Death at Paradise Palms (The Retired Detectives Club Book 2)

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I arrived a day early, on the Wednesday, as my panel was scheduled for 9.30am the next day. I’d been intending to travel by train, but 10 minutes before I was due to leave for the station I got an alert on my phone telling me that my train was cancelled (the rails were a casualty of the immensely hot weather the previous two days). So, instead, I jumped in the car and drove the four plus hours to Harrogate. Over the next few days I caught up with writer friends old and new, met fabulous editors Leodora Darlington and Victoria Haslam for the first time in person (having joined my publisher in Covid times our meetings have been virtual until now), and met up with my brilliant agent, Oli Munson. I also attended Luca Veste’s book launch for his latest (wonderful) novel You Never Said Goodbye, and the hugely fun Thomas & Mercer party. Other top highlights were seeing the legends that are Michael Connelly and Mark Billingham on stage, and meeting Michael Connelly. The retired protagonists are asked by the deceased realtor's parents to investigate. Lizzie, the former forensic specialist, deduces that the trajectory of the body indicates the victim was pushed. The foursome then interviews colleagues at the real estate agency as well as the employees & owners of the building. Along with other crime fiction authors, she provides coaching for new crime writers via www.crimefictioncoach.com.

To keep things short, I have to say that I ended up being surprisingly underwhelmed by Death In The Sunshine. I expected a new favorite, but instead sadly ended up with a dud... Repetition and bland characters don't exactly call for enticing reading, and I don't think I will be continuing the series at this point. Honestly I was drawn to this thanks to Richard Osman and his entertaining set of books with a similar premise. Was this as good? No. Was it entertaining? Absolutely.

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I’m really looking forward to Death At Paradise Palms, Retired Detectives Club #2, when it’s published on November 29, 2022. Told in alternating POV’s between the four main characters, this cozy mystery struggles to gain its footing for a very long time. Character development is slow and immature. Sure, some key items are clearly being reserved for future volumes but there was barely enough information to manage relationships between the primaries and provide structure. My mind kept wandering and I even fell asleep a few times! Also, Steph Broadribb's writing got in the way of her story some because of how she had British phraseology in play when the characters in a given situation were Americans. Sorry, love, you need to write everything in American English except for what the British characters are saying and/or thinking. (A descriptive sentence about a car by the kerb and several references to "hospital" instead of "the hospital" were particuarly irksome.) That's me saying this as a real Anglophile, too! My first task in 2022 will be to finish a polished first draft of Retired Detectives Book 2 and send it off to my editor by my deadline at the end of January. I’ll then be focusing on the editing of that book before starting the planning for the third instalment in the series. And I’m really looking forward to launching DEATH IN THE SUNSHINE in March. Suitable for teen - adult, but adults would probably enjoy it more because of the ages of the characters.

My main criticism probably stems from the fact that I had not read the first two books in the series, but jumped straight to the third book. I normally like cozy crime, but here I missed some base for the story. It is mentioned several times that they don't have a PI license, so why does everyone talk to them? If my family member had been murdered, I wouldn't have spoken to anyone without credentials. Also, what evidence could they find that would stand up in court? I know that this is fiction, but I would have needed more justification for the investigation to seem realistic to me. If you're an avid reader of the series, you might disagree with my point though, It was the best fun to be a part of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2021. After all face to face events were cancelled in 2020 it was so great to reconnect with my crime writing pals and with all the brilliant readers and bloggers that I haven’t seen in what seems like forever.Deep Down Dead is the first novel in the Lori Anderson series. In this fun new story from a talented author, readers get introduced to the main character in this story, named Lori Anderson! I absolutely loved every bit of this story. Be it the writing, the mystery behind the kidnapping, the excitement and tension of finding Cody before it is too late, suspense, character development (Moira's was the best!) and plot to story development - absolutely Fantabulous! An exclusive high-stakes poker game is arranged in the penthouse suite of one of the city’s tallest buildings, with Lori holding the cards in an agreed arrangement to hand over the pieces. But, as night falls and the game plays out, stakes rise and tempers flare. The building's schematics and access points are kept secret from the quartet (proprietary info), but they have outside resources to assist, including the junior investigating officer.

Anyway, the premise was great. The execution? Let's say not so much. Some of the characters were just flat-out unlikeable, a few were unbelievable and/or caricatures of a type, and there was _way_ too much angsty deep dark secret malarkey going on for my taste. Like, I literally started rolling my eyes any time any of those dead horses got beaten again after about a third of the way through the book. Grammar in "...he needs to tread real careful..." could be improved if the word "real" was left out completely and "carefully" used instead of careful. Steph Broadribb is an English author of fiction. She first became a published author with the release of her first novel, which is titled Deep Down Dead. First of all, I do have to say that I still love the premise of this story. The setting in a Florida retirement village, the four retired detectives/CSI deciding to investigate a murder after the local police doesn't seem to be doing their job... It sounds like the perfect recipe for a good story and it kind of has that The Thursday Murder Club vibe. The unofficial investigation let by our retired team is engaging and has enough twists to keep you entertained. It does make you wonder just how much detective Golding is screwing up/wanting to hide the truth though...

Publication Order of Retired Detectives Club Books

I like the dynamic between the characters and I felt invested in them . The setting is in a warm and sunny place and that always helps to lift the mood for me too . As Moira tries to keep her past from becoming her present, she finds herself being stalked by someone. Unfortunately, she is not sure the person is after her for looking into the recent crimes, or for the reason she decided to retire from a job she loved but due to her last case which had such a devastating ending, she needed to leave. On Thursday I attended the opening of Creative Thursday, by festival chair and wonderful author, Denise Mina, and then it was time to get to work and onto the Creative Thursday Alumni panel with Mari Hannah, Lesley Thomson, and David Bishop. It was a lot of fun to be on a panel with these brilliant authors and the time flew past! It was lovely to meet the participants of Creative Thursday, and chat to them about their writing journeys during the coffee break, before they continued on to workshops with the fantastic Vaseem Khan, and Greg and Kate Mosse. Crime investigation novels are a hit or a miss for me, but I really enjoyed this one. It's the perfect balance of investigation and procedure mixed with real time drama from the characters' own lives. It almost felt like a Florida version of Blue Bloods, one of my favorite shows of all time. I don't generally care about the person or tense of a book's narrator as I'm pretty flexible, but this is told in 3rd person present tense, which is unusual, and it took a little getting used to.