The Mystery of the Lost Husbands is on the blog today. With huge apologies to Rachel’s Random Resources and Gina Cheyne for my late posting. Thank you to both of you for the copy of the book in order to take part.
Is murdering husbands an addiction or merely a bad habit?
This is the question facing Private Investigator Cat Harrington when rich builder, Tom Drayton, dies shortly after his wedding night. Suspicion falls on his widow, Anastasia Rodriguez, the survivor of three previous ‘lost’ husbands.
Two years later, Anastasia is engaged again, to Cat’s friend Angelo, an Italian snail collector.
Angelo’s sister, Gia, employs Cat and the SeeMs Detective Agency to discover if her brother’s financé is a killer.
The search for Anastasia’s lost husbands takes Cat and her team from Scotland to the South of Spain and on to Argentina.
They have just a few weeks before the wedding to discover if Anastasia is a murderer and save their friend from becoming victim number five.
For fans of Arsenic and Old Lace and The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency
This is a cosy crime mystery from the SeeMS Detective Agency series. The Mystery of the Lost Husbands is the first in a series.
The SeeMS agency usually finds lost dogs until Angelo’s sister decides she needs to find out all about his wife to be. Anastasia Rodriguez has already had four husbands who are all dead, and is now working on her fifth… Angelo.
We meet Miranda, Stevie, and Cat, who take the case. They begin in Shetland, and that begins a trek to London,Spain, and Argentina. As the story unfolds and the women investigate Anastasia, they begin to uncover more worrying things about her than they first thought. Is Anastasia just unlucky or is there more to the men’s deaths than it seems?
An intriguing case with strong, vivid, and well written characters that are easy to get to know and quite easy to like for me. The story is told over two timelines, in alternating chapters. There is the present day with the investigation and then Anastasia’s past, from her first husband at 17 to her latest marriage 12 months previously.
I do enjoy a dual timeline and watching Anastasia’s history roll out in front of me, while in the present day the three women are attempting to get to the bottom of these very things made me feel like I wanted to tell them all I knew! I really felt a part of the story with how it was told.
Gina Cheyne has written a complex and unusual, twisty book. It flows easily through the timelines, and there are not only twists but red herrings that made me want to know it all! I am looking forward to catching up with everyone in the next book.
Purchase Links
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mystery-Husbands-SeeMS-Detective-Agency/dp/1915138019/
US https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Husbands-SeeMS-Detective-Agency/dp/1915138019/
Author Bio
Gina has worked as a physiotherapist, a pilot, freelance writer and a dog breeder.
As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent the year after university bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia, where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth. After getting stuck in black sand in the Ute one time too many (and getting a tractor and trailer caught in a tree) she was relegated to horse-riding work only. After her horse bolted down the sand, straining a fetlock and falling in the sea, she was further relegated to swimming the horses only in the pool. It was with some relief the racehorse stables posted her off on the train into eastern Australia to work in a vineyard… after all what could go wrong there?
In the north of Thailand, she took a boat into the Golden Triangle and got shot at by bandits. Her group escaped into the undergrowth and hid in a hill tribe whisky still where they shared the ‘bathroom’ with a group of pigs. Getting a lift on a motorbike they hurried back to Chiang Rai, where life seemed calmer.
After nearly being downed in a fiesta in Ko Pha Ngan, and cursed by a witch in Malaysia, she decided to go to Singapore and then to China where she only had to battle with the language and regulations.
Since marrying the first time, she has lived and worked in many countries including Spain and the USA.
For a few years Gina was a Wingwalking pilot, flying, amongst others, her 64-year-old mother standing on the wing to raise money for a cancer charity. She was also a helicopter instructor and examiner and took part in the World Helicopter Championships in Russia and the USA.
She became a writer because her first love was always telling a good yarn!
Under the name Georgina Hunter-Jones she has written illustrated children’s books such as The Twerple who had Too Many Brains, and Nola the Rhinoceros loves Mathematics.
She now lives in Sussex with her husband and dogs, one of who inspired the Biscuit and Pugwash Detective Series about naughty dogs who solve crimes.
The Mystery of the Lost Husbands is the first in the SeeMS Detective Agency series and Gina’s first crime novel for adults.
Social Media Links
Website: www.ginacheyne.com
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 