One should never meddle in the affairs of dragons, but someone has been doing just that. They’ve been making imitation dragon scale baubles that are nothing short of lethal, and kidnapping delivery drivers all over the Yorkshire Dales. They’ve also been leaving behind some distinctly dragon-ish traces. Beaufort Scales, High Lord of the Cloverly Dragons, is hot on the trail—or would be, if he wasn’t having political problems at home.
That leaves Alice and Miriam to track down the real culprits, rescue the hostages and salvage Mortimer’s bauble reputation, all while misleading the police regarding the of existence of dragons, and hopefully without being blown up by unexpectedly aggressive Christmas decorations. Luckily, they have the full resources of the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute at their disposal. And then there’s the small question of who stole all the Christmas turkeys…

I was happy to be back for my second visit to the small Yorkshire village of Toot Hansell after the events of ‘Baking Bad‘. It’s Christmas time and the dragons and the WI are collaborating on the sale of magical dragonscale baubles at the Christmas fair and online. Not everyone is in the Christmas spirit. It’s clear that somebody is up to no good and that the dragons might be blamed (if anyone knew they existed). There’s no murder in the vicarage this time but posties and delivery drivers are being abducted and the only clues are the scorch marks and what look like claw marks on the abandoned delivery vans.

I felt quite sorry for DI Adams who definitely wished that she didn’t know that dragons exist. How is she supposed to explain to her superiors that she’s worried a crime may be being committed by creatures they think are mythical?

The WI are, of course, on the side of the dragons but even they couldn’t stop themselves from making the leap from missing postie to asking what exactly dragons ate. The dragons’ outrage, once they understood what was really being asked, was fun to watch.

I liked the way this uncomplicated but bizarre mystery unfolded. It revealed more about how the Cloverly Dragons live, including their internal politics and, Beaufort’s “Dragons will be dragons.” speech reminded me that, no matter how friendly dragons are with certain humans, they are very much their own species. I also got a deeper insight into Alice, the head of the WI, as I watched her distantly and brusquely take care of a lonely young woman. I enjoyed seeing the characters come to life and watching the dynamics between them as much as I did trying to figure out how the mystery would be solved. 

The storytelling was nicely done. There was a real plot and plot with real people (and real dragons or at least, they seem as real as the people). A little to my surprise, this cosy mystery had some moments of real tension and more than a little violence. It also involved other ‘folk’ than dragons and introduced ‘The Watch’ – a sort of Police of the ‘folk’. I had to smile when I found out which species The Watch were.

What I liked most was the gentle humour that frequently burst through the text like an irrepressible grin.