Date with Evil: A delightfully witty and charming mystery set in the Yorkshire Dales perfect for fans of Agatha Raisin and The Thursday Murder Club (The Dales Detective Series Book 8)

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All the previously laid threads meet here and many are neatly tied up, although there's one more book (at least), so obviously not all of them. This latest instalment had the now expected mix of mystery, comedy and acutely observed village life.

Julia Chapman is the pseudonym of Julia Stagg, who has had five novels, the Fogas Chronicles set in the French Pyrenees, published by Hodder. I would liken this book and indeed the series to a boiled sweet with a soft centre but a hard shell. J'ai retrouvé avec plaisir des personnages que j'aime énormément, la tension palpable, l'humour toujours présent, les émotions démultipliées. Since Samson O’Brien started the Dales Detective Agency in the downstairs office of Delilah Metcalfe’s Dales Dating Agency, the calibre of drama has gone up a notch. But with Samson O'Brien still in London helping the Met Police clear his name, and the newly appointed member of the investigations team, Ida Capstick, distracted by her brother George's insistence that their farm is haunted, Delilah Metcalfe is struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency's services.It opens with Delilah Metcalfe of Bruncliffe’s Dales Detective Agency struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency’s services. The vague threat that novel ends on, presumably signposting the way for book number 9 in the series, is that the sprightly but elderly members of the local retirement complex might lose their home. The endearing inhabitants of Bruncliffe are back, banding together with good old Yorkshire grit, this time to foil an organised crime gang who, improbably, are running a drugs/people trafficking ring out of a bunch of old farm sheds.

I have enjoyed this series immensely from book one and would say please read the other books before this one as this brings together threads from a few of the previous books. Personally, I thought the pacing could have been a bit quicker - I found myself getting frustrated by knowing more than our heroes at some parts.However, although the crimes initially seem minor, we soon find that something very serious is going on in the Dales and the book has some very dark scenes. This one is slightly darker than the previous seven books, but ties up neatly with the baddie *finally* getting caught. Des longueurs, du remplissage et des pages et des pages qui ne servent qu'à entretenir un suspense sans fin. It’s a small town so nothing is secret and everything is fair game for comment, except, obviously, for the identity of the person behind this latest mayhem.

I say latest because much reference is made to previous mayhem, which I assume was covered in earlier novels. Julia's writing is so descriptive I can visualise myself there in that brutal landscape and hear the accent of the people speaking in this book.Having published a series of novels set in the idyllic French Pyrenees, she has now turned her hand to crime. This is the first book I've read waiting for its release - because I discovered The Dales Detective when the previous books were already published - and I read them, one after the other, last year.

We left the town at the end of the last instalment with Samson’s name cleared and (nearly) everyone safe after the entire town was involved in a showdown with corrupt coppers, eastern European mafia and money launderers. There’s plenty of cosy crime shenanigans to enjoy but at the same time, there are issues of human nature and murder brought to the fore. and murder, has become a go to for me for reading slump rescue recommendations, reading clubs, and just getting out of the doldrums in general, and this was to be a culmination of so many different story threads, and Julia Chapman did it! We also use them to help detect unauthorized access or activity that violate our terms of service, as well as to analyze site traffic and performance for our own site improvement efforts.Overall I think this is totally worth it, it has all the cozy vibes one could want, characters that are fun and with depth, a dog that is the most lovable thing, a slight romantic touch and a lot of mystery. It will be interesting to see the TV series if/when that happens, but make sure you read the books first if you can. Wonderfully engaging, Julia Chapman’s latest Dales mystery is perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series .