Description: Hurlingham House school is a high-achiever’s heaven, full of happy, hard-working pupils. There’s just the small matter of the dead body on the field… Sounds like a case for Epiphany Bloom! When Epiphany Bloom’s best friend’s sister Claire is accused of trading exam papers for money, Epiphany agrees to see Ms Peters, the headteacher of Claire’s fiercely competitive school, to provide moral support. Claire has always been a model student and is loudly protesting her innocence: surely it’s all just a misunderstanding. But when Ms Peters hears about Epiphany’s previous sleuthing exploits, she enlists her help to track down the true culprit! Taking a job as a PE teacher, Epiphany soon realises she has plenty of suspects for the exam scam mastermind. The broke young teacher with a shady past? The father willing to buy his daughter anything – including grades? The school governor desperate to keep Hurlingham House at the top of the ranks? Then Epiphany finds one of them dead at the school fair, and it becomes clear someone is taking the cut-throat culture of the school too literally – and when mysterious accidents start happening around her too, it seems the killer knows she’s onto them. |
A charming and totally addictive cozy mystery with a hilarious and warm-hearted heroine. A must-read for fans of M.C. Beaton, Lee Strauss and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.
With that being said, I have to admit that this one did not quite meet the bar which The Museum Murder set. Don't get me wrong, it is still a fantastic read but in this one, my favorite morally grey character Pip was just a bit too "normal and sweet" for my liking lol. The book starts out with her losing yet another job (for yet another crazy reason ;-)) and accepting a job as an undercover investigator at a school with a bunch of super rich kids. Out of all the subjects she could have been assigned, she has to turn into a semi-passable PE teacher. I expected her to go from one faux-pas to the next. She does do some of her typical Pip stuff, just not as crazy as in the previous books. I think what made the previous book such an amazing read for me where the pop culture references ("Pretty Woman" Julia Roberts and other iconic characters). I was waiting for some of those to pop up again even though I kind of knew that they would not fit into this storyline. Also, I really missed her sister's hilarious mistakes with the English language. I hope we get some of those laugh-out-loud-roll-on-the-floor conversations between Pip and her sister in the next book which I'm very much looking forward to. This book was a great addition to the series. Now hurry, ladies, and give us another laugh-out-loud and rollercoaster-ride-crazy story!
About the authors: Katie Gayle is the writing partnership of best-selling South African writers, Kate Sidley and Gail Schimmel. Kate and Gail have, between them, written over ten books of various genres, but with Katie Gayle, they both make their debut in the cozy mystery genre. Both Gail and Kate live in Johannesburg, with husbands, children, dogs and cats. Unlike their sleuth Epiphany Bloom, neither of them have ever stolen a cat from the vet. https://www.facebook.com/KatieGayleWriter https://twitter.com/KatieGayleBooks |