Guilt at the Garage

Guilt at the Garage is the twentieth instalment in the Fethering Village Mysteries series, featuring amateur sleuthing duo Carol Seddon and her next door neighbour Jude, set in Fethering, West Sussex. After a night drinking her usual dinner accompaniment, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, at Fethering's only pub, The Crown and Anchor, with Jude, Carol decides to err on the side of caution and leave her beloved white Renault parked near the shops and walk the short distance back home to High Tor believing it'll be safe overnight. However, when she takes pooch Gulliver for a walk the following day she finds it has been vandalised and the back windscreen has been smashed in leaving granulated glass scattered over both the boot and the upholstery. This warrants a trip to Bill Shefford's garage, on the edge of the Downside Estate, as she knows he is the only one she trusts to fix it up and treat it with care as well as providing good old fashioned customer service. When she returns home she discovers a frightening message on a piece of paper on the kitchen floor stating "Watch out. The car window was just the start."

A couple of days later, she is once again back at Shefford's, this time for regular repairs, when inexplicably the gearbox of a Triumph TR6 falls on Bill killing him instantaneously. Carole and Jude are shocked by both the death and the vandalism and not forgetting the poisoned pen letters and decide to investigate. This is a richly detailed and atmospheric cosy that had me riveted from the outset. I love the descriptions of the village as it resembles the chocolate-box countryside location found in Midsomer Murders, complete with the same gossiping busybodies. It's compulsive and the mystery had me eating through the pages in record time. Told from the perspectives of both Carole and Jude, it works incredibly well as they each have totally different outlooks on life. There are plenty of twists and turns and a liberal use of misdirection, which successfully threw me off the scent, and I must admit that I love Carole who is a stickler for the rules and represents middle England rather well. An entertaining, enthralling piece of page-turning escapism, and a cosy I highly recommend.