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| About the Book |
The Secret Sauce, the third book in the Erdington Mysteries
Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
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Author Bio – I’m an author of historical fiction and non-fiction (Early English (Saxon), Vikings and the British Isles as a whole before the Norman Conquest, as well as five twentieth-century mysteries), born in the old Mercian kingdom at some point since the end of 1066.
Historical mysteries allow me to use such modern inventions as the telephone and the car, which is very exciting when I spend so much of my time worrying about feeding the horses my warriors usually ride.
I was raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a very young age it housed the bones of long-dead kings of Mercia, it’s little wonder my curiosity in the early English ran riot. I can only blame my parents!
I like to write. You’ve been warned!
Social Media Links – https://linktr.ee/MJPorterauthor
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| My thoughts |
Well written cosy crime stories set in the past are often a delight to read - and this one by M J Porter is no exception.
I did smile at the 'BB' sauce - short for Big Ben, as I knew the more familiar 'HP Sauce' is 'Houses of Parliament' (and as with BB Sauce, absolutely perfect to add to a piping hot Bacon Butty [sandwich].) The thought of a body in the sauce vat at the factory didn't put me off my own sauce bottle though!
Chief Inspector Sam Mason's investigation is, right from the start, complicated and looking very much like murder, with his delightful, and very keen, female assistant, Sergeant O’Rourke at his side, he must unravel the cause of death while also coping with the tragedies of the ongoing war.
Harry Armstrong was discovered, drowned in a vat of the famous BB Sauce - but did he fall, did he deliberately jump, or was he pushed? When it becomes clear that things are not all they seem at the sauce factory, the conclusion that this was murder becomes evident. But why kill him? What did Harry know? Why did he have to be silenced - and by whom?
The setting of WWII in England during 1944 was cleverly done, with enough facts and detail to set the scene nicely. Add in the bizarre clues of a secret code, missing sauce bottles, and a tragic explosion at the nearby RAF base ordnance store, Mason has a lot to discover - and the reader a lot to think about.
This isn't an action-packed thrill-a-minute read, but more of a stroll through the everyday life of wartime England, when rationing was a struggle for everyone and resources were slim, but for those who like a challenge to unravel 'whodunit' The Secret Sauce should please well.
This one is Book Three of the Erdington Mystery Series, but it was fine as a standalone.
**** 4 stars
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