Death at the Village Chess Club – A Checkmate for Cozy Mystery Fans

Last Updated on April 22, 2026

Debbie Young is a beloved British author known for her witty and charming cozy mysteries set in the picturesque Cotswolds.

Her keen observations of English village life and gentle humor have earned her a dedicated following among readers who enjoy traditional cozy mysteries.

After achieving success with her Sophie Sayers Village Mysteries series, which follows the adventures of a young woman solving crimes in the quaint village of Wendlebury Barrow, and her Gemma Lamb Cozy Mysteries set in the eccentric St Bride’s boarding school, Young is now delighting readers with her newest venture: The Cotswold Curiosity Shop Mysteries.

The series debuts with Death at the Old Curiosity Shop, introducing Alice Carroll, who buys a charming bric-a-brac shop in the village of Little Pride.

What starts as a fresh beginning turns mysterious when a body is discovered in a neighbor’s compost heap, proving that even the most idyllic Cotswold village harbors dark secrets.

The second installment, Death at the Village Chess Club, is the novel I’ve just finished, and given that I hadn’t already read the first book, I went into the series a little blind.

I was genuinely curious as to whether or not I could just jump into an established series and enjoy it as a standalone.

After all, not everyone gets the chance to start a cozy mystery series from book one. Maybe you stumble across a title in a bookshop, get one as a gift, or borrow whatever’s available at the library.

Life’s too short to stress about reading in perfect order! A good cozy should let you jump in at any point and still enjoy the mystery, the characters, and the charm of the setting.

Thankfully, that’s exactly what happened with Death at the Village Chess Club!

Meet Alice Carroll

Without having to re-hash everything from book one, Debbie Young seamlessly gives Alice’s backstory so you know exactly where you are with your leading character from page one.

Alice was dating Steve for 25 years. They never married, didn’t have children, and then he upped and left to go find himself on a motorbike ride to India.

They sold their home and split the proceeds, and she bought a small house attached to a curiosity shop in the village of Little Pride in the Cotswold.

By Death in the Village Chess Club she has moved on with her life, is making a go of her business and all is right with the world.

Then Steven calls from France (he hasn’t quite made it to India), and fresh out of cash, he asks Alice to dig out some of his old collections in storage and sell them for him.

She’s lovely, so she agrees to help him out, dusts off his various chess sets, and decides that the best way to drum up interest would be to host a chess club event in the school hall.

So far, so good. The event is going great until one visitor decides to steal a few of the pieces from one set.

Annoying as that may be, it’s not the end of the world until said visitor is found dead in the school car park.

Nobody knows who he is or why on earth he would want to rob some plastic figurines. That said, Alice wants to get the complete set back to sell it, so off she goes with her amateur sleuthing hat on to unravel the mystery.

It soon transpires that this replica chess set is causing a lot of problems for Alice…even putting her life in danger…

Familiar Characters

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I always measure the success of a book by how fast I read it. If I cannot get enough and don’t want to put it down then it’s a winner.

This was a Sunday morning well spent, and the great thing about this book is that instantly I felt like I knew Alice.

She’s every woman – 50ish, single again for the first in a long time, and is trying to make a go of her new start.

She’s thoroughly likable, kind, and funny. So too, are her lodger, Danny, her visiting mother, and her dishy neighbor Robert.

The banter and chat flow, the story moves along quickly, and for some reason, all I could picture was Pearl from Whitstable Pearl – you know, the TV series??

Same sort of age, family set up, a will-they-won’t-they, a quirky murder to solve, but all served up with a healthy dose of humor and comfort.

I should point out that the two are not related in any way, I just found them similar in terms of set up. But if you like one, then you’ll definitely like the other!

Overall, it’s a big tick for the characters, and with a third book in the series, I will definitely be putting it on my ‘to read’ list.

Next in the Series

Speaking of the third book, author Debbie Young is already penning the next in the series.

We don’t have any details yet, but as Death at the Village Chess Club is being released in March 2025, we could be looking at early 2026.

Otherwise, she has two other cozy mystery series of books that you can start today.

Murder at the Vicarage is the first of the Sophie Sayers mysteries, and Dastardly Deeds at St Bride’s is the first of the Gemma Lamb series.