🎧 Listened in audio (ARC by NetGalley)
📢 Narrated by Maxim Reston | ⏱ Duration: 10 hours
Genre: Cozy Mystery
🏷️ Publisher name: Brilliance Publishing and Brilliance Audio
Book Blurb:
Jamie Sinclair is only supposed to be minding a cat. A temporary house-sitting job in a windswept Scottish seaside town means handyman jobs, sea views and a glossy black cat for company. Then an elderly client dies after a routine repair, and Jamie lands in the middle of local gossip and under the stern eye of Detective Constable Emma MacLeod, who dislikes civilians meddling in police business. Sure his work was solid, he teams up with a burly gym owner and a sharp-eyed student to dig into a family’s buried secrets, and the answers may be far bigger than he expected.
Let’s talk … murder!!!
“If you want things done, ask a woman.” That line sums up the business Jamie is temporarily minding, and I loved it. It’s a charming, original backdrop for a cosy mystery, and it gives Jamie plenty of reasons to get tangled up in the town’s affairs.
Jamie is only meant to be keeping things ticking over in a windswept Scottish seaside town. Instead he ends up at the centre of a local death and some very nosy gossip. His controlling girlfriend adds to the pressure, so his adventures in the town feel like a real escape, and I enjoyed every step of them. I had tremendous fun following him.
The found-family setup is the book’s biggest strength. The misfit team Jamie falls in with is wonderfully written, and I was invested in them as a group as much as in the mystery. The book is warm and funny, and the characters play off each other well.
The ending surprised me, which I always appreciate in a mystery. But it felt like too much of a stretch of the imagination, and I think it could have been better. It didn’t quite match how grounded and believable the rest of the story felt.
Would I recommend it?
Death by the Sea is a warm, funny cosy mystery set in a windswept Scottish seaside town, and the lovable misfit team is the real draw. The ending stretched my imagination too far for me, but I’d happily recommend this to anyone who likes cosy crime with a coastal setting and an ensemble cast. I’m glad it’s the start of The Misfit Detectives series and I’m curious where they go next. Add it to your TBR.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cozy Reads for Fans of Death by the Sea
- The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths
If the misfit crew was what you loved most, this one has a group of unlikely friends investigating a death on the Kent coast. - Curiosity Thrilled the Cat by Sofie Kelly
Book 1 of the Magical Cats Mystery series. If the troublesome cat in Death by the Sea caught your eye, these cats take the lead.
- The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
A Scottish setting and an amateur sleuth who can’t stop poking into a death that isn’t hers to solve.
- A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie
If you liked the town in Death by the Sea where everyone has history, this classic village mystery has the same buried secrets.
- The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray
For readers who loved the ensemble cast, this one pulls a whole group of amateur sleuths into one mystery.
Who’s in Your Found Family?
Okay, I have to ask. Jamie ends up with a burly gym owner and a sharp-eyed student as his crime-solving crew, and somehow it works. If you could pick your own misfit detective team, who would be on it? Have you read Death by the Sea yet, and did the ending work for you or did it stretch your imagination like it did mine? Tell me in the comments.
Book Links
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Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary
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