The Pie and Mash Detective Agency Review: A Cozy Mystery That Loses Its Way

Read time: 5 minutes

🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by Rhys Tees ⏱ Duration: 10 hours
Genre: Mystery 🏷️ Published by Books on Tape and Berkley

Book Blurb:

Dev Hooper arrives home from work to find his girlfriend, Nellie Thorne, has vanished. But she’s not the first Nellie Thorne to disappear. She’s the fifth in fifty years. Enter Jane Pye and Simon, a millennial couple who signed up for a private detective night class on a whim and get handed Dev’s case for their coursework. Armed with six weeks of notes, matching trench coats, and more enthusiasm than experience, they take on a case that’s baffled Kent’s police for decades. What connects the missing Nellies, and why do locals whisper about a ghostly presence? Only the Pie & Mash Detective Agency can find out.

Let’s talk about the book:

I had requested this book on NetGalley when it released, considering it to be a cozy mystery. At that point I was rejected, but then I forgot about it and therefore missed reading the book. Then book 2 came out and I got approved for the ARC. Now I needed to read the first book for context before reading the second book, to do justice to the series. That is how I came upon The Pie and Mash Detective Agency, 6 months after it was released, and started listening to it on Spotify.

The book started in a pretty cozy manner and I enjoyed the start of the book where a millennial couple wants to explore something new and joins a detective training class. But that’s where the coziness ended. I have nothing against queer personalities, but introducing them into the story for no possible reason doesn’t make sense to me. Jane and Simon truly doesn’t feel like a couple who’s been together for as long as the book indicates them to be. They feel more like acquaintances or colleagues than a couple. Jane’s queer tendencies did not make any sense in the direction of the story.

The way the mystery ended was, for lack of any other word, absurd. There were just so many directions this story took before culminating in a completely off-track reason for the mystery to be solved.

Would I recommend it?

I am not sold, either on the narrative, or the odd couple, or even the climax of the story. The setup was genuinely cozy and promising, but it unravels fast once the case gets going, and the ending just doesn’t earn its own buildup. Now I am dreading reading book 2, but there have been series where book 2 picks things up, and I am hoping that’s the case here.

⭐⭐

If You Want to Try This Premise Done Better

• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman If you want amateur detectives with heart and a proper structure to the mystery, Osman’s retirees actually deliver on the whimsical-but-sharp promise this one only half kept.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

• Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano For an amateur sleuth who’s messier and more believable than Jane and Simon ever felt, Finlay’s chaotic energy is a much better ride.

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• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith If the detective-agency-as-underdog premise is what drew you in here, this is the gold standard version, warm and genuinely charming from page one.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

• Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala Craving a cozy mystery that actually nails its central relationships instead of leaving them feeling like strangers? This one gets the found-family and romance beats right.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

• The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood For an ensemble of amateur investigators taking on a case that’s stumped the local police for years, this delivers the payoff Pie and Mash promised but didn’t quite land.

Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org | Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | Booktrovert | OpenLibrary | Litsy

So, Did I Get This One Wrong?

Have you read this one, or are you further along in the series than I am? Tell me in the comments if book 2 turns things around, because right now I need the convincing.

Book Links

Want to purchase this or any of your favorite books while supporting a local bookstore? Consider purchasing using the sites below. These sites work with independent local bookstore owners to fulfill your book orders. #SupportLocal

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