Give me an English village, a group of amateur detectives, and a local brewery where something clearly isn't right, and you've already made it difficult for me to walk away. This was my first Fiona Walker book and my introduction to this series. Apparently I arrived several mysteries late, but that certainly didn't stop me from settling in with Juno, Mil, Phoebe, and Felix.
The Village Detectives and the Deadly Brew by Fiona Walker
Series: The Village Detectives #4
Genres: British Mystery, Cozy Mystery

At this brewery, the last orders are to die for…

When handsome, former-rugby-playing, pub landlord Mil asks Juno Mulligan for a favour, she immediately says yes.

Although she’s initially disappointed that the favour doesn’t involve any sort of romantic shenanigans, Juno is reminded that she does love investigating mysteries. And perhaps it is just her destiny to choose crime-fighting over afternoon-delighting?

It’s an interesting case. Mil needs Juno and their fellow Village Detective, Phoebe Fredericks, to investigate a targeted campaign against the local Wyche Craft Brewery, now run by his friend, Ashleigh Wyche, a former-Lioness. A series of recent near-misses and attempts at sabotaging her property are surely no coincidence?

Then a body is discovered in the tap room, which quickly proves they were right to suspect there’s more than just a vendetta brewing… And if they’re to prevent another murder, they need to find out whether they’ve got the bottle to hunt down another killer…

Tropes:🏡 Cozy Village Mystery 🔎 Amateur Sleuths 🌷 Midlife Heroines 🇬🇧 English Village Setting 🍺 Brewery Mystery ⚠️ Sabotage & Secrets

Triggers:💀 Murder / Death ⚠️ Attempted Sabotage 🗯️ Threats & Intimidation 🚨 Characters in Danger

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Juno, Mil, Phoebe, and Felix make up the Village Detectives, although I quickly discovered that solving mysteries is only part of what makes this group so entertaining. We spend quite a bit of time with them before the investigation really gets moving, and normally I might have been impatient for someone to start looking for clues. Here, I didn’t mind. I was having too much fun getting to know everyone.

Phoebe was my favorite. She has a way of keeping everyone and everything moving without making a big production out of it. Every group needs that one person who somehow holds the rest together, and Phoebe certainly seemed to be that person here.

Then there are Juno and Mil. Their bickering had me smiling because they have the kind of back-and-forth that makes you pay attention to every conversation. There is something simmering underneath all that banter too, and yes, I noticed. I’m new to this series, but apparently that hasn’t stopped me from becoming nosy about their relationship.

The mystery begins with Mil’s friend Kevin “Vin” Wyche, a former footballer who owns Wychen Brewery. His daughter Ashleigh reaches out to the Village Detectives because somebody appears determined to destroy the family business. We’re talking rodents, contaminated equipment, a fire, and enough suspicious incidents that bad luck stopped being a reasonable explanation a while ago.

Then someone turns up dead at the bottling plant.

At that point, figuring out who has been sabotaging the brewery becomes something much more serious. I loved following the group as they started digging into what had been happening and trying to work out who had enough of a grudge against the Wyches to take things this far.

The brewery was such a good setting for a mystery. Between the equipment, the family business itself, the people coming and going, and all the places where something could go wrong, Fiona Walker had plenty to work with. I could picture the brewery well enough that part of me wanted to visit, although preferably on a day when nobody was being murdered near the bottling equipment.

There were enough suspects and questions to keep me changing my mind. Every time I thought I had a decent theory, another detail made me reconsider it. That’s exactly the kind of cozy mystery I enjoy because I want a fair chance at figuring things out, but I don’t want the answer handed to me halfway through the book.

What surprised me most was how quickly I became invested in the characters. Coming into an established series can sometimes feel like walking into a party where everyone else has known each other for years. I never felt that way here. I could tell these characters had history, but I had enough information to understand their relationships without pages of explanations about previous books.

The humor helped too. This isn’t a mystery that forgets someone has died, but it also doesn’t become so heavy that it loses the cozy feeling. The friendships, village life, and witty exchanges kept breaking up the darker moments.

Now I have a problem because this was supposed to be my introduction to Fiona Walker, not the beginning of me wondering what I’ve missed in all the previous Village Detectives books. I need more Phoebe, I need to know what is happening with Juno and Mil, and I apparently have several earlier mysteries waiting for me.