Customer Reviews

Dead as a Scone (The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mystery Series #1)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'd given up on new authors producing the kind of pleasurable, cozy mystery that I grew up with. But here it is! Coming to the end of the book and wanting more is a sign that the authors have succeeded. I grumped because I'd finished and then perked up when I found this was to be a series. Can't wait for the next one!

Ron and Janet Benrey are a professional writing duo who live in Maryland. Ron is a graduate of MIT, holds a masters in management and a law degree. Janet is a native of Kent, England and has a degree from the University of Pittsburgh. They have written several books together, and Ron has had an extensive career writing books and articles for CEO's. He also is a veteran speaker for Fortune 100 companies.

The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum is an esteemed establishment with an acting director in the person of Nigel Owen, a permanent curator named Flick Adams, and an elderly heiress named Dame Elspeth Hawker. Dame Elspeth suspects someone is switching pieces of the museum's collection and substituting fakes. She has a pretty good idea who is behind it, but before she can report to the trustees, she is the victim of a murder. Only Flick Adams, who has a Ph.D. in food chemistry and a fairly extensive background in toxicology, is suspicious. Dame Elspeth has been her valued friend, and Flick is certain that the doctor, Sir Simon Clowes, also a trustee, is wrong in his diagnosis that Dame Elspeth expired from heart problems. Flick finds herself in hot water when she shares her theories, but Nigel finally makes the right choice and comes to her rescue, in spite of his misgivings:

"Why had he offered to help? Probably because vague pangs of remorse kept reminding him that he had intentionally ignored two opportunities to do right by Flick Adams. He might have eased Flick's sequential scoldings-first by DI Pennyman and then by the trustees-if he had repeated what Elspeth said on the day she died."

DEAD AS A SCONE is a delightful and warm tale written in the Agatha Christie "cozy" style. The team of Ron and Janet Benrey craft a tantalizing love story behind the whodunit tale of poison, pets hovering by to encourage the sleuths, and the world of art, tea, and baking. Old and grievous wounds figure as the motive, and the setting of the museum in the actual town of Tunbridge Wells reels in the reader with visions of marble, dead bodies, and intrigue.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

For Nigel Owen, the year has not been going well. After loosing a great job in London, the only job he could get was as acting director of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Still, this confirmed coffee drinker is determined to make the best of it and move back into his old circles as soon as he can.

Flick Adams, meanwhile, is thrilled to be working for the museum. The American transplant loves tea and finds her job as chief curator to be a real joy.

Both their lives are shaken when Dame Elspeth Hawker, board member and relative of the museum's founder, dies in the middle of a board meeting. Her doctor wants to write it off as natural causes, a reasonable assumption for an 84 year old. But Flick recognizes signs of poisoning and insists it was murder. Nigel knew there was something on Elspeth's mind that day. Could it be the reason she was killed?

Meanwhile, Elspeth's death puts the museum's future in jeopardy since many of the items in the museum were on loan from her family, and the heirs want to sell them. Can the museum come up with a way to keep their collection?

I love a good cozy and thought that a mystery set around tea in a small English village would be a perfect fit for me. I was right. Royal Tunbridge Wells is a charming place populated with endearing characters. It was a blast spending time with them. The book was so well written that time and the pages flew by, and it was always difficult putting the book down.

The story is told in equal parts from Nigel and Flick's points of view. This allows us to get to know them both equally and also provides different insight into the story. Each has their own straights and weaknesses, and this makes their scenes stand out all the more.

The pacing of the story is a little uneven. While Flick calls it murder right away, it's a long time before anyone else thinks it is. This makes for a beginning that's a little slower then I would have liked. The writing style, characters, and the museum collection sub-plot help keep things interesting, however.

One curiosity - the book is marketed as a Christian mystery. While there are a couple Christian characters and a Bible verse provides a clue, the majority of the characters, including Nigel and Flick, aren't Christians. Frankly, this didn't bother me either way and think it is worth noting only in passing. I think this might change as the series progresses, however.

I enjoyed this series debut and plan to spend more time with Nigel, Flick, and their charming tea museum.

I loved this book! The first few pages drew me in like a good cup of tea by the fire, and the intricate plot kept me riveted. I liked the two main characters (and their pets!), and look forward to more books with them in it. This one's a winner. I heartily recommend it!

This is a mystery novel which keeps a commuter from Tunbridge Wells forget about railway miseries when he/she is on his/her daily journey to the City of London. The well described Englishness of the tea museum characters travels through all pages and there is the flair of the gentile, decaying Spa Town throughout the book. It is certainly big fun to put real faces to some of the characters if you are a citizen of Royal Tunbridge Wells but equally it must be fascinating for an outsider to read into a plot which folds out of the old fashioned behaviour of fuddy-duddies who nevertheless take decisions of great importance. The authors are masters in analysing eccentric English committees who rely entirely on the recommendations of clerks to take their decisions. That this can lead to murder is not likely, ... unless there are personal motives involved. And that seems the case in mysterious Royal Tunbridge Wells . . .

Having gone to the effort of opening an Internet site: "www.teamuseum.org" to present the virtual tea museum, Janet and Ron Benrey have set standards which will be difficult for any writer to keep up.

This is an English cozy that takes the reader on a meandering walk down mystery lane with all the dignity of an English tea and the adventure of discovery. This is a mystery/romance to read while curled up before a roaring fire while drinking, what else, a bracing cup of tea.

Read the entire review at AUTHOR'S CHOICE REVIEWS http://come.to/bookreviews

I just adored this book! It makes me appreciate tea and England and God. The characters are so life-like and full of depth. Definitely a book to savor with a good cup of tea (chai for me!).

Do you recall the friend that can make even the most exciting events seem dull by including too many unimportant details? That is how I would classify the beginning of this book. The mystery was good and I found the book to be charming as a whole. However, the first third of the book included a lot of breaks for a description of the various histories of tea, the museum, the family that founded the museum, etc.

In general, I love history and I appreciate books that incorporate history into the story. This book failed to make the historical passages flow along with the story. My guess would be that one of the authors wrote the mystery while the other author wrote the history behind the book. The beginning of the book was choppy as a result. Just as I started to get into the story there would be a break for several paragraphs that read like a history textbook. I probably would have found the information interesting if it had fit better within the story.

I did enjoy the mystery. I found it to be engaging and it kept my interest to the end of the book. The story was charming and fun. The authors obviously put a lot of effort into research and development for this book. It was worth reading but I wouldn't add it to my personal library. It does not make my list of books to read again but I did not feel that I wasted my time by reading it. Overall, once I got past all the descriptions I enjoyed the book and was satisfied by the ending.

I gave this five stars. Let me state that this may or may not be your cup of tea.

I'll tell you why I gave this five stars. I found this book very easy to keep reading and enjoyed myself. That didn't mean this book was perfect -- there were slow parts (though at one of the slowest parts the authors did a great job of getting you to sit up and notice). Also, I did not feel there were enough clues (maybe not any) for the reader to figure it out before the characters did. But that did not mean I didn't enjoy the book.

This book is written by people with a Christian world view. If that is a problem, then you do have a problem, but the authors don't make this overly obvious. In other words, the message is clear for those tuned to it, but it does not distract nor dominate the story.

I appreciated this story and thank the Benreys for writing it.

I picked this up along with The final Crumpet, new authors to me. I enjoyed it very much, though the beginning was a little slow, once it got going I couldnt put it down.

getting ready to read The Final Crumpet - wish there were more books in this series - love a good, cozy English Mystery!