The Last Word by Elly Griffiths: A reading heaven for all keen bibliophiles and cosy crime mystery fans – book review –

Posing as aspiring authors, two of the would-be detectives decide to sign up for a ‘writing retreat’ and go undercover to try to dig out the truth... but have they stumbled on a crime far bigger and stranger than they could ever have imagined?

For those cosy crime fans who remember the dazzling cast of characters made famous in acclaimed author Elly Griffiths’ The Postscript Murders – which was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award – here’s your chance to catch up with them all again.

Griffiths – best known for her critically acclaimed Ruth Galloway Mysteries – put the sleepy West Sussex town of Shoreham-by-Sea on the map with another crime series starring gay Sikh police officer Harbinder Kaur and it was the quirky crew she met in The Postscript Murders that won the hearts of her army of readers.

So meet Ukrainian carer-cum-detective Natalka Kolisnyk, canny octogenarian Edwin Fitzgerald and former monk Benedict Cole for another of Griffiths’ clever, cosy – but still comically caustic – murder mysteries which delivers all the mood music of the Golden Age classics but with a delightfully original contemporary twist.

Natalka, aka the blonde assassin, is now happily living with dreamer Benedict and together they run The Shack café on Shoreham seafront. But recently her Ukrainian mother Valentyna has joined them from her war-torn country and three is proving a crowd in their tiny flat.

What with Valentyna cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean, Natalka’s irritation is made worse by Benedict and her mother sharing a ‘mutual admiration society’ which occasionally makes her want to throw things at them.

Born entrepreneur Natalka also manages her own care agency and she and Edwin – a gay former BBC producer whose interests include words and obituaries – have opened a detective agency which consists mainly of a steady stream of minor cases.

Just as Natalka is getting frustrated and longing for a big juicy investigation to come the agency’s way, a murder case turns up. Local author, Melody Chambers, has been found dead and her two daughters are convinced it’s murder. Edwin, a big fan of the obit pages, thinks there’s a link to Malcolm Collins, the writer of Melody’s obituary who died some months ago.

The trail leads Benedict and Edwin to Battle House, a remote, woodland writers’ retreat, and they sign up for a weekend event. And when another writer is found dead, Edwin thinks that the clue lies in the words.

It’s time to seek professional help on this case, and the amateur investigators turn to their friend, Detective Inspector Harbinder Kaur, only to find that they have stumbled on a perilous plot that is stranger than fiction.

Crime capers with a warm heart and a clever brain are what Griffiths does best and this all-round entertaining standalone places our familiar police detective DI Kaur in a more backseat role to the dynamic Natalka who grabs the wheel for a rollercoaster romp through a veritable litany of literary victims.

And what joy for readers as the whip-smart Ukrainian teams up again with sprightly, lovable wordsmith Edwin and the still unworldly and uncertain former monk Benedict as they dig out the truth of some untimely deaths, however dangerous that may prove to be.

With her trademark elegance, plotting expertise, and sharp eye for quirky characters full of flaws and foibles, Griffiths certainly knows how to put fun into a cracking murder mystery as she garners all those much-loved, old-fashioned detective tropes, throws in some thrills, kills and spills, and carries us headlong into a dramatic dénouement.

Look out for an intriguing trail of clues, conundrums and red herrings, and enjoy a wealth of fascinating literary and author references as The Last Word delivers reading heaven for all keen bibliophiles and cosy crime mystery fans.

(Quercus, hardback, £22)