I love that the Foreword explains the chapter titles are Vietnamese proverbs and then explains some of those which are more difficult to comprehend.

After The Husbands by Gina Cheyne | Book Review

After The Husbands by Gina Cheyne
Series: SeeMS Detective Agency #5
Genres: Cozy Mystery

What do you do when you’ve buried four husbands and not yet found a fifth?

Wealthy Lady Bumstead takes a cruise down the Mekong in Vietnam with a hired female companion, Anne de Tonkin. Annie is not just a kind old lady, she is a brilliant listener and soon knows all about the other travellers. But, on the last day of the cruise she is murdered.

Lady Bumstead, unable to see any reason why Annie should be murdered, is convinced the killer was after her. She hires the SeeMs Detective Agency to protect her and find the killer. At the same time she decides to do some sleuthing herself, and, with the help of her high powered hearing aid, she begins listening to all the conversations around her.

As the SeeMs Detectives investigate the crime, they find Annie had a rich past and connections with almost everyone else on the boat. There seem to be plenty of reasons for killing her, but who did the deed?

Will Lady Bumstead and the SeeMs Detectives find the killer before he/she strikes again? Will Lady Bumstead find a fifth husband? Or will she become another victim?

Written in the first person by Lady Bumstead this novel will be particularly enjoyed by readers of Agatha Christie and A Man Called Otto. Or anyone interested in whodunnits.

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Item: After The Husbands
Rating: 5
Author: Rita

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In this series: The Mystery of the Lost Husbands
Other books from this Author The Mystery of the Lost Husbands

I was completely hooked from page one and found myself needing to uncover how the mysterious events involving shadowy figures in Singapore, some fifty-six years earlier, might tie into the current storyline.

The narrative is delivered in the first person by Lady Bumstead, a widow who has outlived four husbands. Lady Bumstead—pronounced ‘Boom-ste-ad’—which reminded me a bit of Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet)with the name thing. Anyway, she relies on quaaludes to sleep, and it’s during these hazy moments that we get glimpses into the lives of her deceased spouses. It’s clear that she married for money, with the exception of her second husband, Phillip Le Tank, whom she genuinely loved.

The murder occurs towards the end of a cruise on the Mekong River. One morning, Lady Bumstead is awakened with the shocking news that her companion, Miss Annie De Tonkin, has been murdered in the adjoining room. Lady Bumstead, with her sharp wit and distinctive storytelling voice, offers plausible reasons why the killer might have mistaken Annie for her and why her own life could still be in danger. Frustrated that her concerns aren’t being taken seriously, she decides to bring in her own investigators.

Enter a trio of female detectives from the SeeMs Detective Agency, who arrive on the boat to investigate alongside representatives from the Vietnamese and Cambodian police forces. With her high-powered hearing aid, Lady Bumstead frequently eavesdrops on other guests and her detectives, gathering her own intel and speculating on motives and the killer’s identity.

This was simply a joy to read! I enjoyed every single second of it!

Meet the Author

About Gina Cheyne

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 race horse stables posted her off on the train into eastern Australia to work in a vineyard… afterall 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 Rhinocerous 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.

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