Period Crime Romp..
Amusing, fast paced period crime romp and the first in The Max & Martha Mystery series. Max and Martha live a life of luxurious comfort, dinner parties and dining, seemingly without care and seemingly unattached to the brutalities of outside life. When a murder occurs in London, Max is drawn in. The victim is an old army friend and Max goes from a suspect himself to finding one. With deftly drawn characters and an intriguing plot, this is an action packed caper from start to finish.

Not a bad first outing but not terribly strong either. The characters are entertaining but the plot was a bit loose. Will look out for the second to see if it tightens up.

Murder Under a Green Sea is an intriguing and hilarious mystery set just before WWII.

This book wasn’t at all what I expected, but came as a pleasant surprise. The tone was humorous, even ridiculous at first, and the book continued to be infused with humor throughout. I began to see similarities between this book and the early Hitchcock films, and then there was a direct reference to The 39 Steps, so it seems I wasn’t far off.

The sleuthing couple, Max and Martha, fancied themselves the next Nick and Nora Charles of The Thin Man, and indeed that wasn’t too far off either.

It took me awhile to warm up to the main characters, but once I did, I found myself rooting for them wholeheartedly.

I loved the setting and time period, and even the ridiculous humor. If such a thing as a historical/mystery/comedy/thriller exists, this book is the finest example of that genre I can think of.

This was a fun old fashioned mystery, set just prior to WWII. The characters, Max and Martha, are a carefree young couple who are drawn into a murder investigation when one of Max's old army friends is murdered. The police think Max did it, and they have to clear his name. The book is written as a "caper" and I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to Mirror Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Princess Fuzzypants here: There were times when I wasn’t sure what this book wanted to be. Did it want to be the sparkling sophisticated wit and humour of The Thin Man, something to which Martha refers often? Did it want to be a whodunit? Did it want to be a spy novel? I suspect that it wants to be all of the above, some of which it pulls off masterly and others it muddles a bit. There were certainly times when the protagonists did something so monumentally stupid that I wanted to scream. I get when a character is subjected to situations that are so beyond their ken, they may act foolishly. I just get frustrated when the reader knows precisely how it will turn out but the characters seem to be completely unaware. And these are intelligent people.
Now that I have told you what I did not like, let me reassure you that it somehow still pulls off an entertaining and at times thrilling story. It is very convoluted but makes sense when all is revealed. Where the book truly shines is when it brings in real people like Winston Churchill in a way that is not contrived. It manages to minimize the problems and accentuate the pluses. One of the big pluses is Max and Martha. Clearly we are entering into a journey with them and they will make jolly good travelling companions.
I give it four purrs and one paw up.

Murder Under a Green Sea is the first book in a new crime series set in the 1930s however i did not find it engaging or particularly interesting.

After the first couple of chapters the pace slowed down and the story seemed to just meander along for a while.

Overall this book isn't one I would recommend

For the veterans and bereaved of “the Great War", the onset of WWII was no hypothetical matter. They had memories and losses that were still fresh and raw. Although Britain had moved on from war in many ways, those with their eyes on the growing power of the Nazis knew that another day of reckoning was approaching.
Max, a writer and veteran of the Great War, and his wife, Martha find themselves swept into several cases of murder whose roots seem to lie far back in that war. The period details are interesting, and the action is fun!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I like crime fiction set during the 1920ies and 1930ies. They can be cozy, even silly and quite often I will surprise myself as to what I actually like. This, however, was not one of those. The plot was all over the place, the humor in the book had sadly no crossover with what I find funny (always a tricky thing) and the characters annoyed me just too much.

Sadly not for me, but I am sure it will find many admirers.

With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.

This is a marvellous murder mystery thriller. I read it in two sittings and after the first hour I hoped there would be more in the series. It is well written and has some great twists. The two main protagonists are enjoyable to read especially their banter/bickering - there were a few laugh out loud moments.

The story line is good but a bit over the top in places - such as the inclusion of Churchill who waffles a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and have added it to my Amazon Wish List so I can have a have copy in my own personal library.

Murder Under A Green Sea will be released February 21, 2019.

In spite of Max's arrest the book started out slow but was very funny. I liked the references to popular culture in the 30s and picked up on The Thin Man mood even before Martha suggested it.
Murder Under A Green Sea was very funny and very complicated. Honestly I'm not sure what actually happened. The copy I read didn't have spacing for things like words or paragraphs. Looking forward to actual release so I can read it again.

I am a lover of mysteries set in the 1920’s and this novel, set shortly before the outbreak of WWII, uses the period to good effect - although it is flawed and takes a while to get going. The main characters are Max and Martha Dalton, a young, married couple. Max is an idealistic journalist, while Martha is from a wealthier family, whose mother is not too impressed by her choice of husband.

Martha is having tea with her mother, when their cleaner, Flora, bursts in to say that Max has been arrested for murder. That is one of my issues with this book – along with some wooden dialogue, the first piece of action happens offstage. Max was seen with a man, who was later found dead and now he is suspected of murder. Outraged at her husband being arrested, Martha summons a lawyer (her constantly mistaking his name for Mr Sausage or Gammon, when he is Mr Bacon, pales quickly) and the two set out to clear his name.

The novel improves past the midway point, as the pair uncover German sympathies and conspiracies in high places. There are some real life cameo characters; notably Churchill, and the plot is interesting. Still, Max’s strong feelings about the forthcoming war, and fascism on the Continent, combined with his experiences in WWI, jar with the rather comic, cosy feel of the book overall. This could have been a good novel, but, to be so, it needed a strong editor and some serious re-writing. As it is, it shows promise and settles down, eventually, to be an interesting read. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

‘”I have a compulsion to summon everyone to the library and explain the plot.”
“We don’t have a library,” Martha said.’

You know what? I really enjoyed this addition to the period-crime-novel genre that is exploding just now. OK, it’s not going to win the Booker or the Costa, but it is what it is, and Phillip Hunter has produced a fun, fast-paced crime thriller with enough larger-than-life characters to make a whole series of books featuring our married couple of Martha and Max Dalton. There are flaws (more of them later) but, on the whole, this ticked most of the boxes that you would expect.

Max is a sometime journalist from lowly background, married to wealthy Martha (and whose parents disapprove of their son-in-law). Max is drawn into a plot whereby members of his former platoon from the First World War are being killed, and he quickly becomes a suspect. As the plot develops it takes in secrets and betrayal from the Great War and, being set in 1937, the looming catastrophe that was the Second World War as Hitler and his policies are starting to become clear to many in Britain. Indeed, in somewhat convoluted ways, the figure of Winston Churchill appears in the book. There are plenty motifs of the classic crime genre on offer: a couple of (seemingly) plodding policemen who, it turns out, are actually good eggs; the maid Flora and her boyfriend Eric; Nazi spies and secrets; a car chase; an escape from a train…. The author is savvy enough to name-drop Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and there is a running joke about the characters from the film The Thin Man (and also a mention of The Thirty-nine Steps). The general tone is upbeat, often comical – and I can see why this might grate with some readers, given the very serious themes with which the book deals. But that is also part of its charm – this is a light, dare I say it ‘cozy’ (urgh, hate that word but you know what I mean) book. It doesn’t claim to be literary fiction, but it will amuse and pass a few hours of your time.

There are flaws: Martha’s continued inability to call their lawyer Mr Bacon by the correct name (Ham, Sausage, Onion…) becomes tiresome quite quickly, and the long-drawn out explanation of the plot at the end (in a pub, not the library as we have seen) is a bit complicated and confusing. There are several points throughout the book where the suspension of disbelief is at a premium, but what the heck – why not? The characters aren’t necessarily well-rounded but are enjoyable enough, and there are moments of seriousness (which may or may not jar with some readers), especially with Max’s memories of the Great War and the horrors which he witnessed.

Overall, yes, I would recommend it, and I am looking forward to more in the series. Flawed, yes, but a good old romp which has no illusions of grandeur. For what it is, 4 stars from me.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.)

I love a good historical murder mystery and I’m generally quite forgiving of the odd eccentricity. That said, I have to confess to mixed feelings about Philip Hunter’s Murder Under a Green Sea. It ought to be right up my street. Set in 1937, with war on the horizon, it focuses in on Max and his wife Martha. Martha is very rich and Max, who has a very humble background, is poor. When members of Max’s old platoon from the first World War start dying in suspicious circumstances and Max is the prime suspect, the two of them set out to try and solve the mystery.

What was so problematic? There were couple of things. The first was that it was very slow to start. For much of the opening I ploughed on through bits of story that seemed at best unnecessary and at worst silly. There was a dinner party scene that seemed to go on as long as the dinner party itself and, although it later emerged that some of what went on there was germane to the later plot development, it could have been done a lot more quickly and a lot more snappily. And, bluntly, the same thing could have been achieved with better (for which read more subtle) development of the characters.

Fortunately I have staying power. I hung in there and when the plot finally took off it was (apart from the odd little niggle) pretty good — very Boy’s Own in places, to the point of stretching my credibility, but nevertheless it was fast-moving and exciting. (Though I’m sorry — I identified the villain very early on, though not the motive.)

I liked the set-up very much, with Max’s insecurity balanced against his wife’s self-confidence and, beneath it all, a tender love story between the two. The rest of the characters weren’t so good, though — I think that’s why the action felt, in places, little bit beyond my credibility.

The big problem I had with it was tone. As so often the case it’s a subjective thing, but I didn’t feel the flippancy of the overall style was in keeping with the plot and, as a consequence, it undermined my enjoyment of the whole story. It’s a great plot and I wanted to get on with it. The author’s constant flippant asides irritated me when, if he’d kept his humour to the characters (their speech and their actions) he might have got away with it.

It’s a good book if you like your thrillers flippant, which I don’t, but it’s the plot that saves it — though I’d very much like to have got into the plot a lot earlier. I hate having to give a star rating hen I feel like this and I’ve swithered a lot in deciding . I’d love to give it four stars, but I can’t quite do it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Mirror Books for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This is a cute mystery, made interesting more by the characters than the plot. I enjoyed the banter between Max and Martha, though the story wasn't terribly gripping for me.

I am usually a fan of historical fiction mysteries but this one from Phillip Hunter didn't quite gel for me. Set in the late 1930s, it revolves around a penniless journalist, Max, married to Martha, from a more wealthy family, with his in-laws rather dismayed by this. Max finds himself suspected of murder by the police, after meeting with a friend from his old platoon who ends up a murder victim, the platoon members appear to be targets for a killer. Max and Martha go on the run as they try to get to the bottom of the mystery and clear Max's name in the process. In this convoluted story, they uncover Nazi sympathisers in high places. I found it hard to invest in the characters, partly because the characterisation was poor at times. The plot was a confused mess too on occasion and it took some time before the story began to catch my interest. Martha is the more likeable and capable of the couple. There is humour in the book but it often missed the mark for me. There is a good story within the narrative, it just needs to be untangled from the superfluous aspects, with the characters more clearly defined and greater clarity in the plotting and storylines. Many thanks to Mirror Books for an ARC.

This mystery is slow to get started but stick with it and everything falls into place. The main characters of Max and Martha are witty and intelligent and you really warm to them as you see more of their relationship.
Some elements of the plot were a bit too far fetched for me - Martha seems to be a bit silly at times which felt a bit out of place, but I would definitely read more in this series.
Thanks Netgalley for the advanced copy

The first chapter was so promising but the further I read the more confused I became. A combination of a cozy mystery and faux spy-thriller, Murder on the Green Sea introduces Max, a journalist and author, and his wife Martha. Max is the prime suspect after an old platoon friend is discovered murdered. Determined to prove his innocence, Max and Martha team up and engage in some serious amateur sleuthing and stumble upon Nazi sympathizers within his former chain of command.

I really enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek, dry humor between Max and Martha. However, the interactions were so varied that I couldn’t decide if Martha truly was an elegant, intelligent lady or the vapid, doe-eyed miss. She was portrayed as both and I really couldn’t settle on her character. The long-suffering Mr. Bacon was my favorite character and I truly wished I had seen him more in the story.

One thing I’m particular about with the mysteries I read is there need to be some clues as to the general direction of the investigation. Inconsistent pacing and convoluted dialogue either hid the clues that would have given the reader an inkling of the conclusion or they weren’t there at all. Finally, the conclusion gave no sense of closure. It may have been the author’s effort to set up the next novel in the series but it didn’t work for me. It is possible this was a case of the right book, wrong reader. I just didn’t connect with the characters (Mr. Bacon withstanding) and don’t plan on seeking out future books in the series.

This is the first in a new private detective series - "The Max & Martha Mysteries" - set in late 1930s Britain.
Max is a not very successful freelance journalist, married to Martha, daughter of a wealthy family who believe she has married beneath her. Martha's mother strongly disapproves of her son-in-law.

After recovering from a drunken night on the town, Max is taken in for questioning by police as a possible suspect in a murder inquiry. The victim - a man called Burton - met with Max in a London pub shortly before his death. The sleuthing couple discover the body of another victim, named Rice. There's a somewhat meaningless interview of Max by a policeman called Longford & his assistant Pierce. Longford has something of a cavalier attitude in dealing with murder suspects despite his belief that Max knows more than he is willing to tell them. It transpires that a group of men from his old platoon have been murdered or died in suspicious circumstances. Max subsequently tells Martha about a terrible event which happened in the trenches during the battle of Passchendale and which he believes may be connected to their inquiries. After a series of complicated plot twists, the police move to arrest him. With the redoubtable Martha's help he's forced to escape from custody in a bid to solve the case.

The story takes a while to warm up and doesn't really grab the attention until almost a third of the way into the book. It follows after there's far too much detail about a very boring dinner party which does very little to advance the plot other than introduce some of the characters. Similarly, the fact that Martha comes from a wealthy family while Max has a poverty-stricken background is mentioned too many times. Apart from the initial murders of Max's wartime comrades, the bulk of the action is confined to the final quarter of this book and comes after several lenghty conversations beween Max and Martha as to what links the deaths of various men from Max's platoon. There's also a deal of confusion over the identity of the murder victims and a man called Crawford who Burton and Rice were supposed to meet. Mystery surrounds the reasons as to exactly why they were in London and what Burton was talking about with a drunken Max on the night of the former's demise.

As the plot finally comes together, we are introduced to some real historical characters such as Leopold von Hoesch, German ambassador Britain from 1932 to 1936, who was strongly anti-Nazi and Ralph Wigram, a British Foreign Office official who was one of those responsible for providing Winston Churchill with vital information about the re-armament of Germany in the 1930's. Churchill himself makes an appearance in the story, pulling strings behind the scenes as Max discovers that British Fascists and Nazi agents may be involved in this murder mystery.

The book tries to be a mix between a wise cracking private detective tale and old-style thriller in the John Buchan mould, just about managing to achieve that goal. Credulity is stretched a little too far in places, particularly in one scene where Martha employs a large wrench to effect Max's escape from police custody.
The author seems intent on having us believe that Max and Martha are the British version of Nick and Nora Charles in "The Thin Man" - the Dashiell Hammett detective novel, later turned into a series of films in the 1930's and 1940's and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. More than a dozen mentions of Nick and Nora Charles are made throughout the story - mostly by Martha. However, the author's attempt at recreating the droll humour of "The Thin Man" doesn't quite come off. The repetition of a series of puns about a lawyer called Mr Bacon also becomes somewhat wearing. That said, Max and Martha are likeable characters, as is their feisty maid Flora and her butcher boyfriend Eric.

Overall, I think this story needs some editing, especially the long winded dinner party details, but when the action finally kicks in, it's a decent mystery thriller. Hopefully the next Max and Martha mystery will prove somewhat slicker.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Mirror Books for the chance to read this book in return for an unbiased review.