Murder in the Bookshop - Anita Davidson

Title: Murder in the Bookshop
Author: Anita Davidson
Genre: Cozy mystery
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 272
Date read: January 2025

Working in the dusty bookshop that her Aunt Violet mysteriously inherited, Hannah Merrill is accustomed to finding twists in every tale. But discovering her beloved best friend Lily-Anne – with a paperknife through her heart – in the middle of the bookshop, is not a plotline she saw coming.

The case is anything but textbook. With the discovery of a coded German message, and Hannah’s instinct that Lily-Anne’s husband is keeping secrets, she determines to get to the bottom of it. She can’t do it alone though. To crack this case, Hannah will need the enlist the help of her outrageous, opinionated, only-occasionally-objectionable Aunt Violet. They think they’re making progress until one of their chief suspects is found dead. And Hannah realises that she is herself now in the murderer’s sights. Will the final chapter be the ending of a killer… or just a killer ending?


A historical cozy mystery. It kept me well entertained while I was reading it, but I'm fine with just leaving it here - I don't need to read any more of the series. The titular bookshop - which was a huge part of why I bought the book - played a much smaller role than I had expected / hoped, and it more ended up like an Agatha Christie type mystery. Fine if that's what you're after, but not really my cup of tea ... of which they drank a LOT throughout the book! Very British of them!