ARC Review: Liz, Pat and Thelma #4

A Brush With Death by J.M. Hall

Publication Date: March 13, 2025

Summary from NetGalley:

Retired schoolteachers Pat, Liz and Thelma don’t know what to think. The death of Neville Hilton is not a crime. Just your standard, if tragic, heart attack. At least that’s what the autopsy shows.

But his ex-wife isn’t convinced. She’s sure the current Mrs Hilton is involved – maybe she wasn’t at some horse event, as she told police.

And so the three friends step away from their slices of cake to investigate.

As the trio delve into the village’s secrets, they uncover more than they bargained for – angry residents with old grudges and the echoes of a damning report that ruined lives all those years ago…

Can these unlikely sleuths untangle the web of lies and uncover the truth before anybody else dies?

ARC provided by Avon Books via NetGalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This was a bit of a surprise in that I actually enjoyed this one. But I still had some of the same issues that I had with the previous ones, which was a bit disappointing. That said, I thought the mystery itself was pretty good with lots of red herrings and twists up until the end.

Thelma, Pat and Liz are three retired teachers who now investigate mysteries. This time there is a death, but not a murder, just some things that make the ex wife of the deceased suspicious. The ladies are reluctant, but eventually become engrossed with the mystery. I became quite invested in the murder too and was happy to go along with the ladies to find out what really happened. I did figure it out, but some of the hows eluded me till the end. Which for me always makes for a good plot. I really appreciated how there were so many suspects to start off and how each was eliminated until there was one person left standing.

I also really liked the little epigraphs at the start of each chapter. There is a heat wave in this part of England and the epigraphs really helped to set the scenes with little tips on how to beat the heat and other goings on in the towns in the area. They were a lot of fun. I also really liked the descriptions of how the heat was making everyone feel and how protective they were of each other to make sure everyone was safe. Nicely done.

My biggest issue with this story and the series as a whole, is that these women don’t really act that much like they are friends. They felt a little bit friendlier this time around, but still, they all sort of go off on their own to solve the mystery, then meet up to debrief about what they have found. Sometimes they go off in pairs, usually at the behest of one of them, but they don’t always clue in the other what they are up to. I don’t know, but if I was solving a mystery with a friend, I think there would be more time spent together solving it? I also still can’t really tell the three women apart, who is married to who, and who their children are and their issues. But that might be a me thing.

The final thing about this series, and this book in particular, is the focus on the educational system in England. I get it, it is set in England, they are retired teachers, so let’s solve a mystery that has to do with the schools. But as someone who doesn’t understand much about the british education system, especially with this book, part of the story didn’t make much sense to me. Being an educator myself I understood the part about how hard the state evaluations can be, but we don’t usually shut down schools that fail one evaluation, we help them try to get better first. It also sounds like they are privatizing their schools, big corporations taking over the village schools. That can’t be right, can it? As an outsider I just needed a bit more background on this to help me understand some of the emotions and motives of the characters involved.

I still did enjoy this one, and it is probably my favorite of the three books that I have read in this series. You certainly don’t have to have read the others, in order to enjoy this one, but it wouldn’t hurt either. I think fans of the series will be happy with this new installment. If you like cozy mysteries set in a small village in England then you might just want to give this series a chance.