This is the second in J.M. Hall's mystery series featuring an endearing group of former school teacher friends in a smallish English village. This is a cozy series, sure, but it is also one that deals with deeper topics like aging, career changes, marital struggles, etc. Julie Hesmondhalgh does a great job narrating--there are multiple POVs in this book and she does a great job differentiating between characters!

While I really enjoyed book one, I was drawn in much quicker to this mystery. There were many layers and "side quests," but everything weaved together so well by the end.

A brilliant cosy mystery book. These have always been my favourite genres to read and this one didn’t disappoint

Another outstanding book from J.M Hall.

Love this genre of cosy crime - loved the characters, loved the plot and loved the writing

A must read for crime lovers.

Liz, Pat and Thelma are retired teachers who meet for coffee in a garden centre, which is a thing as one of my friends serves teachers in a garden centre cafe. They never intended to be sleuths and yet find themselves with another mystery to solve. Poisoned Pen letters are often intriguing. Sends you down an "Agatha Christie or Midsomer Murders lane", but J.M. Hall puts his own spin on it to make it contemporary and keep it a concept that is still compelling to read.

Letters are penned that the perpetrator can be pretty certain would have far reaching consequences and sure enough the victim's of the inked letters are all but destroyed. 

A Pen Dipped In Poison is better than the first in the series - A Spoonful of Murder,  although that did set the scene exceptionally well, but this second book is stronger and heightens the intrigue in this new mystery for the teachers to solve.

A Pen Dipped In Poison is better than the first in the series - A Spoonful of Murder,  although that did set the scene exceptionally well, but this second book is stronger and heightens the intrigue in this new mystery for the teachers to solve. It draws you in closer from the start and piques the imagination and curiosity.
It is a cosy mystery with plenty of danger and wile that is intriguing.

*Thanks to Avon Books UK for accepting a request to review.

It was great to join the retired teachers in their sleuthing again, this time when a series of mysterious letters are being posted revealing people’s deepest darkest secrets, and the trio are determined to discover who’s behind it.

If you enjoy a nice cosy crime then I’d say this is for you, the characters are likeable, and being an ex teacher myself, relatable but at times I did struggle with the introduction of so many others and trying to remember who was who!

I enjoyed the first book of this series, especially the fact that the main characters are older ladies - a couple of them retired - who used theirs years of teaching experience, and its associated skills of 'peopleing', organisation, critical thinking, patience and structure, to solve murders in their town of Thirsk, Yorkshire.

This one lost the mystery a little bit, with the ladies all concerned about their husbands (fairly enough), but having lost some of the closeness they had in the first book, and I'm a bit unclear why. They're not sharing their troubles with each other like they used to. Pat seems to have detached herself from the group somewhat and it's almost like two separate stories are happening at the same time.

Once the pieces start falling in to place, the pace does pick up a bit more and ties up neatly, if not entirely satisfactorily (for this reader).

I still enjoyed it, as I love to read stories by people who obviously know all the day-to-day details of a profession - that stuff a Google search just won't give you. That part was very well done.

However, recommended for a cold, lazy winter afternoon paired with a piece of cake and a cup of tea, and I am looking forward to the next in the series.

Really enjoyed this book, loved the writing style and plot. Was hooked throughout. This was a great multi-strand mystery fiction; keeping the audience engaged as they read. Love the twists.

I feel like mysteries are soo difficult to write because you want them to be engaging enough, give enough clues, and not just confuse the reader— this book, thankfully, was amazing!
It felt like a good ol’ cup of Agatha Christie, with extra marshmallows on the top, or something along those lines! Ha. Anyway…. The writing was beautiful— the descriptive narrative was so vivid and captivating.
A definite must-read for all mystery lovers! I kind of want to go read it again.

Also, I only heard about A Spoonful of Murder, the prequel, after I started reading this book, but honestly, I didn’t feel lost. This felt like a stand-alone book, but I DO want to read the prequel and see if there’s anything extra I’m missing.

I really enjoyed A Spoonful of Murder and this book is the sequel (although both do stand alone as mysteries), featuring the same ex-school staff investigating mysterious goings on in their LEA. Only this time, instead of an unexpected death it is a series of threatening poison pen letters that are disturbing the peace at their local school, which is under new management.

There’s an underlying theme of change that ties in neatly with the ‘under new management’, as the retired ladies struggle to accept difference in the education environment since they were working there and also struggle with changes in their home lives – each of Thelma, Liz and Pat having some version of marital problems going on in the background of their reluctant investigation.

I have to admit, I got a little bit confused at the start of the book between Linda and Liz, Pat and Jan, but I soon got them all straightened out as the story (and characters) developed. In fact, I found myself hooked on the marital sideplots as well as the poison pen main plotline and, as with Book 1, I found the authentic feeling of the school setting and teaching backgrounds added to my enjoyment of the story.

This makes a great light mystery read for fans of the cosy genre and those formerly or currently employed in the UK education system will find plenty familiar within these pages!

Retired schoolteachers Liz, Pat and Thelma are great friends and I was looking forward to catching up with them in A Pen Dipped in Poison. This mystery finds them, trying to find out who is sending poison pen letters to their friends and neighbours. Along the way, secrets are revealed.

I really enjoyed A Spoonful of Murder, the first book in this series, but found myself somewhat disappointed in this one. The friendship between the women that I loved seems to be showing some cracks and they are drifting apart. Their family lives took up a lot of this book and it tended to drag for me. I also missed the humour that was present in the first book. Even the mystery didn't really pull me in. I am hoping the next book in this series, if there is one, will go back to all the things that I loved about the first book.

I absolutely loved this book, thank you NetGalley and Avon publishing for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Having previously enjoyed A Spoonful of Murder by J.M Hall I couldn’t wait to read more about the adventures of Liz, Pat and Thelma. As a teacher I really related to the school based themes and humour throughout. I have purchased both books for friends and family as gifts. I also recommended them to colleagues. These books are perfect light-hearted cosy crime stories. In book two the mystery solving trio are on the case of a poison pen writer. The plot is immersive and the characters delightful. An easy read which kept me guessing. I would highly recommend and cannot wait for book three.

A really interesting, intriguing mystery set in and around a primary school. I could see and smell the school, so good were the descriptions and I loved the Pineapple maths teaching approach! Highly recommended.

Excellent book I didn’t want it to end.

Great characters and the concept was clever.

It kept me guessing til the end, read if you like an old school mystery.

I love a good cozy mystery and this was no exception.

The plot and pacing was so good in this one and I had no clue who the culprit was, which I really enjoyed. I hate books when it’s too obvious.

not my favorite book, but I still enjoyed it.

A Pen Dipped in Poison, J M Hall

Retired school teachers, Pat, Liz and Thelma get together to solve the latest mystery, where someone is sending vicious letters.

An easy to read, village mystery type of book. Very similar to Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for a copy of this book, I rate it 3 stars.

I would recommend this book. It was abit slow at first but then about halfway through the pace picked up and is as desperate to find out who it was. I really enjoyed reading this.

An enjoyable cosy crime in the Agatha Christie mould, which along the way pulls no punches regarding the undesirable aspects of schools being run as businesses, in the modern way. Highly recommended.

Brilliantly erotten but that had the best mix. Really enjoyed it and although my first of the author, will not be my last.

3.5 stars.
Thelma, Liz and Pat are back in a new mystery set in the school they've all retired from. The school is now part of a group of schools purchased and managed by a trust. There have been changes, consequently, to the curriculums, and to the style of management. A new head teacher was appointed to run the three friends' former school, and both Thelma and Liz soon find out that there are issues there.

When Kayleigh Brittain, the new head teacher, receives the first of what will be a series of nasty letters targeting teachers at the school, Thelma thinks it’s an isolated and unpleasant incident. Then Liz finds out from Jan, a friend and teacher at the school, that Jan is struggling to meet Kayleigh's requirements for results in class. Then, not long after, nasty letters begin arriving at the school, causing much pain and a further decline in morale (after Brittain's appointment) amongst the recipients, and evoking Liz's concern. The others are not as close to the problem, so don't fully appreciate the severity of the situation, despite their concern, until two incidents cause the three to come together to investigate in earnest.

The culprit wasn't really that hard to fathom, particularly with some of the clues dropped midway through the book. The reveal was satisfying, nonetheless.

Unlike the previous book in the series, the three women have drifted a little apart, as they all have their own concerns and worries, and a certain reluctance to share these with the other two. Much of the book is spent describing the friends' too many home responsibilities and worries about their husbands and the men's jobs, so the book took longer to take off for me. It was good to understand how all the letter recipients were reacting, but I will admit that the book took a lot of time laying out the situation before the plot picked up its pace.

And as the story is partly about the relationship amongst the friends, which was painfully strained for much of the book, this made this entry in the series somewhat less enjoyable read. That said, I still liked this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Avon Books UK for this ARC in exchange for my review.

General Thoughts 🤔

I was looking forward to picking up with these characters again after reading the first book in this series last year (review here). Unfortunately, I just wasn’t as gripped and enchanted by the story and the characters this time around and I just couldn’t settle in to the book. This is the second book in a row now that has made me feel this way, so this could be very much be a “it’s not you it’s me” kind of situation, but that doesn’t take away the fact that this book just didn’t ding my dong.

Characters 👫👭👬

I fell in love with these characters the first time around and really warmed to them. I liked all of the women and admired them for different reasons, however I felt like I didn’t get to hear much of their personal lives in this book and therefore I struggled to re-connect with them. What I don’t think helped was that the crime the ladies were investigating wasn’t very thrilling or exciting to me, so I didn’t care enough about what they were going through trying to find out who was writing the poison pen letters.

Writing Style ✍️

I will make a point of noting that I think the fact that this author has a background of being a teacher helped to make the setting and feeling of the book feel authentic. The detail included about the running of a school and all the little mentions of various different learning techniques (Pineapple Maths springs to mind) took me back and did transport me to Primary School Days.

However, I think the mystery was lacking somewhat and therefore I just couldn’t engage as much as I wanted to. There was a lot of time that seemed to pass before the story started to unravel and gain some traction.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I’m so sad that this book and I didn’t have a great time together. I loved the first book in this series, especially spending time with Liz, Pat and Thelma. The three ladies were the sweetest (and they were in the second) but I struggled to feed as endeared by them in this second book. The mystery wasn’t mystery enough for me and I lost interest quite early on in the story. I don’t think I’d give up completely on this crazy group of ladies and I’d still give another book in the series a chance if there was one. Unfortunately this time, I didn’t love this second instalment nearly as much as the first.