Books I Read/Listened to in May 2026

 

The Saint Mary's Cipher by Anna Elliott and Charles Veley
No 9 in The Homefront Sleuths Cozy Mystery series
Release date 2026-04-27
Audio book narrated by Iona Campbell (9:50 hrs)

Introduction from the Audible website: 

Palm Sunday brings spring to Crofter’s Green and a deadly secret. When a postal van crashes outside the Cozy Cup, Dorothy agrees to hold a registered parcel for the shaken driver. Minutes later, the parcel vanishes and the postman is found murdered. The only clues are an address in London and a faint cipher that points back to St Mary’s Church.

As Alice, Blake, Harry, and Evie follow the trail, the Homefront Sleuths uncover a chilling wartime plot that could leave the village in ruins. With blackout-darkened church bells, a father’s fate hanging in the balance, and a wedding at risk, they must stop a ruthless local ring before the first bombs fall.

My opinion: I've listened to all 9 books (so far) in this series, in order, in four months, becauseI found them included in my Audible membership for free - but am not sure how long that will last... I wouldn't be able to re-tell the plot in each individual book/mystery, but the characters are likeable, and the books have been entertaining enough to listen to. The setting is an English village in the early 1940s, during the war. (The events in the first seven books all took place during 1941, while with No 8 we moved into 1942 - and as you can see in the introduction for No 9, that one starts at Easter 1942.) 

I assume the series will continue... Whether I'll also continue to listen, probably depends on if it will also continue to be included among my "free" titles!

 

In the time of Five Pumpkins by Alexander McCall Smith
No 26 (!) in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series
Release date 2025-09-04 
6 hrs 54 min

Introduction from the Audible website:

The rains are coming, but not just yet. When they do, there will be green shoots of growth throughout Botswana. Pumpkins will flourish – particularly those of Mma Potokwani, matron of a children’s home and old friend of Precious Ramotswe. Mma Potokwani and Mma Ramotswe have many other things to talk about, including a new friendship that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni has struck up with Mr Freddie Mogorosi, a prominent figure in the motor trade.

In the meantime, Mma Ramotswe looks into what seems to be a straightforward matter involving a husband who thinks his wife may be having affair. But there is a surprise in store: she, it transpires, suspects that he himself has a lover. This is obviously a case that will require tact – which of course is a quality Mma Ramotswe has in abundance. Along with kindness.

In this latest visit to The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency we are reassured that no matter how unhappy the world may be, there is always an oasis of courtesy and peace in that special place in southern Africa. To which you are now invited.

My opinion: I repeat what I said about the previous one in this series (in April): I'm  impressed that Alexander McCall Smith still manages to keep this long series enjoyable. The "concept" is pretty much the same as it has been all along, but at the same time the main characters do keep developing and maturing - giving the sense that time does pass in their lives as well as it does for us who have kept following the series from start (1998). (It's only the last few that I've bought with Audible credits, in the past I borrwed them from the library.) 

 

The Man with a Load of Mischief by Martha Grimes
Book 1 in the Richard Jury series (first published in 1981)
Audio book 9 hrs 32 min; narrated by Steve West

Introduction from the Audible website: 

At the pub The Man with a Load of Mischief, they found the dead body stuck in a keg of beer. At The Jack and Hammer, another body was stuck out on the beam of the pub’s sign, replacing the mechanical man who kept the time. Two pubs. Two murders. One Scotland Yard inspector called in to help. Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jury arrives in Long Piddleton and finds everyone in the postcard village looking outside of town for the killer. Except for one Melrose Plant. A keen observer of human nature, he points Jury in the right direction: into the darkest parts of his neighbors’ hearts…

My opinion: This is the first book in another very long series of detective novels. From Wikipedia I learn that Martha Grimes too by now has written 26 books about DCI Richard Jury. I have read a couple in the past, a long time ago (and not in order); and now decided to go back to the first one in the series to see where it all started. Besides the detective Richard Jury, and I think also the character Melrose Plant, another thing that links all books in this series is that their titles are all names of English pubs.

Murder on the Rocks by T.E. Kinsey

A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 13
Release date 26 May, 2026
Audiobook 8 hrs 11 min
Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden

Introduction from the Audible website:

February 1913. Lady Hardcastle and her diminutive but brave lady’s maid, Flo, have been invited by their friend JB McIntyre to spend the weekend at his recently renovated Tudor fort on a remote island off the Devonshire coast. But the holiday quickly turns sinister when first a number of valuable jewels go missing—and then a fellow guest is murdered with a most unusual weapon.

Asked by JB to investigate, the stakes are raised for the sleuthing duo when a violent storm traps the group on the island and cuts them off from help. Is the murderer in their midst? With everyone claiming to have an alibi—but each also having a skeleton in their closet—can Lady Hardcastle and Flo unravel this complex web of secrets and deception before the killer strikes again?

My opinion: This is one of my favourite mystery series in later years, told from the point of view of Florence, lady's maid (but really more like companion/friend) to Lady Hardcastle - both of them with a rather adventurous background from travels in foreign countries, but in the first book coming back to England to "settle down" in an English village. ... Well - as all of us who enjoy this genre of British literature, the idea of a peaceful and mystery-free life in the English countryside is really a contradiction in itself... 

This 13th book is a little bit different in that they leave their own house and village to go and stay with a limited number of guests in an isolated big house on an island. So their usual set of friends in their own village are not involved in this story.

I enjoy this series as I like the characters, the setting, and the witty repartee between Lady H and her maid. (Originally I fell for the series because one of my paternal grandmother's older sisters was a travelling lady's maid more or less in the same era. To my knowledge she didn't solve any murders, but she still led a more adventurous life than most girls/women of her time.)  

 

More by Josephine Tey (Book reviews)

Having bought them all collected in one Audible volume, I've continued to listen to the rest of the Inspector Grant mysteries by Josephine Tey (pseudonym for Elizabeth Mackintosh). (Cf my review of The Man in the Queue from earlier this month.) 

 

 

 In A Shilling for Candles (1936)  a film actress is found drowned on a beach in Kent. At first it's believed to be an accident, but a button entangled in her hair makes Grant suspect murder... The case of course turns out to be more complicated than it seems at first, though.

 

In The Franchise Affair (1949), a mother and daughter living in a remote house in the countryside (called The Franchise) , are accused of having kidnapped a young woman visiting the area, imprisoning her in their attic, and forcing her to become their servant. The two women accused of doing this contact a solicitor, Robert Blair, to be present when they're interviewed by the police. Blair decides to believe the two women rather than their alleged victim, and sets out on a quest to prove their innocense. A tabloid takes the side of the young girl, though, and turns the townspeople against the two women. In this book, Inspector Grant is really only a background character, and it's Blair who is the main investigator, trying to disprove the girl's story, even though some of the details she's able to provide seem hard to explain if she wasn't really held captive at the house the way she says.

 

  

In To Love and Be Wise (1950),  it's up to Inspector Alan Grant to discover whether a handsome American photographer was accidentally drowned, committed suicide, or met his death at the hands of one of his many admirers...

 

In The Daughter of Time (1951), Alan Grant is in bed in hospital with a broken leg, and feeling bored. His actress friend Martha Hallard (who also appears in one or two more of the books) suggests that he should amuse himself by researching a historical mystery. She brings him some pictures of historical characters, aware of Grant's interest in human faces. With the help of friends and acquaintances (bringing him various books etc) he starts looking into the life of King Richard III and the famous case of the Princes in the Tower. 

(I remember reading this book before - decades ago - because it's such an unusual combination of 'modern' (well, 1950s!) detective story vs. historical mystery. Even after re-listening to it now, I'd find it hard to recapitulate the details of the conclusions, though.)

 

In The Singing Sands (1952, published posthumously) Alan Grant is on sick leave from Scotland Yard and planning a quiet holiday with old friends. Traveling on a night train to Scotland, however, he happens to find a dead man and a cryptic poem (including the words “the singing sand", the title of this novel). Of course he cannot keep from carrying on some further investigations of his own, even if he's not officially involved in the case... 

(Book covers copied from Wikipedia articles or whereever I could find them.) 

* As my favourite in this series I think must chose The Franchise Affair. *

* Each of the books can without problem be read as a standalone. *