Publication: 24th October 2024 – Storm Publishing
A body in the swimming pool, a disappearing suspect and a killer hiding in plain sight…
When mystery novelist turned private detective, Marius Quin, is invited to speak at a gala dinner by the mysterious Mrs Thistlethwaite he jumps at the chance of a weekend away on the English Riviera. With his sleuthing partner, Lady Bella Montague, in tow, Marius arrives at Torquay’s Grand Hotel. But they soon realise that, behind the shiny exteriors, all is not what it seems. After Thistlethwaite turns Marius’s big night into a character assassination at his expense, he wonders why he was invited in the first place.
Things go from bad to worse when Marius discovers the body of his cantankerous host in the hotel pool. But how can the duo catch a killer when every piece of evidence they uncover is contradicted by two more? Faced with a hostile police sergeant, evasive witnesses and a conspiracy to conceal the truth, Bella and Marius must call upon every resource they possess to uncover the secret of the body at the Grand Hotel.
I am so excited to get into yet another Marius Quin mystery. I love this series so much. It’s entertaining, fun, full of surprises, and with a cast of quirky and unique characters. I also love that the story is narrated in first person by the protagonist himself, bestselling author and occasional private detective Marius Quin, who is quite charming and witty.
In this fourth adventure, Marius, who should be writing his third novel, is invited to give a talk at the Mystery and Detection Society in Torquay. As usual he is accompanied by his loyal hound Percy, his mother, his uncle and his aunt, and, of course, his first love and now close friend and partner-in-crime-solving Lady Isabella (Bella) Montague. The conference is not at all what he expected, but at least he gets to enjoy a luxurious weekend in what is considered the English Riviera. And while Percy seems to get a more special treatment than him, Marius and Bella get involved in another investigation when a body is found in the pool and it turns out that the victim was hated and loved in equal measure.
A Body at the Grand Hotel was another five stars for me. I loved the mystery, the humour, and the relationship between Bella and Marius and their easy banter. The story is well-written and intriguing. There is a victim of murder who used to bully all those around her, so the list of suspects is quite long; there are also an incompetent police detective, a group of amateur know-it-all detectives, and witnesses who keep secrets. It won’t be easy for Marius and Bella to figure out the truth. If you love cozy mystery and historical novels, then I can’t recommend this series enough. Also, the ending was quite unexpected and shocking and I can’t wait to see what happens next!
A huge thank you to Storm Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of this fantastic novel.
I’m a Welsh-Irish-Englishman originally from South London but now living in Burgos, a beautiful medieval city in the north of Spain, with my French-Spanish wife and two our ridiculously international children. Writing has always been my passion. It was my favourite half-an-hour a week at primary school, and I started on my first, truly abysmal book as a teenager. So it wasn’t a difficult decision to study literature at university which led to an MA in Creative Writing.I grew up in a crime-fiction-mad family and had made a few clumsy attempts at writing one over the years before coming up with the idea for my contemporary whodunits “The Izzy Palmer Mysteries”. My second series, the 1920s-set “Lord Edgington Investigates…”, has been a great success, with each of the books making a mark on the mystery charts, and I’m about to launch a second historical series.If you’d like to tell me what you think about my detectives, my writing or the world at large, feel free to get in touch at www.benedictbrown.net where you can also download my free mystery novellas.
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