Not my cup of tea, as they say.

A lot of tea was drank in this story. Pretty much every time two (or more) people sat down to talk there was tea. Though on a few occassions there were G&Ts.

The choice of drinks or their quantity of intake wasn't my issue. The way all the information in this book was repeated over and over again, was. There are whole conversations that are a repeat of a previous conversation. Just because there's a new person in the conversation doesn't mean everything that was said needs to be in the scene. At these times tell, don't show is a much better rule of writing. It would have made this book about 40% short, I am sure.

Bookshop owner Nancy has invited a famous author to do a talk at the Summer Fete in her village. And he's agreed to come! Someone's not happy about that Nancy realizes as she finds a defaced poster announcing the event. She manages the track down the person and warns the author. The author isn't worried. He's coming anyway and he's bringing a bodyguard.

Alas, the threats were not empty. There is a murder at the Summer Fete. The scene looks exactly like the murder scene in the author's latest book. It even seems the murderer has made the exact same mistake as the murderer in the book.

This leads to a quick case closed by the police. But something is bugging Nancy. No surprise, she was named after a famous fictional detective (this is mentioned twice). At this point something else was bugging me: what car was Thomas driving after Nathan took off with his car? Does Dedley End have a rental service? A used car lot? Did he buy it on eBay?

I admit, I read on to find out out about the car. And to find out if I had picked the motive of the murderer correctly. At this point in the story I was no longer all that interested in it. This became worse when Nancy and her friends make an important discovery through a clue left to them by the victim. That's not sleuthing! I read cozy mysteries for the sleuthing, and this story hardly had any sleuthing in it. Nancy tracked down the man who defaced her poster and later gains illegal access to his house, but that was it. That was all the sleuthing there was in this story.

For that reason (and because most people in this story get way to hung up about the value of a story idea) this was not my cup of tea.

Also, the car is not mentioned again.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.