I Spy With My Little Die by Helen Golden – #BlogTour

About The Book

Uncovering a web of conspiracy that intertwines past and present, can Lady Beatrice and DCI Richard Fitzwilliam catch a killer and unveil the truth of her husband’s death at long last?

BREAKING NEWS Second Senior Police Officer Dies Within a Week

A senior officer from the Protection and Investigations (Royal) Services died unexpectedly yesterday. His death comes hot on the heels of Detective Inspector Ethan Preece (43) from City Police, who died of a suspected heart attack last week. Although he’s not yet been named, the dead officer was a greatly respected public figure, who had served in policing for over thirty years. A PaIRS spokesperson has confirmed that ‘neither men’s death is being treated as suspicious at this time’.

 With the senior PaIRS officer dead, so is any hope of reopening the inquiry into Lady Beatrice’s husband’s accident fifteen years ago. Unless, of course, there is something that links the two men to the Earl’s fatal car crash?

 Can she and Fitzwilliam, along with their friends, work together to unravel the mystery and catch a killer before the truth is buried forever?

Purchase Links

Amazon – UK

Amazon – US

Author Bio

Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in a small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my step-daughter, her two cats, our two dogs, sometimes my step-son, and our tortoise.

I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it.

It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes

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Barbara’s Review

This is definitely my favorite book of the series so far. Things are going off in every direction and you’ll need your head on a swivel to keep up. It is interesting, engaging, exciting, and a tad bittersweet for Lady Beatrice. With murders, spies, cartels, and things from the past to swat at you, you’ll be so engrossed you’ll lose all track of time.

One of my favorite things is that it was more of an ensemble cast this time around. It wasn’t Lady Beatrice and Perry Juke stumbling across a dead body and then running roughshod over the police investigation to solve the crime themselves. As a matter of fact, this book probably gave Detective Chief Inspector Richard Fitzwilliam as much page time as Lady Beatrice – and their relationship was actually cordial rather than adversarial. I am delighted to see the burgeoning relationship between the two and will be happy to see where it leads.

City Police Detective Inspector Ethan Preece was shot (wounded) during a protection detail for a member of the royal family – but then – he was murdered in his hospital bed. Not many days later, a senior officer with the PaIRS, Protection and Investigations (Royal) Services, was also murdered. DCI Richard Fitzwilliam doesn’t like coincidences, and two police inspectors being murdered within such a short time is just too much of a coincidence for them not to be related. But how? They didn’t work in the same departments. They weren’t friends, though they’d been in the same department many years ago. Fitzwilliam is pretty sure he isn’t going to like the answers when he finds them. He sure is right about that!

Lady Beatrice is interested in the investigation but sees no reason to be involved in it. Except, both of the men were involved in the investigation of her husband’s death more than fifteen years earlier. She’s never been at ease with that investigation and has sought more and more information as the years have passed – but now, with those two officers gone, her inquiries are also at a dead end.

Lady Beatrice, Perry Juke, and Simon Lattimore make a formidable investigating team in this series – and they continue in this book. They are also joined by Emma and Izzy McKeer-Adler whom we’ve also previously met. We also have a short visit with Brett Goodman of the CIA whom we met in the last book. DCI Fitzwilliam and Detective Sergeant Spicer round out the crew along with a new character, Detective Sergeant Hardwick. Can that illustrious lot of folks put the clues together, identify the bad guys, and then thwart them? You bet they can – and they do. Goodness, what an ending!

I can definitely recommend this exciting, well-written, nicely-paced book. If you love a good mystery, red herrings, and seeing the bad guys get their comeuppance, this book is for you.

Does Beatrice get her answers or is this the end of her chance to do so? After all these years, does it really matter? You’ll just need to read the book to see.

Happy Reading!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Must Love Scoundrels by Shana Galen

Must Love Scoundrels (The Royal Saboteurs #4)

Barbara’s rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Series: The Royal Saboteurs #4
Publication Date: 10/10/23
Period: Victorian

This book starts from a somewhat different place than most – Duncan Slorach is already hopelessly in love with Lucy Galloway who only sees him as a competitor she needs to best at all costs. Duncan and Lucy have been at the Royal Saboteurs training camp for eighteen months undergoing the most grueling and vigorous training in every aspect of the spycraft – from explosives to obstacle courses, to code-breaking, to languages, to – well, you name it. From Lucy’s perspective, it all comes easy for Duncan as he seems to excel at everything. What Lucy doesn’t see is her own unique strengths in languages and determination and fortitude.

Lucy and Duncan’s past lives are quite different and you’ll see that in their approach to their current lives. Lucy feels inferior because her parents are the most famous spies you never heard of – and her brother is also a recent graduate from the training camp and he is excelling at the craft. Lucy feels she doesn’t match up to those illustrious family members and has to prove herself to be twice as good as everyone else. Duncan, on the other hand, led a ne’er-do-well life as a scoundrel until a heartbreaking tragedy changed him. Duncan is quiet, studious, follows the rules, trains hard, and wants to be an exceptional agent.

Lucy is elated to finally have a mission – until she learns her partner will be Duncan Slorach. She’ll just have to make the best of it even though her role will be acting as a caretaker for a seven-year-old boy. What does she know about children? Nothing. She’s not even sure she likes children. Duncan, on the other hand, gets the free run of the house and grounds while acting as a footman. Bummer. They are undercover in the Prime Minister’s home while protecting the prime minister’s son who has been threatened by radicals. The threats are real and attempts have already been made. Can Lucy and Duncan put aside their differences and work together to protect the boy? Yes, they can, but will they?

For me, Lucy was hard to like – I really had to work on it – and I never wholly got there. Duncan, on the other hand, was easy to like, but I never understood how he came to love Lucy in the first place. This was, as always with the author, an excellent book, but it was also my least favorite of the series. I enjoyed reading the story but felt the mission was often ignored and forgotten for their trysts. It almost seemed the villains caught themselves rather than there being brilliant spies at work. All of that said, I can recommend this book as an excellent read and I hope you will enjoy it.

BTW – there is an excellent set-up for the next book in the series, Tales Of A Society Nothing. I think we are all going to love Margaret’s mission!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

View all my reviews