I am pleased to be part of the blog tour for Julie Highmore, making her debut with The Book Folks with her novel The Missing American.
New to the private investigator game, Edie Fox is delighted when a handsome American client with disconcertingly dazzling teeth asks her to find his missing cousin, Isabella. Especially when he leaves her a bundle of cash to get started.
However, the case quickly gets complicated, and so does her life when a one-night stand from her Oxford university days gets in touch and asks if her 26-year-old daughter, Maeve, is also his child. Judging a chaotic home, a brimming wine glass, a daughter besotted with her new-found daddy, and a rekindled old flame, Edie must try to focus on the job.
But with unreliable witnesses, a less than trustworthy client, and an assistant with her mind on other things, Edie will be up against it and risks losing all.
THE MISSING AMERICAN is the first book in a series of hilarious cozy mysteries by bestselling author Julie Highmore. Look out for the next book in the series, THE RUNAWAY HUSBAND, coming soon!
* * *
Edie Fox is new to the private investigating business and delighted when a handsome American client asks her to find his missing cousin, Isabella and hands over a bundle of cash. The case quickly gets complicated, however and so does her life when the father (a one-night-stand from her university days) of her twentysomething daughter Maeve, turns up out of the blue. With a chaotic home-life, a rekindled old flame and a job with unreliable witnesses and an untrustworthy client, Edie is up against it as she tries to find Isabella.
I'm not well read in the cosy crime field but the blurb for this was intriguing and, with news that a second book is on the way, I decided to give it a go and I’m really glad I did. Told with a clear, dry voice, this reminded me of the hardboiled novels of the forties with Edie’s ever complicated homelife impeding on the case (and vice versa) and her observations about events were often very humorous. The case twists and turns, almost everyone’s a suspect and there’s a lovely sense of location (it’s set in the less desirable areas of Oxford) that really grounds the whole piece. It’s also not afraid to show the seamier side of life, which was refreshing.
Edie is a fantastic character, fully rounded and believable and even though she’s an amateur, she puts the clues together well. With a varied and often eccentric supporting cast, all of them fully living and breathing and with plenty of smart lines to amuse, there was a touch of “The Beiderbecke Affair” about this and that just made me love it all the more. Very highly recommended.
* * *
The daughter of an RAF officer, Julie Highmore moved around a lot as a child but eventually settled in Oxford in her twenties. After having three children, she studied first at Westminster College, then Oxford Brookes University and gained a first class degree in English. As part of the course, she studied creative writing with Philip Pullman, who encouraged her to continue with her writing after graduation. This she did, and her published work includes nine rom-com novels, and more recently, a crime fiction series for The Book Folks.
When not writing, Julie enjoys music, binge-watching a good TV series, country strolls, doing the New York Times crossword and hanging out with her husband and ever-expanding family.
Click here for more info on the writer: https://thebookfolks.com/author/julie-highmore/
The Missing American features the somewhat flawed, Oxford-based private investigator, Edie Fox; a single mother and very young grandmother who inadvertently gets her precious family caught up in her first big case. The Oxford she knows is based in the more edgy and diverse east of the city, full of small Victorian houses, students, cafes, delis and retired lecturers.
Purchasing links
Social Media links
Website: https://thebookfolks.com
Insta:@the_book_folks
Twitter: @thebookfolks
Facebook: http://facebook.com/thebookfolks
Julie’s Twitter: @JulieHighmore
No comments:
Post a Comment