or will she find herself in peril?
Dotty continues to surprise me as she grows more independent in each story. What happened in the previous book shook her but she didn’t let it hold her back for long. I love the way her friendship with Sergeant Keya Varma has evolved. They spend a lot of time together and have fun though they keep finding dead bodies. All the while, Beanie is adjusting to Cliff being in a care home but his struggles still affect her greatly. The author continues to develop all her characters in realistic and genuine ways. It is not hard to identify with at least one of them.
Dotty is turning into quite an amateur sleuth. She is very observant and sometimes it takes her some time to pull a memory she needs forward but she doesn’t give up. In this story, there are several suspects, some of who seem to have great alibis but you can tell she loves trying to find things to poke holes in those alibis even if she has to do some fancy footwork to get there. She does find herself in some hot water before all the pieces come together.
What was a little puzzling was that all the mysteries were not solved by the final page. I tried desperately to make my Kindle find more pages. Ms. Tait leaves us with several questions and this first line of the next book’s synopsis:
A victim who dies twice. A web of deceit. With the help of her friends, can an amateur sleuth crack the case, or will she pay the ultimate price?
Priceless Betrayal
Antique Tragedy
Your Escape Into A Good Book Travel Agent
About Victoria Tait
I was born and raised in Yorkshire, UK, and never expected to travel the world. But I fell for an Army Officer, and I’ve followed him from Northern Ireland, up to the Scottish Highlands, across to Africa and the Kenyan Savannah, back to the British Cotswolds, and we are now living in Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Southern Europe.
I never expected to be an author, but all this moving is not ideal for holding down a job. Instead, I’ve taken the experiences of the places I’ve lived to write vivid and evocative cozy mystery books with determined female sleuths.
I have two fast-growing teenage boys, and together we’ve learnt to ski on the Bosnian mountains. I also enjoy horse riding, mountain biking and I’ve started running as a way to improve my physical fitness, mental well-being and shed some excess pounds.
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The Rest of the Series
Coming March 24, 2023
Also by Victoria Tait
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
