Tea and Cake and Death

The Bookshop Detectives #2

by Gareth Ward, Louise Ward

When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders . . .

The Bookshop Detectives are on the case!

In this rollicking new adventure, Garth and Eloise (and Stevie) must sniff out a prolific poisoner ahead of a vital fundraising event, the Battle of the Book Clubs. As time runs out and the body count rises, it seems the bad actors are circling closer to the people and places they care about.

Could Pinter, the infamous serial killer from Eloise’s past, somehow be involved? And when anyone could be a suspect, how can Garth and Eloise keep their customers, their small town and their beloved bookshop safe?

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Books About Books

341 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2025

About the author

New Zealand Author

Reviews

[Marles Henry · Rating 1 out of 5]

If bookshops and staff worked as slow as the plot in this book, it would take forever to buy a book. I was so hoping for lots of action and fun and adventure in this story, yet what it ended up being was a very slow and amateurish plot with so much description that was not needed especially in a small and quiet town like Havelock that seemed to be filled with .

Garth and Louise were puzzling protagonists. They were so unlike each other but they were nowhere near chalk and cheese. I did not understand the chemistry between them. Possibly because I didn't read the first book but there still should be no excuse for not having enough background information as to how they ran their book shop and their relationship foundation. The cast of secondary characters was equally as baffling. I'm no clearer on the Admiral, and at first I thought Stevie was a person, not a dog! And at one point I was hoping that Basil (the bookstore mouse) was going to save the day because he had more personality than anyone walking into that bookstore. I love the whole idea of Prudence hosting death meetings in the bookstore but I think her character was just taken too far and I think giving her more substance would have grounded her more as an integral part of this book.

Whilst the plot was centred around how a serial killer jailed in the UK would still able to reach out into the town of Havelock to cause chaos and stress out Gareth and Louise was captivating, it just took so long to get the breadcrumb trail going, and keep the size of those bread crumbs substantial. More of a plot connection to poison used on particular characters, or even making more depth about the diabolical mushrooms could have really built the mystery factor and taken it up another notch. The idea of placing the authors (who actually own a bookshop and met in the police academy) and family dog into a book sounded quirky, but being barely disguised through fiction was grating. This was definitely not the book shop I had in mind.

Thanks #penguin for the #gifted copy.

[Jenny Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from Louise and Gareth my local bookshop owners. Knowing many of the characters portrayed in the story has probably made the book even more interesting. I regard my neighbour with even much greater respect...was wonderful any way. A great mystery revolving around the annually held battle of the book clubs. Why have so many people (and a beloved dog) fallen as a result of food poisoning? Finished well

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cosy New Zealand crime story, featuring wry humour, book selling and crime solving with the bookshop detectives.

[Aiden Marini · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up
Such a perfect small town cozy crime and centred around a bookshop?! Even better...

I was so nervous that this book would not live up to my expectations, yet it most definitely did. This was such a well written sequel and it was such a fun time being brought back to the world of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop. The writing was brilliant and I found the characters and plot to be so engaging. I laughed and even cried at multiple points in the book. This small town banding together to help the sick and the creativie lengths they went to were so beautiful. As a bookseller, I treasured the subtle inside jokes, which made the story all the more relatable and enjoyable. Most importantly, the actual crime plot though not as good as the first book, was still brilliant.

[Anna Loder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a perfect bookish cosy crime!!! I love this series! Super cute and still such a mystery to try to solve (which I did not do) as a bookseller I couldn’t get enough of the inside jokes and Basil was so fun!!

[Craig and Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big thanks to Penguin for sending us a copy to read and review.
The cover and title are ever so enticing for this cozy mystery.
A bookshop and fundraising event it’s holding, are at the centre of multiple death as someone is causing havoc and jeopardising safety.
Garth and Eloise are the owners and work in an environment they are passionate about.
Readers, authors and dedicated employees are generally the most peaceful and well rounded type people but someone is enacting crimes that are normally reserved for the pages.
A poisoner is among them.
As the countdown to the Battle of Bookclubs looms the spike of danger grows.
Even the loveable pet dog is not exempt from the threat.
I loved the dynamic between the characters and the inclusion of few animal friends helped balance out the fact people died.
It’s so hard to imagine this playing out in real life as we know book people are good people.
But we readers love imagination and this delivered it in loads.

[Marit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read, set in Havelock North in New Zealand and also featuring Palmerston North and the beautiful Hawke’s Bay. Garth and Eloise Sherlock, with their timid rescue dog, Stevie, are back solving a mystery concerning poison and carrying ons in their home town and bookshop, Sherlock Tomes. It was a humorous story filled with many literary references and New Zealand colloquialisms, delicious food and the wonderful New Zealand cafe culture, caffeine, tea and in jokes and an entertaining cast of characters, despite touching on themes of cancer, bikie gangs, veiled threats and a master manipulator, incarcerated in England. Truly engaging and engrossing story.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! It was an excellent sequel to the first book. I started it yesterday and was barely able to put it down. I already can't wait for the next one.

The book is fun, light-hearted, and had me hooked right from the start. I loved all the local references and enjoyed the returning characters from the previous book.

The only downside I can think of is that now I have to wait for the next one! Highly recommend this series.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid sequel!

I think it’s so much fun reading a book written by people you know who feature heavily in the book.

Gareth and Lou deserve so much success! They’re lovely and their writing is perfect for the genre. Their voices work well together, and I can see that they continue to develop as they go.

Keep up the fantastic work and I’ll keep an eye out for book three 👀

(Pls though don’t scare me again with Stevie!)

[Kelly Blackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sherlock’s are back at their bookstore Sherlock Tomes and once again people are dying!

An amazing sequel to Dead Girl Gone, full of the same incredible quirky characters with quick wit, lots of coffee and books.

Can not wait for the next installment!

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like a thinner mystery than Dead Girl Gone. The attention given to Basil the mouse, Stevie the dog, Lone Ranger the car, Te Mata Peak and coffee breaks didn't help the pacing. And some of the quips between Garth and Eloise were less endearing. But the series stays on my light read list.

[Aimee Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first book and the second book was just as good. I'm hopeful there is a third in the works!

TW: Discusses cancer and end of life.

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun cosy crime in a New Zealand bookshop setting. Wish I’d read it instead of listening to the audio though, the mispronunciations of some Māori words and place names grated. Surely the publishers could have used kiwi actors?

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

'I was disappointed in this one. Rather than declining, the elements that put me off in the first book were magnified. There was too much banter, messing around and simply going nowhere. Just tell the story! I still had trouble with the alternate voice chapters. The voices are not sufficiently distinguished. I needed to keep reminding myself which voice I was reading. It should be perfectly clear from the writing, not just from an odd identifying reference.
Is this farce or is it cosy crime - or something else? It didn’t satisfy me , whatever it is.
I also hate the obvious setup for the next volume in the last sentence. I won’t be taking the bait.

[Gloria (Ms. G's Bookshelf) · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️3.5 Stars⭐️
Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth Ward quirky, co-written cosy crime mystery set in a fictional New Zealand bookshop called Sherlock Tomes. Small town bookshop owners Garth and Eloise (ex-cops) together with their dog Stevie are fighting crime and on the trail of a series of poisonings and a possible serial killer in their local community.

There are author events, an oncoming Battle of the Book Clubs Fundraiser and readers are even invited to drink tea, eat cake and discuss death.

The book is light-hearted and warm with entertaining characters. There are also links in the story with the serial killer named Pinter from the previous book. My favourite character had to be Stevie the rescue dog.

If you love cosy crime and humour you’ll enjoy this one.

Publication Date 01 April 2025
Publisher Imprint Penguin

Thank you so much Penguin Books Australia for a copy of the book & matching bookmark.

[Kristine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cosy crime story set in a New Zealand small town centred around a bookshop with plenty of banter, local colour and a cast of quirky characters. This is the second book in the series, so perhaps reading the first book might have provided more context to the characters and key links in the plot line. I liked the structure of using the voices of the two bookshop owners in alternating chapters and it was written in a style that was easy to read. I didn't like the uneven pacing and I struggled to connect with any the characters or stretch my credibility enough to engage with the story. I found it a bit "too cosy" and too drawn out with details and events that didn't really add to the story. It just didn't work for me, although I can appreciate it's appeal to a local audience and lovers of cosy mysteries.

[Lindz · Rating 2 out of 5]

As some one who has worked in bookstores and has lived in New Zealand for 23/26 years. Yeah it's really f*cking boring. And this book is a perfect example of this. It could be the cultural cringe and what I do on a day to day basis hit to close. And maybe I am a touch offended. I was bored throughout the whole thing, and I had to finish it for work.

Plus Kiwiana isn't as cute as they think it is. And we as a people need to stop explaining ourselves. We are not that mysterious, we are just twee.

[Clive Hodges · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Bookshop Detectives #2' continues the exploits of Eloise and Garth Sherlock, owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in New Zealand.

I urge book-lovers to read the first of the series before this sequel as plot developments in that book are discussed in this one.

Over the years, the bookshop has thrived with many regular customers, and staff have become friends as well as employees.

During a talk given to a meeting of The Grey Folk, where tea is drunk and cake is eaten, one of the attendees suddenly collapses and is taken to hospital. The meeting is cancelled.

At The Waiapu Lunch Club, Eloise is part-way though her address when a member in the audience slumps onto to the person sitting next to her and dies. The meeting is postponed.

The booksellers are wary about accepting another invitation to address a gathering. They wonder if someone is stopping them from publicising their business.

They undertake research and are surprised by their findings. There have been quite a few deaths in New Zealand, all considered to be due to accidental food poisoning.

Perhaps the poisoning was not accidental. Perhaps there’s a serial killer at large offering tea and cake and death.

'The Bookshop Detectives #2' is a cosy murder mystery with witty remarks and gentle humour. A customer, retired and elderly, is overheard saying, “When you get to our age, all you can do is keep your bowels open and trust in the Lord; prunes and prayers, prunes and prayers.”

It is an enjoyable read. I have one reservation, however. Some of the detailed descriptions needed to be pared back. They bordered on pedantry.

[Susan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting light read written by a husband and wife team. Coincidently (or maybe not) the human lead characters in the book are a husband and wife team, with each chapter written from the perspective of either Garth or Eloise, could this be a case of one author writing one characters story line, with the other writing the other? The acknowledgements don't acknowledge whether that theory is sound or not.

I really enjoyed the Kiwiness of this book, there is something unique about the New Zealand culture and their embrace of te reo Māori. While I have smattering of understanding, Māori words used in the narrative were easily able to be deciphered from their context within the text. What did surprise me was that there were two Havelocks in New Zealand, something that came up in a Google search when my recollections of Havelock (in the South Island) did not seem to match the locations here.

This is the second book in the series, and the first I have read. While the authors have tried to fill a new reader with some of the backstory, I still felt as if I was missing some of the pieces of relevant storyline. I will endeavour to obtain a copy of Dead Girl Gone, and keep an eye open for the third book in the series. With that ending, how can there n0t be a sequel to the sequel.

PS I would 'kill' to have a bookshop such as this in close proximity.

[Lilaaaum · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had expectations with this book because until the first half, the story is promising, but I started feeling bored from the page 160 onwards. Everything is towards the book club event and nothing exciting happens. Furthermore, the reason of the crime is shallow, petty and poorly developed - not only this, but also the personality of the characters, which made me struggle to identify myself with the novel and the characters (I really need to have something in common with the characters/theme of the novel when I read). The amount of characters/suspects/victims/potential guests for the book club or whatsoever also made me feel lost and I struggled to memorise everyone.

Just adding two points that may have influenced my negative experience with the book:

1- I read without knowing it was the second book of the series “The Bookshop Detectives”. I only found out a day after starting it lol. I honestly couldn’t realise aspects that could connect this second to a first book and I’ve decided to keep reading it.

2- English is not my first language and this could be why I felt lack of connection and the sense of being lost with the amount characters, even though I understood the story. Ofc I don’t understand 100% of the words when I read in English, but it doesn’t mean that I cannot understand the context and the main message.

[Davena · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bookshop Detectives 2: Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth and Louise Ward

The Bookshop Detectives 2: Tea and Cake and Death was not the next book on my TBR list; my last two reads were absolute heart-stopping thrillers, and I've been sick this week, so I needed something a little less intense, something a bit softer and a bit cosy. So I scanned down my list and found the first cosy title, and this one did not disappoint.

When I met Gareth and Louise Ward at Penguin Noir, I told them that Dead Girl Deirdre was my favourite character. Gareth responded with a twinkle in his eye, "Oh, there's much more Deirdre in the next one" In that moment, I panicked that Deirdre was going to be the victim in book 2. Side note: the Death Cafe addition was perfection, and I may have had leaky eyes when I found out Regan was based on a real person.

Thumbs up 👍

Body Count = 3 or 4? 5? SO MANY GUISE. SO MANY.

Thumbs up.

@penguinbooksaus @penguinrandomhouse #PenguinRandomHouseAustraliaAudio #PenguinBooks

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[Alison McIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first book. It was a nice cozy mystery. And even better realising the authors actually own their own book shop in NZ and based the characters on themselves and people they knew.

However, how dare he make fun of the romantasy genre (at beginning of this book). It’s not all smut. I nearly DNF’d when he said that. Romantasy has not ruined fantasy. Women have been putting up with rape, incest and questionable consent in the fantasy genre for years. Let us have Romantasy with smut scenes that actually value women’s pleasure. End rant.

You think a bookseller wouldn’t blatantly make fun of a whole new genre that is getting women reading more than ever. However, the female author discusses it later and she says positive things. That’s it much healthier than what kids would find online. 🙌🏻

Back to the book…another murder mystery surrounding the bookshop. Reminds me of the Nevermore Bookshop series minus the supernatural elements.

Mushroom poisoning was a bit too close to home with what happened recently in the news in Australia.

The crime in this seemed a bit absurd but I suppose people have committed murder for less. The reasoning was strange but oh well. People are crazy!

Battle of the book clubs sounds like an excellent event though.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I said with my review of the last book I am, in so many ways, the perfect audience for this. I live in the Bay and know and love the people from Wardini's in Havelock. So I was beyond delighted to find out there would be another book in this series, and was eagerly anticipating getting my hands on it


This is, in a lot of ways cozy murder. Interspliced with murder and poison is the day to day running of a bookstore, and all the characters one meets. The staff really come to life, and its like just hanging out with them while they go about their day. I found myself cracking up laughing fairly routinely just picturing scenes in my head. But even if you don't know the people behind the characters this still works incredibly well

This book is tricksy every time I thought I had it figured out I would end up surprised and going.. but wait.. but what?? I was totally sucked into this and had to keep reminding myself to breathe. That its fiction and everything is okay.

I absolutely flew through this bedtimes and having to go to work bedamned and I'm now sad that I shall have to wait for another

[Susan Wilson]

Couldn’t put it down.

What I loved:

-The ending…perfect use for a bottle of wine given it’s set in the Hawkes Bay!
-D&D’s new home….that was the only aspect that had me on edge at the end (good cover, phew!).
-Arthur Pinter loving dogs…roared with laughter.
-Fiona Valentine works for me so that felt stalkerish. Why that name?

I also loved the familiarity that reading a local story, with local references brings. And, having read the first book, it was great to see some of the previous characters especially the Admiral and Meryl making appearances.

I'm also having serious FOMO at missing out on the “Spot the Author of Aotearoa” and “Say What You See” rounds in Battle of the Book Clubs.

It was so much fun.

Bring on the next one!

[Xanthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook format. Another really enjoyable bookish cozy mystery story in this new series. It kept me guessing until the end. And the longer story arc that is running through the series, progressed well in this instalment. I look forward to the next book.
One complaint though - right from the get go was a jab at vegan food. The old ‘tastes terrible’ trope. There’s humour in this series and I’m sure the authors thought they were being amusing but honestly, this is so old hat. It’s tired and boring. And a really bad way to start the book. As the story progressed, and I was enjoying it, was willing to forgive… until another jab was made at it. Groan. I hope the authors drop this from the upcoming book.

[Amarlee Jagoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this book a 4, early into the read it was hovering around a 3. I think this was due to adjusting to the writing style and how much dialogue wa going on. There is alot to keep track of, with flashbacks to previous dealings with a psychopath, the lives of Eloise and Garth and their dog Stevie who are the central characters and the "Bookshop Detectives" and then the myriad of other characters that are connected.
I really feel like I have spent a week in Hastings, hanging out with these people.
The countdown to the "Battle of the Books" fundraiser makes up each chapter with the murderer being exposed after the winners have been announced.Its a fun concept, a trivia night for book geeks.
Overall a good bedtime read.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garth and Eloise, husband and wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes Bookshop in New Zealand, need to solve the mystery of the prolific poisoner before the body count grows. Together, with their rescue dog Stevie, they set out to solve the mystery but the suspect seems to be getting far too close to home.

This was book #2 in the series and as with most books, it would probably have been better enjoyed by reading book #1 first. That said, it was still enjoyable. I loved the light humour sprinkled throughout and I always enjoy a cozy murder mystery.
Thank you to Penguin Books Australia for this gifted review copy.

[Marc Vance · Rating 2 out of 5]

42/100

Tea and Cake and Death reads like it was brewed weak and served warm. There’s nothing wrong with a cozy mystery—unless it forgets to be either cozy or mysterious. The premise is cute enough: bookshop sleuths, club rivalries, a local poisoner. But every scene feels like it’s been run through a politeness filter, scrubbed clean of tension, bite, or character spark. This one plays like a BBC afternoon special for people who think Midsomer Murders is too edgy.

Takeaways:

Charming setting can’t cover for cardboard characters and limp stakes.

Whimsy without wit — and a mystery that forgets to raise your pulse.

Too much tea, not enough death.

[Carole Handel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a Mothers’ Day gift from my daughter and grandsons. It’s very different from my usual historical fiction but I was hooked from the beginning. I felt drawn in to the community of Havelock North particularly with a bookshop being at the centre of the story. Lots of twists to make an intriguing crime story that although has a sinister underlying problem is also quite light hearted. Now I need to read the first of The Bookshop Detectives books and looks like there will be a book 3.

[Lisa Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so much fun to read! There is plenty of small town quirkery, larger than life characters, plus a cracking mystery to solve.

If you love cozy mysteries, bookshops, New Zealand, dogs, and/or murder mysteries, then you must read this book (after you've read the first in the series - there are spoilers for it in this book). Read the blurb for more info, then order both books in the series.

Can't wait for Volume Three....