The Cornish Castle Murder by Fiona Leitch

 

Jodie 'Nosey' Parker and her fiance Nathan are about to tie the knot. Family and friends are gathered at a country house hotel in preparation when a dead body is discovered. Despite having other things to worry about, Jodie can't avoid getting involved in the investigation.

The Cornish Castle Murder by Fiona Leitch is book 8 in the Nosey Parker Mystery series and is a great addition. Fans of the series will have grown to love the characters and seen the relationship between Jodie and Nathan develop. Finally, they are about to get married and have hired a "castle" for the big event, an exclusive country house hotel, for the wedding.

With friends arriving from other parts of the country, and abroad, the couple decide to hold their stag and hen do's at the hotel before the wedding. There's tension between Nathan's old colleagues from Liverpool and his current ones from Cornwall with things reaching a head when the hens invade the stag do and discover that risque waitresses have been hired. 

The following morning the body of one of the waitresses is discovered in the lake on the hotel grounds. Suspicion for her murder falls firstly on her boyfriend and then on one of the wedding party. Although it would seem that Nathan, and Jodie, are ideally placed to investigate the murder they are sidelined. Not only is Nathan on leave, there is also a conflict of interest. DI Diana Mackintosh of Exeter Police, and an old colleague of Jodie's from when she worked in the Met, is tasked with the investigation.

Despite numerous warnings to leave the investigation alone, Jodie can't help but search for answers herself. Being at the scene seems to give Jodie the upper hand as she's able to scrutinise lots of different elements involved in the case such as CCTV and the hotel layout, and surreptitiously question staff.

All of the normal humorous elements are present in the book. Jodie's mother, Shirley, is as embarrassing as ever and seems to have found an ally in the form of Nathan's mother. There is much eye-rolling from Daisy, Jodie's daughter, at the escapades of all the adults.

This is one of those cosy crime books that has you rapidly turning the pages, wanting to see how everything pieces together after they stumble from one clue to the next, sometimes through ridiculous situations.

The Cornish Castle Murder by Fiona Leitch will be published on 29th April 2025 in ebook and audio format, with the paperback following on 8th May 2025.

Author Details

Fiona Leitch is a writer with a chequered past. She’s written for football and motoring magazines, DJ’ed at illegal raves and is a stalwart of the low budget TV commercial, even appearing as the Australasian face of a cleaning product called ‘Sod Off’. After living in London and Cornwall she’s finally settled in sunny New Zealand, where she enjoys scaring her cats by trying out dialogue on them. She spends her days dreaming of retiring to a crumbling Venetian palazzo, walking on the windswept beaches of West Auckland, and writing funny, flawed but awesome female characters.

Her debut novel ‘Dead in Venice’ was published by Audible in 2018 as one of their Crime Grant finalists. Fiona also writes screenplays and was a finalist in the Athena Film Festival Writers Lab, co-run by Meryl Streep’s IRIS company.