The BRAND NEW instalment in the bestselling, beloved Armstrong & Oscar Cozy Mystery series!
A road leading to Rome
Former DCI Dan Armstrong has been living and working in Florence for nearly three years—yet somehow, Rome has always eluded him. That is, until glamorous TV celebrity Tamsin Goodfaith turns up with a request he can’t refuse: investigate her uncle’s suspicious death in the Eternal City.
Murder at the castle
Philip Hastings was a billionaire financier, found dead at his magnificent—if slightly spooky—medieval castle in the Roman hills. Dan and his faithful canine companion, Oscar, soon find themselves surrounded by luxury, secrets and more suspects than sightseeing opportunities.
This time it’s personal
But when a second murder follows close behind, the case turns dangerously personal. With whispers of ghosts and crumbling alibis, Dan and Oscar must sniff out the truth before he becomes the next
victim. Harder to crack than castle walls—and harder still than stopping Oscar from stealing snacks—this Roman holiday is anything but relaxing.
I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I studied languages at Nottingham University a long time ago and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to work in Italy for seven years. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little
village in Devonshire.
I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only thirteen years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.
I started off writing romances but after 28 of them, I knew I wanted to try something different, and so the first of the Armstrong and Oscar cozy mysteries, Murder in Tuscany, was born three years ago.
I’ve been having a lot of fun ever since getting to know the dynamic duo (and introducing them to people all over the world). These books are cosy crime [a genre I didn’t even know existed when I
started writing them). They are murder mysteries, but not gory, over-violent stuff, but stories designed to exercise the brain of the reader and to put a smile on their face.
Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to
provide something to cheer my readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations all over my beloved Italy.
My thoughts: As you might know by now, I love this series, especially the excellent K9 Detective Oscar, who always finds something vital to the case.
In this installment Dan and Oscar are off to Rome, the Eternal City and somewhere I’d love to visit (I’ve only been to the airport on my way to Venice).
British celeb Tamsin Goodfaith has asked Dan for his help. Her uncle has recently died and she doesn’t agree that it was a tragic accident – she thinks he was murdered. Posing as her friend, and there on a writing break, he gently probes the various family members and staff at the family’s medieval castle outside Rome.
But then two more members of the family die, and the killer must be somewhere in the castle – there’s only the family and three employees, as well as Dan and Oscar. Is there a ghost? Old buildings do attract them and Oscar really hates the suit of armour.
It’s another clever case for Dan and the local police detective inspector, one that has deep roots and will change the family forever. I really enjoyed trying to unravel the clues and solve it before Dan (I failed).
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 