The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club #3)

Feisty and fearless septuagenarian Judith and her two tagalong friends, vicar’s wife Becks and dog-walker Suzie are back on yet another murder case in this third book of The Marlow Murder Club series by Robert Thorogood, and I’m so glad. I missed them!

I won’t say too much about the plot, but this time around, Marlow’s beloved and benevolent mayor Geoffrey Lushington is the unfortunate victim of a town council meeting gone wrong. Newly minted DI Tanika Malik knows from experience that this trio of ladies isn’t going to sit idly by and let the police do their job. Her solution? Make them citizen advisers, which Judith of course takes to mean full detectives! 

If there’s one thing we know by now: Judith is always one step ahead of everyone when it comes to solving crimes, and she can’t be bothered to wait for them to catch up! As a crossword setter, she knows the definitions of a lot of words, but pesky ones like “no”, “don’t”, “wait” and “stop” don’t appear to have ANY meaning at all to her. Add in Becks' kind and conciliatory nature and Suzie's tendency to rush to judgment, and it's a minor miracle these three can work productively on anything!

Once again I listened to the audio while reading along on my Kindle. Nicolette McKenzie has personified these characters so perfectly in each book, that I can’t imagine not hearing their voices and banter at this point! I hope she stays with the series for the long haul.

As for my thoughts on this book, I’ll put it this way: You know when you have a favorite TV series that you look forward to each week, but some episodes are just naturally better than others? It doesn’t mean you didn’t like the episode or you think negatively about it - it just isn’t as memorable. That’s how I feel about this book. It’s well-written as always, worth every moment I spent with it, and is another reminder of why I love the series - it just wasn’t QUITE as fun for me as the first two. The potential cast of “whodunnits” just didn’t grab me as much this time.

So, will I be back for more “episodes”? You BET! I love these ladies, and I wouldn’t miss a chance to spend time with them again!

★★★ ½ (boosted to 4 for the wonderful narration)

Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press, NetGalley and author Robert Thorogood for this digital ARC to honestly review and to my library/Libby for the audio. It’s out now!