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The Birthday Mystery

(Jenny Starling #1)

Joyce Cato,

Faith Martin

4.03 · Rating details · 3,459 ratings · 207 reviews

Please note this book was first published as “BIRTHDAYS CAN BE MURDER” under Faith Martin’s pen name JOYCE CATO.

Jenny Starling is catering the twenty-first birthday party of upper-class twins, Alicia and Justin.

She arrives at their parents' country house and is immediately met by the police. A young man has drowned in the pond. Was it an accident or murder?

But the birthday ...more

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Kindle Edition, 245 pages

Published December 7th 2018 by Joffe Books (first published 2010)

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· 3,459 ratings · 207 reviews

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Dec 17, 2018 Helga rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, mystery, netgalley, british, series

Do you want to indulge in a nice, engaging and cozy mystery in this holiday season? Then look no further!

A house full of guests. A room full of suspects. A clever murderer. A baffling crime.

Our sharp-eyed and clever Jenny Starling is a cook who is hired to cater for the birthday party of the wealthy twins, Alicia and Justin. But as soon as she arrives at the mansion, she is informed of the drowning of the assistant gardener. Everyone, including the police put it down as an unfortunate accident. ...more

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Sep 11, 2019 Cheryl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Stunning ...... just wonderful. I think this is going to become one of my favourite characters.

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Jul 12, 2019 Alan Cotterell rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2019

Great start

Great solid start to a new series. Jenny Starling, is a jobbing cook, who moves from assignment to assignment. But seems as if she will always find herself in the middle of a crime. She is a bit like Miss Marple only younger. Although I don't think it actually gives her age.
The stories are set in small villages bit like Midsomer Murders, in a timeless period. Doesn't really specify an era.
The story lines are well developed and so are the characters. If I had a criticism, it might be ...more

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Dec 07, 2018 Louise Wilson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jenny Starling #1

Jenny Starling is catering for a 21st birthday party for a pair of twins. But when she arrives at her parents country house, she discovers that a young man has drowned in a pond. Then just after midnight, everyone gathers for a champagne toast. But one of the guests drops down dead. With a party full of suspects, the police are baffled.

This is the first book in a new series by the author, Faith Martin. I liked Jenny Sparrows character. She not a detective but I'm not sure if ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Lou rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The Birthday Mystery, first published as Birthdays Can Be Murder in 2010 under Faith Martin's pen name Joyce Cato, is the perfect start to the Jenny Starling series. As is often the case in Ms Martin's crime fiction she makes the chocolate-box village in the countryside a character in its own right and it reminded me a lot of the village of Midsomer in Midsomer Murders. It had me hooked pretty darn quickly and racing through the pages to discover what actually happened and who the dastardly ...more

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Dec 06, 2018 Linda Strong rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley-2018, read-in-2018

Please note this book was first published as “BIRTHDAYS CAN BE MURDER” under Faith Martin’s pen name JOYCE CATO.

This is the first of a series featuring Jenny Starling, a traveling cook and somewhat of an amateur detective. Maybe it's because she's smart, she sees things that others miss, and she has a wonderful ability to piece together puzzles.

Jenny is catering the 21st birthday of a pair of wealthy twins, Alicia and Justin. One of them will die, and one of them will survive ...barely.

And then ...more

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Jul 26, 2019 Trisha rated it liked it

"Jenny had a nasty habit, through no fault of her own, of getting caught up in other people's problems. This time, she vowed to steer well clear of trouble."

This was such a little gem of a story! I really enjoyed Jenny and her quirky cast of characters in this fun little mystery. Jenny was a great character - sassy and sharp and yet sweet and so compassionate. I loved her love of food, animals and people. She juggled a tough situation of catering a birthday party with a grumpy daily cook, an ...more

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Dec 12, 2018 Gail C. rated it it was amazing

From the first sentence of Faith Martin’s new novel, The Birthday Mystery, you are immersed in the world of Jenny Starling, supersized chef extraordinaire who is completely comfortable with herself. That comfort level translates to a woman who exudes confidence and sex appeal without even trying, an unusual feat for a woman who is 6’1” tall with curves in places other women don’t even have places.

Of course, Jenny’s size has nothing to do with her ability to solve a murder, that is left up to her From the first sentence of Faith Martin’s new novel, The Birthday Mystery, you are immersed in the world of Jenny Starling, supersized chef extraordinaire who is completely comfortable with herself. That comfort level translates to a woman who exudes confidence and sex appeal without even trying, an unusual feat for a woman who is 6’1” tall with curves in places other women don’t even have places.

Of course, Jenny’s size has nothing to do with her ability to solve a murder, that is left up to her exceptional mind and her ability to interpret situations, clues, etc. and reach the correct conclusion. This ability is recognized early on by the detective in charge of the case and his sergeant, although they are reluctant to actively involve Jenny in solving the murder. As the story moves forward, however, they begin to recognize the value of Jenny’s intelligence and abilities which leads to Jenny being able to share information and ideas with them without any sense of resentment or attempts to thwart her ability in order to preserve all the glory for themselves.

For her part, Jenny is not intent on becoming the next amateur sleuth to be covered in accolades. In truth, she would much prefer to spend her time in the kitchen, baking the perfect cake and cooking up other delightful dishes using plenty of butter and fresh ingredients. That is somewhat more difficult as, being contracted to prepare the meal for a very fancy birthday party, she is resented by the regular household staff and finds herself functioning almost completely without help. No matter, nothing seems to bother this unflappable woman who cheerfully accepts apologies and seems to be exactly the person she presents to the outside world.

In this, the first book of a new series, Jenny is hired to cook for the twenty-first birthday party of Alicia and Justin, twins to a wealthy family. Alicia has planned every portion of the party, down to when the champagne for the birthday toast will be uncorked. Not surprisingly, it is a mystery after all, the party is marred by the death of Justin during the toast. This gives rise to Jenny’s suspicion that the first death that occurs, that of Jimmy Speight, was actually murder and not an accident as it was designed to appear.

There are suspects galore, clues a plenty and red herrings to be found throughout the book. The difficulty for the reader will be determining in which category to place each of the facts in order to reach the correct solution. This was a thoroughly satisfying read and while I solved the mystery correctly, I often found myself with the same questions Jenny had, at the same time and only reached the answers at the same time as Jenny. The answers required both an understanding of the clues and the personalities involved and it was the need to understand personality that created the biggest stumbling block for the police.

This is a book I highly recommend, and I look forward to reading the next one in the series. My only regret is the story which Jenny references as having happened prior to the invents in this book only exists in the author’s mind and isn’t a book I can obtain and read. I am reluctant to give specifics of the story as I think the book is best enjoyed by slowly getting to know Jenny and the other characters in the setting in which they find themselves. I look forward to additional books in this series. My thanks to NetGalley and Joffe Books for providing me an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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Jan 15, 2019 Anne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was a really good book. A really good story and characters. I especially liked Jenny Starling! I hope that Faith Martin will write more about her soon.

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Jan 09, 2019 Anissa rated it liked it

Recommends it for: fans of cozy mysteries set in sleepy little hamlets

Shelves: 2019, cozy-mystery, series, british-fiction-uk-ireland

To begin another cozy series is kind of what I don't need but I find resisting them difficult and so, here I am having read the first in a series. Actually, it was the second book that originally caught my eye as it has a Christmas/winter theme and I'm still in the mood for my mystery reads to be snowy. I like to be orderly so I read The Birthday Mystery.

Jenny Starling is a cook and reluctant sleuth, who has come to The Beeches in the village of Rousham Green, to make dinner for twenty-five To begin another cozy series is kind of what I don't need but I find resisting them difficult and so, here I am having read the first in a series. Actually, it was the second book that originally caught my eye as it has a Christmas/winter theme and I'm still in the mood for my mystery reads to be snowy. I like to be orderly so I read The Birthday Mystery.

Jenny Starling is a cook and reluctant sleuth, who has come to The Beeches in the village of Rousham Green, to make dinner for twenty-five guests invited to the birthday party of twins, Alicia and Justin Greer. Before too long there's more than one dead person on the premises and the police are trying to suss out if the deaths are connected and who the killer could be.

The story takes its time setting the scene and giving a look in on all the characters of the village and manor house but it never feels plodding. I enjoyed Jenny as the main character for the most part. She was a keen observer and it's also related that she has solved a murder case in the past. Additionally, there are enough hints to her own family that my interest was piqued and I think there's an interesting story or two there that may come into play later. The food she made sounded lovely and had me hoping this was one of those cozies with recipes in the back but alas, there were no recipes.

Two annoying things that are related constantly are Jenny's size (she's six feet tall and sturdily built & referred to too many times as Junoesque) and that she sighs (so much so I started to suspect some sort of respiratory ailment). I'm hoping these were just first book quirks and will not be recurrences in the next book. The remaining characters were as one expects of cozy mysteries set in chocolate box settings with foibles, oddities and class prejudices and they worked for me. The resolution was well done and the Who was not a surprise for readers of cozies to have worked out earlier on but the Why and How kept one guessing, making this a nifty light read. I do look forward to continuing the series. ...more

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Dec 28, 2018 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I was first introduced to Faith Martin’s writing, when I was invited to take part in the blog tour (by the lovely Jill Burkinshaw) for the second book in the series featuring DI Hilary Greene, also published by Joffe Books. Since that time, I have become a huge fan of hers. I have read each and every book of hers that Joffe has released. When I heard that she was releasing a new series featuring a new female lead, I knew that I just had to drop everything to read it. I was not to be disappointed I was first introduced to Faith Martin’s writing, when I was invited to take part in the blog tour (by the lovely Jill Burkinshaw) for the second book in the series featuring DI Hilary Greene, also published by Joffe Books. Since that time, I have become a huge fan of hers. I have read each and every book of hers that Joffe has released. When I heard that she was releasing a new series featuring a new female lead, I knew that I just had to drop everything to read it. I was not to be disappointed either because I really enjoyed reading ‘The Birthday Mystery’ but more about that in a bit.
The new female lead in this series is called Jenny Starling, who is a caterer. Trouble seems to follow her around because she turns up and people start dying in mysterious circumstances. She is a bit like Jessica Fletcher from ‘Murder She Wrote’ in that respect. Jenny certainly stands out because she is rather tall for a woman and she is well built as it were. Put it this way, once you have met her, you certainly won’t forget her. She seems to intimidate people but I wasn’t sure if that was because of her size or because of the way she speaks to people or the confidence that seems to pour out of her. Jenny certainly doesn’t take any unnecessary crap and she seems to poke her nose into everybody else’s business. She seems to have a knack that means that people open up to her whereas they wouldn’t necessarily open up to police.
‘The Birthday Mystery is a different kind of read to the Detective Inspector Hilary Greene series. By that I mean that the main female lead has a different background, a different personality and a different style. The author seems to have changed her writing style a bit and I did wonder if that was because she was adopting a similar manner in her writing to that of Jenny. I hope that makes sense. That said, it didn’t take me long to get used to the different writing style and female lead and pretty much by the time I got to the bottom of the page, I knew that I had found another cracking series with a female lead that I couldn’t fail to warm to. This book soon became addictive for me. It isn’t a particularly long book and I seemed to race through it. I was so focussed on the book, the mystery, the storylines and the characters that I didn’t notice just how quickly the pages were turning- it was almost as if they were turning themselves. Before I realised what was happening I had finished the book, which I had mixed feelings about. I was pleased to finish because it meant that I knew how this part of the series finished but I was enjoying the book so much that I just wanted it to continue. Reading ‘The Birthday Mystery’ was much like being on an occasionally scary and unpredictable rollercoaster ride with several twists and turns along the way.
In short, ‘The Birthday Mystery’ was certainly different and I really enjoyed reading it. I would say that Jessica Fletcher should move over because there’s a new female amateur sleuth in town. I would recommend it to other readers but please bear in mind that it is different to the Hilary Greene series. I can’t wait to read the next instalment of the Jenny Starling series. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is 4* out of 5*. ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Robin Loves Reading rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-challenge, kindle, mystery-thriller, 2019-january-march, netgalley, robin-loves-reading-2019-challenge

Jenny Starling is both highly rated and highly sought after. She is a traveling cook and her current job is to cater the twenty-first birthday party of upper-class twins, Alicia and Justin. As soon as Jenny arrives, however, she is greeted by the police. Sadly, a young man has drowned in a pond and the police have to determine whether or not it was an accident.

Nonetheless, Jenny goes right to work. Shockingly, however, a guest suddenly dies. This suspicious death has no shortage of guests ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 Bridget rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Readers of Mysteries, Cosy Mysteries

Shelves: crime, cosy-reads, mystery, netgalley-arc

Over recent months I've become a great fan of cozy mysteries so, when I saw a new series featuring Jenny Starling being launched, I knew I had to read The Birthday Mystery. Also, it has a culinary theme which I love and a little light humour.

First, we are introduced to Jenny who is catering for the twenty-first birthday party of upper-class twins, Alicia and Justin. In her late twenties, Jenny is an impressive woman. Curvaceous and sexy, she’s a modern single woman, living the lifestyle that Over recent months I've become a great fan of cozy mysteries so, when I saw a new series featuring Jenny Starling being launched, I knew I had to read The Birthday Mystery. Also, it has a culinary theme which I love and a little light humour.

First, we are introduced to Jenny who is catering for the twenty-first birthday party of upper-class twins, Alicia and Justin. In her late twenties, Jenny is an impressive woman. Curvaceous and sexy, she’s a modern single woman, living the lifestyle that suits her – that of a travelling cook. Her famous father is a ‘celebrity’ cook, divorced from Jenny’s mother. Jenny is happy travelling the country catering for events and cooking great food. She is on a mission to bring back traditional home cooked food and to offer new and exciting recipes made with fresh ingredients. She arrives at the twins family country house located in a picturesque and charming village and is immediately met by the police. A young man has drowned in the pond. Was it an accident or murder?

The birthday party goes ahead and then, just after midnight, everyone gathers for a champagne toast . . . and one of the guests falls down dead. The police are baffled and there is a whole party full of suspects.

Jenny finds crime very distracting, especially when there is chocolate to temper or pike to poach. She is very observant, with an agile mind and an amazing ability to interpret clues and hidden meanings. Her wit and sense of humour help her sanity when all around her, people are dropping like flies. When it comes to someone possibly adding the extra ingredient of poison to her own precious recipes, Jenny isn't going to take it lying down. She has a reputation to protect.

Jenny Starling won't stop until the murderer is found.

There are many suspects in this mystery, clues a-plenty and red herrings all the way through this book. It was a thoroughly satisfying read and I often found myself asking the same questions as Jenny and I was kept in suspense to the end. The pacing in The Birthday Mystery was very good and I never lost interest, as it wasn't long before something intriguing would happen. Things came together for a great finish and wrapped everything up very neatly.

I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next novel featuring Jenny Starling very soon and other books by the author, Faith Martin. The Birthday Mystery whets your appetite for more to come.

My thanks to NetGalley, Joffe Books and the author for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel. ...more

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Dec 23, 2018 Jannelies rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: chicklit-mystery, books-i-own

I was very eager to start reading the first book in this series by Faith Martin, because her series with Hilary Green I found very nice reads - not too spectacular, but very hard to put away once I started reading. Were my expectations met? Well, yes and no. Let me start with a short excerpt: "Jenny was six feet and one inch tall, with a heavy bone structure that was well padded, and curvaceous in many places."
So far, so good. Excellent! Jenny is a caterer and cook; she caters for all kinds of ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Elaine Tomasso rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I would like to thank Netgalley and Joffe Books for a review copy of The Birthday Mystery, the first novel to feature professional cook and amateur sleuth, Jenny Starling.

When Jenny arrives as Beech House to cater for twins Justin and Alicia’s twenty first birthday party she is met by the police as a young man has drowned in their pond. Shrugging off the shock Jenny gets on with her job but is even more shocked when one of the guests at the party is poisoned.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Birthday ...more

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Dec 02, 2019 Tony Hisgett rated it liked it

Shelves: review, mystery

Given the description of Jenny I wasn’t too sure about this book, but I had quite enjoyed the author’s DI Hillary Greene so I thought it was worth a try. In the end I really liked Jenny and the book was certainly worth a try.
Having said that, the story wasn’t without its problems. To start with the time scale for one person to make and decorate elaborate cakes, prepare a six course banquet for over twenty people and nibbles for over a hundred doesn't work.
However the most annoying thing about ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Lady Delacour rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: changed-foul-words-in-pronunciation, mild-language, murder-mystery

Old style murder mystery.
If you like Agatha Christie
and or Sherlock Holmes,
you might enjoy this book.
With this style I personally
lose interest and struggle
with staying as focused.
Listened with TTS.
Clean with Mild Foul Language.

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Apr 03, 2019 Laurie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I love Faith Martin’s Hilary Greene series, but was sadly disappointed upon reading this 1st of the Jenny Starling series. I found about a third of the way through the book that everything about it was was just silly and pointless. Poorly written, rushing from one thing to the next. Too many subplots in a story that was already feeling forced and artificial. I was surprised that this was the Faith Martin I had enjoyed previously. A murder from the very first page and no one, not even the author ...more

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Nov 02, 2013 Jane rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

2.5 My mum enjoyed this series so I thought I'd give it a go. It was okay but the editing was appalling. Head-hopping from paragraph to paragraph, repetition of dialog tags ("Blah, blah," X said thoughtfully. "I agree," Y said thoughtfully), the investigating policemen both have names that begin with 'Moll' and if I'd taken a drink every time the heroine was called 'the Junoesque cook' I'd have been squiffy by chapter six.

I get it. She's tall, big and has 'surprisingly beautiful dark blue eyes', ...more

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Jan 06, 2019 Dr. Patricia Calkin rated it it was ok

Barely able to complete this unbelievable tale!

The main character shows up at all the perfect times to hear clues. She is not seen and the author uses unbelievable ways to make this happen, like having her suffer a cramp and then be unseen under a table. She heard way too many conversations while being just out of site. Even so, the reader is NOT given clues that a good mystery writer would share in order to be fair. I bought the second book when I got this one or I would not have wasted the ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Joyce rated it really liked it

4 stars

Jenny Starling is a caterer extraordinaire. She is catering the birthday party for Alicia and Justin, but as she arrives at the posh mansion, the police are on the scene. A young man has hit his head and fallen into the pond. He is dead.

So begins a new series for writer Faith Martin.

Although she is 6’ 1,” Jenny is comfortable with herself and her job. She likes “real” cooking, not the goofy stuff her father, another chef, cooks. Jenny has a talent for investigation as well. She becomes ...more

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Jan 19, 2019 Darcey Tomasino rated it it was amazing

Another Agatha Christie

I love a good, clean murder mystery, and Faith Martin doesn't disappoint. Jenny Starling is a strong female lead with amazing powers of deduction. My only complaint is Martin's fondness for the adjective "Junoesque"; that's a word that is overused if it shows up more than once in a book....and it has to be in the book a dozen times or more.

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May 27, 2019 Beverly Owens rated it it was amazing

Some kind of party

A traveling cook with sleuthing skills makes for an interesting mystery to solve. Loved the twists in the plot as I tried to figure out who dunnit.

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May 18, 2019 Lynda rated it really liked it

Grand Mystery

What a deep and difficult mystery! Attempting to kill twins on their 21st birthday in a huge party full of witnesses.

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Dec 12, 2018 Joanna Larum rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The first in a new series by Faith Martin and one I have been waiting for since the Hillary Greene series finished. There is a new main character, Jenny Starling, a professional caterer to the super-rich, who will no doubt travel to many houses in many places so there is the possibility of so many murder mysteries.
I like the character of Jenny who came over as a professional and very competent person but I kept feeling that I was in the middle of a book set in the 1930's so the intrusion of 21st ...more

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Oct 08, 2015 Sally Lindsay-briggs rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was a great Whodunit. Jenny was embroiled in a murder at the party she was catering. She had spunk, beauty, brains and moxie. She was also a fantastic English cook. The book was short but enjoyable and I certainly who recommend the author to anyone.

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Mar 08, 2019 Dennis A. rated it it was amazing

Excellent Classic Cozy Mystery

The Birthday Mystery is everything I want in a classic cozy mystery. Faith Martin proves that she has an ability to write in the tradition of Agatha Christie yet with a modern flair. Her amateur detective, Jenny Starling, is a great character I cared about and can't to find out more about. She is cook who is hired in wealthy circles, due to her culinary skills and like Miss Marple with her knitting, Jenny sometimes cooks to get her thoughts in order. I love a Excellent Classic Cozy Mystery

The Birthday Mystery is everything I want in a classic cozy mystery. Faith Martin proves that she has an ability to write in the tradition of Agatha Christie yet with a modern flair. Her amateur detective, Jenny Starling, is a great character I cared about and can't to find out more about. She is cook who is hired in wealthy circles, due to her culinary skills and like Miss Marple with her knitting, Jenny sometimes cooks to get her thoughts in order. I love a classic whodunit. I enjoy today's cozy mysteries, (the kind that the Hallmark Channel loves to make), because the main characters are who I want to read about again and again. However I find many cozy writers don't create a solid mystery or puzzle for the reader to solve. Sometime the amateur sleuths simple stumble on the killer who just before they can kill our hero a friend or lover saves them and the killer is caught. Or even worse, the killer seems to be chosen at random and there isn't any solid clues that lead to the solution. Faith Martin creates characters we care about but also plants some fair play clues with a solution that may not be shocking but makes sense. I thought I guessed the killer until my suspect died. Eventually I was able to guess the true culprit however I was still surprised by certain answers in the resolution of the crime. For example, a clue left at the scene of the crime had me believing it was there for one reason yet I was pleasantly surprised to see that it actually proved to be there for a different reason and one that actually pointed to the real killer in a way I didn't see. (I don't mean to be so vague but I really don't want to spoil the puzzle). I think Jenny Starling is a likable sleuths with a keen mind. Her job allows for her to be on hand at some exciting venues (kinda like how being a mystery writer helped Jessica Fletcher be on hand in some exotic places). Yes, this is a typical country-house whodunit, with all the proper mystery cliches. However it is executed in the proper way that all the good classics are. I plan to read the entire series and look forward to more of Faith Martin. ...more

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Dec 20, 2018 LJ (On The Shelf Reviews) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Jenny Starling is a famous, or should I say infamous, travelling cook. She’s invited to The Beeches, a beautiful country house, to cater the 21st birthday of twin Alicia and Justin Greer but before she arrives the body of young gardener Jimmy Speight is found dead in a pond in the grounds of the house.

It’s ruled an accident but Jenny has her doubts especially as one of the guest falls down dead and another is taken ill during the birthday party.

Warned not to meddle by the police Jenny can’t ...more

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Dec 06, 2018 Misfits farm rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jenny Sparrow arrives at a country manor to cater for a joint birthday party. She has a sense that something isn’t quite right and is told that there has been a death. On looking out of the window she sees a body being pulled from the lake. She is catering for the twins of the owners of the house. Both rather spoilt and wanting their own way. Jenny soon finds more than cooking gossip in the kitchen.When one of the guests falls down dead in the middle of the party it is rather a mystery as to who ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Renee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I was sad to say goodbye to Faith Martin's Hillary Greene in Hillary's Final Case. The Birthday Mystery introduces a new character Jenny Starling, so I didn't also have to say goodbye to an author whose writing I enjoy. Jenny is a traveling cook who has been hired to cater and an extravagant 21st birthday party for twins Alicia and Justin. When Jenny arrives, the police are swarming the property as a young man has been found dead. Was it an accident or murder and could there be a connection to ...more

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