The Marlow Murder Club / Death Comes to Marlow, Robert Thorogood

This audio series was recommended to me by an algorithm which I'm never 100% convinced about, but I'd finished all that was available in The Thursday Murder club series and was in the mood for something on the lighter side. Besides I'm increasingly a sucker for anything with women of a certain age getting on with things, refusing to buckle under to "societal expectations".  For some reason.

This series revolves around 77 year old Judith Potts, she of the, it turns out, decidedly odd past. A woman who now works as a crossword setter, lives in a fading old mansion on the banks of the Thames, a river in which she is fond of swimming regularly, nude preferably. Potts is not somebody to be trifled with, she's bold, determined, and a no nonsense sort of person. She's also lived a tricky life, and has spent some considerable time on her own. In the course of investigating the shooting death of a neighbour of hers, she meets up with the two women who will become her firm friends, and fellow participants in the Marlow Murder Club - Suzie, a very down to earth, spade is a sodding shovel type who works as a dog-walker, and has had her own trials and tribulations in life and Becks, the prim, proper and very house proud local Vicar's wife.  A job she never envisaged being asked to undertake as her husband showed no signs of such a dramatic career change when they first married, but a role she's determined to enact to the best of her ability. 

The three women find themselves up to their elbows in their extra-curricula investigation of the shooting murder of Judith's neighbour in the first book THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB, mostly because the police don't seem to believe her, when she tries to explain what she saw and heard that night. Which investigation, as you can imagine, revolves around a lot of listening, watching and deducing, with only a little bit of office-breaking, climbing out of windows and limb endangering. As is quickly the pattern that emerges, when the second book in the series, DEATH COMES TO MARLOW, sees the three women investigating the crushing death of local grandee, Sir Peter Bailey.

Slightly on the cozy side, this series, thus far, avoids madcap and heads straight into determined women territory which I really enjoyed. The plots are a little on the elaborate side, but always lend themselves nicely to the idea that three amateur detectives, with a bit of support from a local female cop, would be able to solve, with a bit of ingenuity, and a lot of clever thinking. They are also a nice, unlikely threesome of friends, each with their personal complications explored, but not dwelt on, each with a desire for friendship and shared experience.

Perfect as an audio series, the narrator, Nicolette McKenzie, has an excellent, easy to listen to style, with sufficient variation to keep the listener interested, and aware of who has focus at any particular point. There's also a third book available in audio this month - THE QUEEN OF POISONS.