Geoffrey Lushington, Mayor of Marlow, dies suddenly during a Town Council meeting. When traces of aconite – also known as the queen of poisons – are found in his coffee cup, the police realise he was murdered. But who did it? And why?
The police bring Judith, Suzie and Becks in to investigate as Civilian Advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart’s content, which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure. 
But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable Mayor? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? 
The Marlow Murder Club are about to face their most difficult case yet . . .

Oh dear, ‘The Queen Of Poisons‘ turned out to be seven hours of comic cosy crime fun entombed in a nine-hour audiobook.

This wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped to have to this book but…

I pre-ordered ‘The Queen Of Poisons‘ after reading ‘Death Comes To Marlow‘ which was more fun than the first book, ‘The Marlow Murder Club‘. When I started the book, I was sure I was going to be writing a review that said that this was a series that just kept getting better. I still thought that about halfway through. By the time I finished the book this evening, I’d been waiting for it to end for nearly an hour.

The book opens with a welcome change to the formula. Suzie witnesses the murder, Tanika Malik has been promoted to Detective Inspector and so has the freedom to bring Judith, Becks and Suzie in from the beginning as Civilian Advisors. This cut out a lot of unnecessary time that might have been spent on justifying the three friends’ involvement and acknowledges their track record without stopping them from being free agents.

The chemistry between Judith, Becks and Suzie is even better in this book than in the first two. I love the close observation of how day-to-day life works and the dialogue worked so well that I found myself laughing out loud at it in places. I loved that we finally get to see Becks losing her temper as she tries to cope with having her mother-in-law invading her home for an indefinite period.

My disappointment began when it became clear that Judith was effectively cutting Tanika out of the investigation except when she needed evidence tested or a person arrested. In ‘Death Comes To Marlow‘ it seemed to me that Tanika had started to become a fourth friend in the Marlow Murder club. In ‘The Queen Of Poisons‘ she’s barely more than a plot device.

Initially, I quite liked the plot. It was a twist on a locked room mystery in that it seemed that the murderer had to be one of the four people in the room with the victim when he was killed. I enjoyed watching the three friends dig into the lives and secrets of each of the four, generating new suspects as they went along.

Then I started to feel like I was being dragged through a maze by a person with no sense of direction, as we hit dead end after dead end and seemed to get no closer to finding the murderer. By then, my interest was mainly sustained by the nuanced descriptions of the suspects and the lively dialogue between Judith, Becks and Suzie.

By the time I got to the last two hours of the book, I was less interested in who the murderer was and how they did it than I was in how Becks would rid herself of her mother-in-law.

The story hit its nadir in the last hour with one of the longest, slowest, most static pieces of plot exposition that I’ve ever read. What should have been a tense confrontation with the killer, followed by the big reveal became something so tediously detailed that I felt as if I was watching a PowerPoint presentation.

This sapped so much of my energy that even the clever way that Becks did eventually free herself from her mother-in-law barely raised a smile.

For me, this was a book that would have benefitted from an editor pushing the author to tighten everything up.

Nicollette McKenzie’s narration was wonderful. I loved the distinctive and appropriate voices that she’s given to the main characters, although even she could put much life into the over-long explanation of the who, how and why of the plot. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of her work.