JOSIE LLOYD chats to Paul Burke about MISS BEETON'S MURDER AGENCY, Mrs Beaton, breast cancer, comedy, cosy crime, making drunk promises to run marathons.

Miss Beeton's Murder Agency: Alice Beeton never meant to wind up single and childless on the wrong side of fifty. Like her distant relative Mrs Beeton – yes, that Mrs Beeton – she had hoped to have her own spic-and-span household by now. In reality, she lives in an immaculate but dingy basement flat in a rather shabby block in Kensington with Agatha, her fiercely intelligent, if rather over-territorial, corgi-Jack Russell cross.
Now Alice runs the Good Household Management Agency, providing discreet domestic staff to extravagant townhouses and sprawling country piles. So when Camille Messent calls in urgent need of a new housekeeper, Miss Beeton sends out new hire Enya. She’s rather forward but she does come with impeccable references and is fluent en français.
But in the early hours of New Year’s Day, Alice is rudely awakened with the news that Enya has been found dead. As the intriguing, if somewhat scruffy, Detective Rigby struggles to drum up an adequate investigation and the wealthy family and their party guests close rank, Miss Beeton takes it upon herself to solve the crime…

Josie Lloyd's first novel, It Could Be You, was published in 1997 and since then she has written 15 bestselling novels, (under various pen names), including the number one hit Come Together, which she co-authored with her husband, Emlyn Rees, which was number one for 10 weeks, published in 27 languages and made into a Working Title film. Josie has also written several bestselling parodies with Emlyn, including We're Going on a Bar Hunt, The Very Hungover Caterpillar and The Teenager Who Came to Tea.

Recommended: Butter Asako Yazuki, None of This is True Lisa Jewell, Elif Shafak, William Shaw, Julia Crouch.
Mentions: Nora Ephron Heartburn, Ian Moore, Emlyn Rees and Mrs Beaton's Book of Household Management.

Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.

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Crime Time

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