It doesn't quite deliver the intrigue as the previous book in this series. Some of the established depth of a couple of the main characters seemed to have been stripped away this time. Tanika felt like she was being pushed out the group. The mystery started off with a punch but dragged around by the halfway point especially after some of the side characters began to blend together.

I still think it's a pretty decent cozy mystery though. The villain reveal at the end reminded me a little of Columbo so I appreciated it for nostalgia. lol


Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing a copy for an honest review.

The Queen of Poisons is the third book in Robert Thorogood's Marlow murder club amateur sleuth cozy series. Released in the USA 4th June 2024 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 272 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

This is an interesting and engaging cozy featuring a 77 year old (but quite young at heart) protagonist and her two unlikely allies, a brash young(ish) professional dog walker radio personality, and the local vicar's wife. The poisoning of the village mayor (at the council meeting, how outré!) sees the trio once again drawn into investigation, this time with the blessings of the local constabulary.

The main mystery plot-line has a fair number of parallels with golden age books from yesteryear and readers of the Golden Age will be able to think of half a dozen which are quite similar. That being said, it *is* a clever plot device and the author does it a good turn.

The characterizations are well rendered and distinct. The main character is a cruciverbalist (crossword setter) and the prose is cleverly wrought with fun wordplay throughout. Additionally, she's the type of person who takes charge (often just stampeding ahead recklessly), is an excellent sculler, strong and brave, and isn't afraid to take chances (although some of them will have readers shaking their heads in disbelief).

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 9 minutes, and is expertly narrated by Nicolette McKenzie. She has a clear, well modulated, and nuanced voice and does an impressive job with a myriad of local (English) accents, both male and female. Despite having a full cast of varied characters, it's never a problem to keep them sorted during the read.

There's a distinct Agatha Raisin vibe, and fans of MC Beaton, Deanna Raybourn, and Richard Osman will probably like this series as well. The resolution and denouement were as expected, but satisfying nevertheless. This is the third book, there's a fourth book due out from the same publisher in second quarter 2025, making this one a good candidate for a binge/buddy read or book club project.

Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This was absolutely amazing [and just what I needed after a series of dud's]. I fell hook, line, and sinker for the [excellent] red herrings and therefore was blown away by the [very well done] reveal [ALL. OF. IT.].

This was a well-crafted story [and I expect nothing less from this author] filled with interesting [and slightly twisted] characters, and led by three of the most amazing women [that I desperately want to be friends with], who just want peace to reign in their little village [and their lives] and plenty of tea and biscuits [that Becks has hid for them].

If you are looking for a fun, quirky series, I highly recommend this one.

Nicolette Mackenzie is an amazing narrator who brings Judith, Suzie, Becks, and Tamika [along with all the crazy side characters that grace each book] to life n such a way I often forget there aren't multiple narrators *AND* that this group isn't actually a real group of people [Sigh. See above]. Her delivery of the story is excellent, she amazingly never gets the characters voices mixed up [Its awe-inspiring as I know I surely would], and I just love listening to her. I am always grateful when I am able to get an audiobook arc for these books!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Robert Thorogood, Nicolette Mackenzie - Narrator, Poisoned Pen Press, and RB Media for providing the eBook and audiobook ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3.
Queen of Poisons is the third installment in the Marlow Murder Club series written by Robert Thorogood. It follows the amateur sleuths’ (Judith, Suzie, and Becks) investigation into the murder of the affable mayor of Marlow, Geoffrey – a man with no enemies and a man who was always ready to help anyone.

I enjoyed reading this cozy mystery. Judith, Suzie, and Becks leave no stone unturned in combing through the long list of suspects and delving into the details of the deceased man’s life.

Thorogood’s lucid writing ensured I was on the same page as the trio diligently going through old receipts or interviewing suspects and mulling their answers – sifting lies from the truth or traveling the entirety of Marlow to catch and interview the said suspects. Thorogood does a brilliant job of hiding the murderer in plain sight because when the murderer was revealed, I was shocked.

The plot may seem convoluted since almost everyone in this small town seems to be a suspect. But I found this to be an absolute genius on the author’s part. He does a bloody good job of laying bare every suspect’s itinerary and whereabouts on the day of the murder for the reader to solve the puzzle along with the trio. But I was left scratching my head as to who the hell murdered the mayor.

The characters jump off the pages. Judith is strong-willed and the brainiest in the group, and her love for swimming shines through in the novel. Suzie is Judith’s partner-in-crime since she is up for anything that Judith proposes. Becks is the most law-abiding amongst the three and is thus the voice of reason whenever Judith wants to attempt something outrageous, but to no avail. They anyway do the outrageous thing.

However, I felt that in some sections of the book, there was more telling than showing, and in some places, the characters’ dialogues felt stilted. Also, I felt the book could have been shorter by a hundred pages.

Queen of Poisons is the first book I read in this series, but I had no trouble following along the trio in their investigation. I am now eager to catch up with the previous books in the Marlow Murder Club series.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a complimentary digital copy via Netgalley. This doesn’t affect my opinions on the book.

Feisty and fearless septuagenarian Judith and her two tagalong friends, vicar’s wife Becks and dog-walker Suzie are back on yet another murder case in this third book of The Marlow Murder Club series by Robert Thorogood, and I’m so glad. I missed them!

I won’t say too much about the plot, but this time around, Marlow’s beloved and benevolent mayor Geoffrey Lushington is the unfortunate victim of a town council meeting gone wrong. Newly minted DI Tanika Malik knows from experience that this trio of ladies isn’t going to sit idly by and let the police do their job. Her solution? Make them citizen advisers, which Judith of course takes to mean full detectives!

If there’s one thing we know by now: Judith is always one step ahead of everyone when it comes to solving crimes, and she can’t be bothered to wait for them to catch up! As a crossword setter, she knows the definitions of a lot of words, but “no”, “don’t”, “wait” and “stop” don’t appear to have ANY meaning at all to her. Add in Becks' kind and conciliatory nature and Suzie's tendency to rush to judgment, and it's a minor miracle these three can work productively on anything!

As for my thoughts on this book, I’ll put it this way: You know when you have a favorite TV series that you look forward to each week, but some episodes are just naturally better than others? It doesn’t mean you didn’t like the episode or you think negatively about it - it just isn’t as memorable. That’s how I feel about this book. It’s well-written as always, worth every moment I spent with it, and is another reminder of why I love the series - it just wasn’t QUITE as fun for me as the first two. The potential cast of “whodunnits” just didn’t grab me as much this time.

So, will I be back for more “episodes”? You BET! I love these ladies, and I wouldn’t miss a chance to spend time with them again!

The third installment of the Marlow Murder Club series, finds friends Susie, Becks and Judith putting their amateur sleuthing skills to work as "civilian advisors" for the newly promoted DI, Tanika Malik. The case is the death of the town mayor who promptly drops dead after sipping his coffee at a town council planning meeting. The cause of death - the queen of poisons, of course. But who would want a well liked man dead?

Although Robert Thorogood has created very likable and charming detectives in Susie, Judith and Becks, the plot does tend to be a bit thin at times and we are asked to suspend disbelief to make the puzzle pieces fit. While this is not the strongest of the three stories thus far,, it was lovely to spend time with the ladies who grow on the reader more with each book.

I do look forward to the next installment in the series.
My thanks to NetGalley and HQ/Harper Collins for the ARC of this book.

The 3rd installment of the Marlow gang. Judith, Becks, and Suzie once again set out to catch a murderer. This time Suzie was a key eye witness to the mayor's death. The police decide to just give them investigative privileges this time, so need for the gang to sneak around. Through false leads and secrets the 3 find their way to the truth and catch the killer.

I've enjoyed all 3 of these cozy mysteries. They all have a little bit of absurdity to them, like would the police really give them that status to solve this case? The killers disguise. But that's what makes them fun.

Thank you netgalley and publishers for this arc.

The gang is back! And this time they are trying to solve the murder of a man who was loved by everyone. It was wonderful to be reunited with a favorite crime solving trio, but this has definitely been my least favorite of the three books in the series so far. The personalities weren’t meshing the same way they seem to have previously and the solution to the crime seemed rather far fetched. But, it still checked the box of a very classic cozy British mystery. And I’m excited to learn there’s a TV show as well! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

The third book in the Marlow Murder Club series, this story takes place roughly a year after the events in the second book, Death Comes to Marlow. Elderly and eccentric Judith Potts, middle-aged and brash Suzie Harris, and just-over-forty vicar’s wife Becks Starling, have now been friends for going on two years; their lives aren’t perfect, and they occasionally get on each other’s nerves a bit, but they are always there for each other.

And so Judith and Becks are naturally the first two people Suzie calls after witnessing a murder–after all, someone else is already calling the cops, aren’t they?

I am really into the covers for this series; to me, they convey the kind of mystery that is between the covers, as well as tying the stories to each other. Covers, folks, that’s what gets people to look.

Beware: alcoholism; fatphobia; disordered eating; depression.

The three friends soon convinced the newly-minted Detective Inspector Tanika Malik to let them help with the investigation. First order of business: find out why anyone would want to kill a man so thoroughly decent and caring.

As with the previous two books, the story is narrated mostly from the points of view of the three friends, with occasional scenes from Tanika’s or some other character’s perspective to round up the narrative.

As Judith approaches eighty, she’s a bit more obnoxious in her arrogance–not in a class sense, but in her certainty that she’s likely to be the smartest person in any room. And it doesn’t help that she generally is. She’s also more lonely and depressed that she wants to admit, to herself or anyone else; both this and her drinking are explored more in this book, and play a part in the solution of the story–though not in a straightforward manner, of course.

The youngest of the three friends, Becks is still diffident and generally a rule-follower; after helping solve two cases, her family dynamics have improved somewhat, as did her marriage for a while. Unfortunately, her monster-in-law has run through all her own money and decided to move in with Becks’s family–and burn through Becks’s money now. Colin Starling’s submissive relationship with his mother, and Becks’s difficulty in standing up to her mother-in-law, lead to the solution of one of the case’s mysteries–again, in a convoluted kind of way.

This time around, it’s Suzie who’s the most comfortable in her own skin; her brashness and what comes across as a degree of ADHD are still played as comic relief, but that aspect of the story is a lot more balanced between the three characters in this book than in the two previous ones.

DI Malik, sadly, has a smaller role in this book; it works for the story, but I hope she has a larger part again in future installments of the series. I did feel a lot of satisfaction that her erstwhile boss is mentioned exactly once, then dropped forever more.

In mysteries, it is generally accepted that when people are murdered, there must be a reason; that no matter how good and saintly the victim may appear to be at first, there will be secrets in their lives, present or past, that will explain why someone wanted them dead.

This book takes the approach that the victim was in fact one of those people everyone liked, enjoyed, and appreciated, if not downright loved; Geoffrey was conscientious, generous, dedicated, ethical, hard-working, perceptive, supportive, and kind. As everyone around him, including the people with an actual opportunity to commit the crime, share their memories of the victim with our sleuths, the case seems to stall somewhat.

But of course, when the victim is blameless, then it’s time to investigate those around him–and boy, do they all have secrets that put them at odds with good, decent Geoffrey!

One aspect of the series I particularly appreciate is how the books thread a difficult line between dealing with serious issues with sensitivity, and keeping the humorous tone going, and it does it well for the most part, Judith’s depression and alcoholism contrasted with her penchant for naked swimming and hard candy (boiled sweets), being the most obvious examples.

The friendship between the main three characters, and to a lesser degree theirs with Tanika, is lovely because it allows them all to flourish, as they all contribute their own expertise, book smarts, or life experience, as they work to figure out the how, the who, and the why of the murder. Even better is that they all support each other’s growth as each work through their own challenges and traumas.

If I have one complaint in the overall tone of the series is the many unhappy romantic relationships showcased; we have the partner who contributes nothing to the relationship or family, the partner who cheats, the partner who is emotionally abusive, and so forth. It’s depressing when the only person in the novel who had a happy marriage was the victim, who had been widowed for a good two decades, and remained faithful to his late wife until his last breath.

The novel is divided into many short chapters; in fact, almost every change in venue translates into another chapter. This gives a sense of many things happening quickly, even when that is not quite the case. It does behoove the reader not to be fooled, and to pay attention to the clues scattered through the narrative; I am on the fence on whether this is a fair play mystery or not, because some of the clues are excessively subtle, but since they are in the text…

And to be fair, the novel does play to society’s prejudices, so even though it annoyed me a bit in its cleverness, the resolution is not a Deus Ex Machina move.

Once again, the best aspects of the Golden Age of mystery are present here, and I am very much looking forward to more entries in the series.

The Queen of Poisons gets a 9.00 out of 10.

I'm not going to lie I mostly picked this one up for the title. But I did love Judith's whole thinking outside the box. And bending the rules but not breaking them.

The third book in the Marlow Murder Club keeps up the fun, breezy and cozy mystery atmosphere of the previous books while giving our trio a bit of character development. I really enjoyed it, but perhaps not quite as much as the previous two. I will follow that statement up with my assertion that it's still a great read and a notch better than many of the other books I tend to read and review. You'll find me eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.

Third book in the series. It follows Becks, Judith and Suzie in their adventures in solving crime in their town of Marlow. I liked the banter of the 3 women and how their personalities complement and support each other. When the mayor gets poisoned at a council meeting, everyone becomes a suspect. The trio have to uncover all the secrets of the members to find the killer. I enjoyed this book and the pace. The reason behind the murder is sad and makes sense. It wasn’t obvious who the killer was so it kept me in suspense. The struggle I had was the women were very quick to judge and act and jump to conclusions. That part was a huge struggle when reading.

I was disappointed with this third book in the series. I have enjoyed the previous two books, but this book was boring, flat, and linear. Anyone who is a usual reader of mysteries knows who was responsible early on. You might not know the why, but you know the who, and it is a trudge to get to the end.

I would have preferred the subplot of Becks conflict with her mother-in-law being plumped-up since the main storyline was boring. Their conflict was the spark this book could have used more of. Truthfully, I like Becks more than Judith and Suzie and would love to see more of her.

Fans of Robert Thorogood will persevere, but if this is your first visit to Marlow, I suggest you start at the beginning of the series and get to know this trio of crime-solving ladies.

My Rating: 4/5

I loved this book! Just like I have loved all the other books in this series. I can't wait to see the TV show they've made based on this series. All of the characters are so fun in their different ways and each mystery is so interesting.
If you love cozy English murder books/shows, this book and this series is for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a 2 star read for me. I felt a disconnect from the characters and felt like the writing was very one dimensional. The story had a lot of potential and I loved the idea but I feel like more time could have gone into this.

This is a very favorite series of mine and one I recommend to any type of mystery reader. I am always looking for the next in the series so I can spend time with Judith, Suzie, and Becks again. I love their friendship and the way they encourage and push each other in their personal challenges. In each of the 3 in this series, I have enjoyed the way Robert Thorogood weaves the mystery and allows his characters to unravel it. Give me more Marlow Murder Club!!

The Queen of Poisons is the third in the series and is out now! Thank you Poisoned Pen Press and Netgalley for my e-arc!

Thank you to NetGalley, and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating : 3.5

This is the third book in the series (The Marlow Murder Club & Death To Marlow) which I didn’t realize prior. It could be read on it’s own as well. I plan on reading the other books sometime. I really liked Suzie and Becks characters the most. In some parts the story was slower paced than I usually prefer. It was a cozy murder mystery and well written overall.

#readingtime #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #poisonedpenpress #bookishlove #readmore #murder #mystery #tbr #bookstagram #books #poison #booking #whodoneit #queenofthepoisons

This was a fun murder mystery! Three nosy older women are helping the police with their third murder, only this time one woman was present when it happened! The ladies are officially contracted as civilian consults and given (more like taken) free rein around town to figure out who murdered the mayor and why. The banter in this book was great, the killer’s identity was particularly difficult to discover while reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ending.

I received an audio arc of this book and will be leaving my full review on that copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Mayor of Marlow dies during a town council meeting and traces of aconite are found in his coffee. Aconite is known as the queen of poisons because of its toxicity. Before Judith, Suzie, and Becks can meddle too far, they are brought in as civilian advisors to the police and the trio begin to investigate, even if they don’t follow normal police procedures. This case appears to be more complicated than at first glance and the Marlow Murder Club must pull out all the stops to find the killer. Who would want to kill the mayor? Is anyone else on the murderer’s radar?

The Queen of Poisons is the third book in The Marlow Murder Club series. These characters are so much fun to read about and even though it had been months since I read the second book, I was easily able to remember the quirks of each of these ladies and jump full tilt into this new mystery. Thorogood has created a town with characters that most readers can relate to and another story that was hard to put down. Although this could be read and enjoyed on its own, readers will have more fun if they read the books in order.