On a Bookbub recommendation, I bought the set of Marsh and Daughter mysteries by Amy Marsh.
So far, I have read the first two and begun the third.
Georgia and her father, a retired police detective, research cold cases. Anything that piques their curiosity – a little bit of supernatural here – and then write books solving the mystery.
In the first one, The Wickenham Murders, a young gardener Davy Todd is accused of murdering Ada Proctor, the Doctor’s daughter. But so many parts of the story don’t make sense. The villagers don’t want the Marshs poking around but there is that strange music indicating someone doesn’t believe Davy was guilty. Then Georgia discovers Davy’s old sweetheart, still alive, and convinced of his innocence.
In the second book, Murder in Friday Street, a rock musician, Fanny Star, is murdered when she returns to the village to give a concert. Although her partner is accused of the crime, serves time and is murdered almost immediately upon his release, Georgia and her father don’t believe he was the guilty party. Suspects abound but the investigation into ‘the gang’, the friends of Fanny when they were kids, leads to the solution.
These are darker than Agatha Christie but, like her mysteries, show that murders happen even in cozy villages.
Terrific!