Francesca Eve thought she was prepared for anything at the events she caters for in her pretty little Shropshire village. Missing canapes? No problem. Burnt brownies? A piece of cake… But a dead body? Now that’s a recipe for disaster.

Francesca is nervous about catering her first-ever murder mystery party, but it’s clear from the clink of champagne flutes and piles of empty plates that the evening is a roaring success. The guests look spectacular in their disguises, whispering and giggling as they try to identify who killed beautiful young Becky. But days later the game takes a sinister turn when Becky is found poisoned, and all the signs point to the culprit being a party guest.

From the woman having an affair to the guest hiding her true identity, everyone had a secret – and it turns out that Becky knew them all. As Fran finds herself centre-stage in a real-life murder mystery, the finger of suspicion points at each guest in turn. And Fran starts to wonder, were any of these secrets dangerous enough to kill for?

Then the body of a second guest is found, and it becomes clear a deranged killer is going off-script. It seems anyone who was involved in the game that night is in their sights, even Fran. Can she unmask the murderer before the final curtain falls?

A page-turning cozy mystery packed with twists. If you love Clare Chase, M.C. Beaton and The Thursday Murder Club you’ll absolutely adore this unputdownable whodunnit.

Fran Eve caters a murder mystery birthday party for Sara Smith and four of her closest friends.  During the evening she finds herself avoiding one of the party goers by hiding at which point she runs into Sara’s son Adam who is also avoiding his mother’s friends.  While the evening is a success, days later one of the guests, Becky, ends up dead for real, poisoned as she was in the party mystery.  Adam, fearing his mother will be a suspect, turns to Fran for help in proving mom’s innocence. As they delve into the party goers’ lives they find that all of the women had secrets and it looks like Becky wasn’t as sweet as she appeared.

I really enjoyed this book. Our amateur sleuths are an unusual pair - Fran is a 40-something-year-old caterer, married with a teenage daughter while Adam is a 23-year-old computer game designer and something of a recluse.  While this pairing shouldn’t really work it surprisingly does and we have an engaging pair of amateur sleuths. The action flows pretty naturally for what is, in truth, an unlikely situation and the murderer and their motive is not obvious until close to the end.  I look forward to seeing how this series continues as a caterer should not be stumbling across murder victims frequently – well, not if they want to stay in business - and a reclusive computer game designer really shouldn’t have much opportunity to stumble across a murder.  All-in-all a delightful read and a good start for a new cozy mystery series. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon