Poison at Penshaw Hall, G.B. Ralph

The 2nd in the Milverton Mysteries featuring Addison Harper, this is a series that's on the cosier, English Village end of the mystery scale. Although that setting is delivered with a dry, very wry tone, and a great sense of petty politics in a pretty village. 

It's definitely the tone of this that sets it a little outside the standard traditional cosy fare. In this, the second of what is now a series of 3 novels, Milverton is the village at the centre of the action. In the running for the Terrific Town Award, so a dramatic, opening ceremony death is, as the blurb puts it "far from ideal". In another "far from ideal" scenario, there's also a village hall full of witnesses insisting that Addison Harper, himself, is the main suspect.

The setting, the petty politics, the minutia of day to day life is the focus of this particular novel (haven't read either of the other two so don't know if this is a feature or not), as is a very drawn out preamble, in which there are some slightly coy references to the first novel. It's probably this that lets this down a little bit in that the linear styling means that you're a long way into the story before anything major actually seems to happen. Although, to be fair, that might be just the thing for fans of the cosy, lots of meandering byways and side excursions, lots of people being prissy about other people, lots of slights, asides and snide comments. All of which are delivered in that lovely wry, dry tone. 

I suspect that this is a series that would work best read in order - there did feel like there were a lot of things about Addison Harper here that it would have been better to know fully. All of which is a long winded way of saying if quirky, cosy, tongue in cheek, eccentrics, with a gay romance, set in an English Village with the sun shining and, and goats, (there's goats safely meandering about!), is your thing, perhaps start out with MURDER ON MILVERTON SQUARE (although I can't confirm there are any goats in that one).