Ron BenreyBesprekingen

A stand alone story, although it does follow right up where book one left off. And the same characters are in this story as the previous one, so I recommend book one first. If you like a good "whodunit" story and are a tea drinker, you are going to find a lot to like as you read. As one reviewer so well said, "You will drink in very last drop of this veddy English tea-based mystery".

Nigel Owen and Flick Adams are the director and curator of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum in England. As the museum digs up some bushes in the garden of the museum they discover a body, the body of Britain's most famous missing person, Etienne Makepeace (who is also considered a renowned 'Tea Sage'). Now it will be up to Nigel and Flick to figure out why he was buried at the museum and who at the museum had a part in this over 40 year old mystery.

The things they uncover about this man just keeps getting more and more interesting, the further along you read. I like how you try to solve this mystery right along with the characters in this story. It was quite interesting and fun and also a learning experience for me.

This is an "English, tea-based mystery" that lets you help solve the mystery as you read. It takes place in England and I wish the Royal Tunbridge Wells Museum was a real place, as it would be a place I would have loved to visit. You learn a lot about tea and since I enjoy a good 'cuppa' tea, this story was very interesting to me.

NIgel is a new acting director of a tea museum (even though he is a coffee man himself). Flick Adams is an American who is the tea curator, and who also knows a bit about forensic chemistry. When one of the board of trustees is found dead in the midst of a board meeting, most think it was a heart attack. But Flick knows the signs of poison and sets out to prove that Dame Elspeth did not die of a heart attack, but was poisoned. Nigel also has concerns as Elspeth had told Nigel before the meeting that she had found a thief on the board of trustees and was going to reveal who it was. This will cause Nigel and Flick to work together to uncover the mystery of who killed Elspeth and why.

Although it took me a good while to get into this story, once I did I enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on, just like Nigel and Flick were doing in the story. I also liked watching these two recognize and appreciate each other and start a little bit of a romance going between them. Tea lovers and mystery readers will enjoy!

"The Final Crumpet" is Book 2 in The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mystery Series by Ron and Janet Benrey. As I wasn't initially aware that the novel was part of a series, I enjoyed it as a stand-alone. The story is written in a delightful and charming narrative starring main characters: Nigel Owen, Managing Director, and Dr. Felicity (Flick) Adams, Chief Curator of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. The museum itself is artfully described as

"an imposing, four-story, Georgian-style building dedicated to the many different aspects of tea."

There is also a unique set of characters that add to Nigel and Flick's daily lives as well as the quaint atmosphere of the museum: Lapsang & Souchong (2 British Shorthair cats), Cha-Cha (a Shiba Inu dog) and Earl, an African Grey Parrot. The decision to replace 2 Assam tea plants in the tea garden at the end of the museum's 2-week shutdown discovers there has been murder and mayhem and threatens the museum's future.

With Nigel's wonderful British colloquial phrases and Flick's additions of speech, as she is originally a native of York, Pennsylvania, the story becomes an irresistible discovery not to be missed.

There was something that turned me off - the relationship between the two protagonists, the museum directors, that I couldn't quite buy into and then I saw that there was a start of a Christian slant to the book which turned me off.

A tea-centric cozy mystery. I hadn't heard of this series, but had no problem starting with the second book.

I was in the middle of a writing program at my library, when I decided to get this book (at another branch.) It was an insightful look at the world of Christian writing and publishing. Unfortunately, our library doesn't have any of this writers novels, but I may buy one because he and his wife write in one of the genres I like. (Cozy mysteries.)½

Not a bad mystery but a little low key. It is also labeled as inspirational which means a lot of religion involved. I don't mind that but if it starts to get in the way of the mystery I start to get annoyed. Not too much of that for me in this mystery.

Sharon is heading a group to work on restoring a stained glass window in their church that was destroyed in an electrical fire. She and her committee are lucky to get a direct descendant of original designer to work on the window. When Andrew is poisoned at a welcome party Sharon, a nurse, is there to help and to start hunting to find out who hated Andrew enough to kill him over a window.

There are plenty of suspects, including Sharon, but there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut motive. While all this is going on Sharon and Andrew appear to be falling in love, but will a window and an attempted murder keep them apart?

The book is interesting but I figured out the attempted murderer fairly early, and even the motive.

This book continues the Royal Tunbridge Wells series where the first book left off. The Museum must buy its exhibits which were only loaned to it originally, and is in the process of getting a loan to do so when a long-dead body is found in the Museum garden. It is the body of a famous person who disappeared 40 years ago, and the bank wants an explanation of why the body was buried there before they will fund the loan.

While the characters were familiar and the writing was not bad, I found the whole premise of the novel a little far-fetched. I'm not sure that I buy the reasons why a 40 year old body would cause the bank not to give a loan to the museum, and further, why it would be up to the museum to determine the truth behind the murder.

(May be spoilers ahead).
A bit of cold war spying comes into play, but ultimately is not involved in the outcome of the case. I also find it a little hard to believe that the police wanted to have the Museum involved in the case.

Finally, although I knew this was Christian Fiction, in the first book, the Christian aspect was built in to the mystery in a clever way. In this book, it really stuck out and did not really serve a purpose, other than to claim that this was a Christian book.

This book takes place at the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum, where we meet Nigel Owen and Felicity Adams, the acting director and chief curator, respectively. A member of the Board of Trustees dies at a trustee meeting, and only Felicity Adams suspects that she was murdered.

When I first started to read this book, I did NOT like it. It seemed just another author unsuccessfully trying to write a cozy mystery. Neither Nigel nor Felicity was likeable, and the writing did not flow very well. The dialog did not seem to ring true. I sometimes think of myself as a mystery "snob" because I prefer Christie, Sayers, Marsh, Heyer, etc to more modern authors of the genre. However, about halfway through the book, I realized I had started to enjoy it.

Granted this book will never win any prizes, but it had a passable mystery, with some fairly decent clues that was solved by Nigel and Felicity in the end. It was a pleasant little book and I will likely read the next in the series, if only to find out what happens between Nigel and Felicity.

As for the Christian Fiction aspect of the book, if this tag scares you off, you should not let it. Most of the Christian aspect plays into the mystery, and the only part that really stuck out as not belonging is when Nigel asks Felicity on a date to Church at the end.

Felicity "Flick" Adams, an American, is the chief curator of a tea museum in Royal Tunbridge Wells, England. Coffee-loving Nigel Owen is the acting director. Dame Elspeth Hawker, a descendant of the man for whom the museum is named, dies at a meeting of the museum's directors, and Flick is convinced it is poison. Most everyone tends to disagree with her since one of the directors is a medical doctor and attributed the death to natural causes. Flick is determined to investigate on her own. Like many works of Christian fiction, the writing leaves much to be desired. The narrative did not flow as smoothly as it should have. At first I really disliked Nigel Owen, but his character grew on me. The authors did show some skill in constructing clues throughout the book that would prove important later on. I am not convinced that the ending would have played out the way it did. It seemed a bit of a let-down.½

I picked up my copy of this Christian fiction murder mystery from a sale bin. The cover intrigued me. I judged it to be an interesting read. I was correct, thus proving that you can judge a book by its cover.

Written in first person narrative, this novel chronologically follows Pippa Hunnechurch's investigation of the murder of Barry Goodwin, beginning with his apparent suicide.

I found the characters quite believable. Pippa is British, now living in Ryde, Maryland and working as a headhunter. She retains some British customs. For instance, she often has a "cuppa." Her love interest is James, a gentleman who speaks with a Southern drawl. His birthday party turns into a birthday tea party with sweets and savories. British foods are discussed in detail. In addition, I liked the description of the crackers provided for the guests. I remember popping a cracker and trying to wear he flimsy hat inside.

There is a theme of going the extra mile--going beyond what is required, and that's where the title comes in to play. The reader follows Pippa as she chronologically goes the second mile to uncover clues that solve this mystery of Barry Goodwin's death.

A cute book, really. Clever premise - I mean, come on, who ever heard of a tea museum - and likeable main characters. It's not an overly suspensful novel, such as a Dekker or Henderson read, but it's an engaging mystery written with lightness and humor. A touch of Christianity threads through, but not much considering it's a Christian novel.

I liked it enough to get the sequel.