Hugely Enjoyable....
The second in the Miss Dimont Mystery Series and a worthy sequel. Hugely enjoyable, entertaining and witty mystery with a likeable and eccentric protagonist in Miss Dimont and a colourful cast of supporting characters. Fully engaging cosy reading with a wonderful Golden Age feel.

Such an enjoyable series with an engaging and refreshingly competent and sunny heroine. The English Riviera setting is well described and really brings the era and the place to life.

I have struggled for months to get through this book, but I don't blame it all on the book. I've found it difficult to concentrate on reading in general for various reasons over the past year, but this story also hasn't grabbed me as I'd have liked. Part of it, possibly, is that it's the second in a series and the characters seem quite established so I'm missing the back story on most of them, but I'm also having a bit of trouble with the 1950's-era setting. I keep thinking it's either the 1920's or the 1940's, although I'm not quite sure why. Nonetheless, despite my personal issues with it, it is well written and the Devon setting unusual and described well. It will suit a majority of mystery readers very well but, personally, I'm not sure I'd continue just because I'm having such a difficult time engaging with it.

Retro investigation.

This is quite a cosy double murder mystery, free of the gore which many authors believe that their readers cannot live without. It is set in a fictional town on the south Devon Riviera and follows principally the investigations of local newspaper reporter, Miss Judy Dimont. The police detective inspector has only a secondary rôle. There are lots of interesting characters, not least the town itself. The USP is really that the story is set in 1959, and for those of us old enough to remember that year there are many period references, yet I would have preferred to see very many more of these. It is refreshing, however, to see the crimes being solved by good old fashioned investigation rather than forensic science.

Review from complimentary prepublication draft supplied by publisher.

The second in this series featuring reporter, amateur detective and former secret service agent Huguette “Judy” Dimont, is every bit as entertaining as the first.

Temple Regis, home of the Riviera Express, is again the location for murders which involve “Miss Dim”” and friends as well as Inspector Topham.

The fifties setting, with seaside beauty pageants, rock and roll groups, fading variety theatre, National Service and dodgy healing machine, in the background, is, again, admirably well-realised and authentic.

The characters are wonderfully vivid. The old Gaiety Girl, the crooked former Harrovians, the down at heel young baronet, the local and national reporters, the beauty queens, are all nicely depicted.

A young blonde is found dead on the beach and, later, a local notability dies in suspicious circumstances. Are they connected?

And is new love on the horizon for Miss Dimont? Perhaps…

This is engagingly written and in the Golden Age tradition. A solid follow-up to “The Riviera Express” which will work as a stand-alone.

I look forward to the next adventure.

Four stars and thank you to NetGalley and HQ for the ARC.

Struggled with this book to be honest and gave up, think it would have been better if I had read the first one.

In this book Mapp and Lucia meet Agatha Raisin. I haven't read the first book in the series, Riviera Express, and this book reads well as a stand alone, but I will go back and read the first volume, as I enjoyed this so much. Our main character, Judy, is a strong and likeable heroine, as is her number two, Valentine. Although the book is a crime novel, the background setting, characterisations and vivid descriptions make it so much more. The book is set very firmly in the 50s, and pleasantly invokes the atmosphere of that time. Occasional names of products (such as Mum roll on) and TV programmes add to this throughout. I'm looking forward to more stories about Miss Dimont, she's a star.

I would like to thank Netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of Resort to Murder, the second cozy novel set on the Devon Riviera, featuring intrepid local reporter Miss Dimont.

It is summer 1959 and it's all go in Temple Regis. Danny Trouble and the Urge, the number one band in the newfangled beat style, are bringing hoards of teenage girls to their residency at the local theatre. The final of the Miss Devon beauty pageant is being held and Miss Dimont has a new reporter, Valentine Waterford, to break in. If this not enough there is a dead body on the beach, the hordes from Fleet Street are threatening to descend as scandal threatens to engulf local entrepreneur Bengt Larssen and his rejuvenator, a device that has made him millions but has also been killing some of its users and the Sisters of Reason are threatening direct action in furtherance of their demands for sex equality. And just what is Rudyard Rhys, the Riviera Express's editor up to?

I thoroughly enjoyed Resort to Murder. It has a clever plot, is inventive in its detail and is very amusing. I previously read its predecessor The Riviera Express and wasn't overly impressed but Mr Fielden has really hit his stride with this one. He manages the different strands of the plot masterfully and brings it all together in a dénouement I didn't see coming.

The joy of the novel, however, lies in the detail, like some of the stories that make the paper - the flower show or bowls winners where names mean purchasers or the running gag about the photos of ugly newlyweds.

Miss Dimont, who was rather important in Naval Intelligence during the war, brings this experience of command to her job and manages to run rings round Inspector Topham in every investigation by getting witnesses to open up to her. She also has an eclectic crew of friends to help her, like Aurore who writes the paper's horoscopes and Auriol who runs a tea shop and was her boss in the war. I like the fact that these strong, intelligent women can get the job done in the face of opposition from the editor, their former, rather incompetent junior. It is an ironical situation but so typical of the times.

I'm not sure the historical setting rings quite true so I have awarded it 4 rather than 5 stars.

I enjoyed Resort to Murder which is a very well done cosy and have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.