This time last weekend I was starting my low fibre diet in preparation for a colonoscopy the following Tuesday. The very worst part of having a colonoscopy is the preparation, cleaning out your intestines so the doctor can see what’s happening up there. Steamed white fish, steamed chicken breast, peeled white potatoes, white bread… at least I could have eggs. No cups of tea, although I was allowed a plain dry biscuit. That was Saturday and Sunday. On Monday it was all fluid. I have to say, they’ve improved the taste of the gut-cleansing fluid, Pecoprep. It wasn’t bad straight out of the fridge. Followed, of course, by lots and lots of different fluids – strained chicken noodle soup, sports drinks, lemonade, and water. And lemon jelly. It was considered a fluid but at least I could pretend I was eating something solid.
Before I was allowed home from hospital I was given a cup of tea and a sandwich to prove I was functional. You have no idea how good that mixed sandwich tasted! Still, with a family history of bowel cancer, it’s worth a bit of discomfort every 5 years. And as it happens, it took place on our 24th wedding anniversary. We usually forget.
In between home renovations I’ve been reading some new-to-me books. I told you about Clare Chase’s Cambridge murder mysteries. Then I discovered she had another long-running series set in a small village in Sussex. I’d actually read the first book some months back and quite enjoyed it without feeling the need to rush out and buy the next one.
When Bernard Fitzpatrick drowns in a river close to his home, the village mourns a tragic accident… and amateur sleuth Eve Mallow is on the case.
Obituary writer Eve is looking forward to her new assignment, as well as spending a few days in the sweet little village of Saxford St Peter, walking the country lanes with her beloved dachshund Gus. But it turns out that it’s Bernard’s death that she’ll need to investigate, not his life. On the day she arrives, news breaks that the world-famous cellist was the victim of a grisly murder. Could this quaint English village be hiding a dark secret?
As Eve starts to interview Bernard’s friends and colleagues, she finds that he’d ruffled more than a few feathers. In fact, from the landlords of the Cross Keys Inn to his own seemingly devoted secretary, there’s barely a person in town who doesn’t have some reason to hate him… is one of the friendly villagers really a cold-blooded killer?
Eve hoped Saxford St Peter would be the perfect escape from her busy city life. But there is darkness even in the most sunlit of settings. And when a second body is found, Eve realises she’s spoken to every single suspect. Her notebook contains all the clues she needs. But will she be able to crack the case and identify them… before they realise she’s on their trail and make her their next target?
The books are reminiscent of Father Brown. The setting is a quaint little English village with a core group of permanent residents who appear in each story. The local detective inspector is an obnoxious individual who’s not very good at his job (but the underlings are competent). Instead of a clever man of the cloth we have Eve Mallow, a recently divorced professional obituary writer (is there such a thing?) who moonlights in her friend’s tea shop.
The books are fun but they don’t have that page-turning quality I found in Chase’s Tara Thorpe books. Still, they’re entertaining enough for me to keep buying them. I picked up the first one for free on Bookbub. Here’s the Amazon link.
Apart from that, summer has crept in early. The weather is warm and steamy with occasional short, sharp showers – not at all conducive to gardening – or sleeping, for that matter. But we bought some flat pack furniture from Bunnings to build some storage for our outdoor room. Pete’s busy building that.
While he’s out there with an electric screwdriver and a hammer I’m working on that much delayed work-in-progress. The working title is The Dragon’s Hoard. I’ll probably have to change that because there are no dragons in the story. It’s a search for the treasure of a probably mythical Yrmak pirate called Drarkghon. Our heroes are eventually convinced she did exist, but that was a couple of thousand years ago on a distant planet. Right now Carly and Dru are investigating remains on a snow-bound world. I wonder what they’ll find?
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