Murder At Gulls Nest by Jess Kidd Nora Breen Investigates Book #1
A cozy mystery series about a former nun who searches for answers in a small seaside town after her pen pal mysteriously disappears
1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent. A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests—but when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.
My Review
Murder at Gulls Nest ‘stars’ Nora Breen, ex-nun turned Miss Marple. It’s very different from Jess Kidd’s other novels, but it still has the same ring to it. It’s the first in a series – I can’t wait for book two. I just adored it.
I love the narrator who sounds just like the presenter of The Great Pottery Throwdown. I kept waiting for her to say ‘Potters, you have one hour’. But then I realised it is her, Siobhán McSweeney! Of course it is.
Nora has left her religious order behind after 30 years to search for her friend, young novitiate Frieda, whose letters suddenly stopped. She follows her to the sleepy seaside town of Gore-on-Sea, where she takes a room in the Gulls Nest boarding house. It’s owned by the reclusive Mrs Wells, whose ten-year-old daughter Dinah is dirty, unruly, and doesn’t go to school. She also can’t speak. In my opinion I think Dinah is autistic, she shows obvious traits, but it wasn’t diagnosed in the 1950s.
Nora has taken the room once occupied by Frieda, but no-one knows who she is. She tells them she was a nurse, which she was, just not that she was in a convent. When one of the boarders dies in mysterious circumstances, Nora begins to investigate. ‘Let the police do their job’ is not in her vocabulary.
She doesn’t suffer fools gladly and she can sniff out a liar at ten paces. She upsets the police (I love the shoe throwing incident), though eventually Inspector Rideout warms to her, and respects her opinion. I became quite fond of him with his memories of the war and his dead mother’s garden.
I also loved Poppy and Toby dog even though I hate Punch and Judy, for numerous feminist and no doubt considered woke reasons. Bring on book two. I need it now.
About the Author
Jess Kidd was brought up in London as part of a large family from county Mayo and has been praised for her unique fictional voice. Her debut, Himself, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in 2016. She won the Costa Short Story Award the same year. Her second novel, The Hoarder, published as Mr. Flood’s Last Resort in the U.S. and Canada was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2019. Both books were BBC Radio 2 Book Club Picks. Her latest book, the Victorian detective tale Things in Jars, has been released to critical acclaim. Jess’s work has been described as ‘Gabriel García Márquez meets The Pogues.’
