A fun 1st in series of cozy mysteries about Sophie Sayers. Goodreads:When Sophie Sayers inherits a cottage in a sleepy English Cotswold village, she?s hoping for a quieter life than the one she's running away from. What she gets instead is a dead body on a carnival float, and an extraordinary assortment of suspects.Is the enigmatic bookseller Hector Munro all he seems? And what about the over-friendly neighbour who brings her jars of honey? Not to mention the eccentric village shopkeeper, show committee, writers' group and drama club, all suspiciously keen to welcome her to their midst.For fans of cosy (cozy) mysteries everywhere, Best Murder in Show will make you laugh out loud at the idiosyncrasies of English country life, and rack your brains to discover the murderer before Sophie can.

Lovely cosy mystery, set in a modern English village. Lots of emphasis on character -- the murder is in the preface, but isn't an issue till halfway through the book. It's more about a woman who has inherited the cottage of her famous travel-writing aunt, and now wants to be a writer herself. How she fits into village life, and the characters in the village, make this book special, and have me wanting to read more. ( )

Lovely cosy mystery, set in a modern English village. Lots of emphasis on character -- the murder is in the preface, but isn't an issue till halfway through the book. It's more about a woman who has inherited the cottage of her famous travel-writing aunt, and now wants to be a writer herself. How she fits into village life, and the characters in the village, make this book special, and have me wanting to read more. ( )

Fun and lighthearted, this is an entertaining read. As this is the first book in a series, there was a lot of time devoted to presenting the characters, which made the solving-crime bit be somewhat relegated to a second plane. As the background has now been dealt with, I have high hopes for the second in the series. ( )

When the least-liked woman in Wendlebury Barrow collapses inside a headless Anne Boleyn costume while tied to the rail of a float in the village show, newcomer Sophie Sayers, like all the other villagers, accepts the verdict of death by natural causes.

She’s more consumed by doubts about how her great aunt May died: was she murdered by ancient neighbour Joshua who keeps appearing without warning in the garden? And what exactly are Hector the bookshop owner’s mysterious business activities?

“What had begun as a simple proposition - to live in a rent-free cottage, in a pleasant stable community while pursuing the writing ambitions that I’d held since childhood - now seemed fraught with traps, difficulties and dangers”.

By Chapter Four, “The Alphabetical Shop”, I was so intrigued by a heroine who shops for “just the essentials” - shortbread, cake, chocolate, wine - at Carols’ shop where you find the postcards by the plums and The Times by the turnips, that I had accidentally spoiled several pages with, umm, coffee and food stains.

But I had to read on, regardless of meal times. Who wouldn’t want to jump into the next chapters when they're titled “Reader, I Left Him”, “The Cream of the Bookshop”, “Writers Afloat”, or “Beware of the Wardrobe”.

By gifting us with Sophie Sayers and Wendlebury Barrow, Debbie Young entertains with barmy characters, blooming gardens, cliques within community groups, and dreams of romance in an apparently bachelor-free village .

Along the way readers are also treated with the perils of writer’s block (falling asleep in the garden, in Sophie’s case), fun with cliches, and joyous little book references such as when Hector gives Greene’s “Travels with my Aunt” to Sophie.

Look out also for Debbie Young’s "Best Murder in Show", “Trick or Murder” and “Murder in a Manger”. Asking for them at your friendly local (or village) book shop would be most appropriate for a novel in which a very entrepreneurial book shop features prominently. ( )