Publication: 13th February 2025 – Hodder & Stoughton
Loch Down Abbey is full of guests for a Highland Ball. Including several uninvited members of the Inverkillen clan, the Abbey’s former residents. Housekeeper Mrs MacBain thinks her biggest challenge will be finding suitable rooms for everyone and keeping the peace at cocktail hour.
Until the morning after the ball, when one of the guests is discovered inside the Abbey’s library – as dead as a doornail.
Who would have had motive to want them dead? And how did they manage to commit their crime and escape while keeping the door locked from the inside?
With an Abbey full of suspects and secrets, it is down to Mrs MacBain to catch the killer before they strike again…
A brilliantly twisty and deliciously witty Golden Age murder mystery to transport you to 1930s Scotland. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Janice Hallett and Richard Osman.
I am delighted to return to Loch Down Abbey and its colorful inhabitants with their secrets and murders to solve.
Set in the 1930s in the Scottish Highlands, the story picks up a few years after the events of Loch Down Abbey. What once was the residence of the Ogilvy-Sinclair family, is now a luxury hotel. While some members of the family have remained on the estate working for the hotel, others have scattered around the world, but they are now returning for the first Highland Ball organized by Mrs McBain, the former head housekeeper and now the owner of Loch Down Abbey Hotel. The return of the Inverskillen clan means drama and having to deal with arguments and rivalries between the siblings. Add uninvited guests full of luggage and secrets and there is enough for Mrs McBain and her staff to keep busy. Luckily, the ball seems to go smoothly until one of the guests is found murdered the next morning. It is up to Mrs McBain to help constable Jarvis find the killer.
I didn’t know that Loch Down Abbey was the first in a series so when I saw that there was going to be a new book I was really excited because I adored it. And Only Murders in the Abbey is a fantastic sequel. If you love cozy crimes with humour and eccentric characters, then this is the right book for you. The Ogilvy-Sinclair family is once again self-centered and too immersed in their own problems to notice anyone else around them, while Mrs McBain manages to keep everything under control in a calm and steady manner even in front of the most demanding guests.
Only Murders in the Abbey is a wonderful read: well-paced, beautifully-written, a murder full of twists, and, my favourite of all, with a Scottish backdrop. I hope there will be more books in the series!
A huge thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel.
Beth Cowan-Erskine wrote her first novel, Loch Down Abbey, during the pandemic, mostly because she had nothing better to do. There is only so much sourdough one can bake. Her second novel came about when her husband, sensing literary fame and an early retirement, moved her to the most depressing place in England so she could turn it into a series. Happily for him, Lady Georgina kept waking her up with plotline notes, and thus we have another book. Enjoy. The author now lives in the Scottish Highlands and there is no telling what will happen next.
Book After Book 
Great review lovely x
LikeLike
Thank you 😊
LikeLike