The Village Detectives and the Deadly Brew – Juno, Phoebe, Felix and Mil Are Back!

You may or may not remember that back in September I reviewed the third book in the Village Detectives series, The Little Black Book Killer, from Fiona Walker.

If you didn’t catch it, don’t worry, I’ll give a quick recap on the set-up for these mysteries just so you have the full picture should you decide that you like the sound of this one!

Here goes…

The Village Detectives are a group of friends: Juno Mulligan, a single Mum with an older son; Phoebe, a writer and Juno’s best friend; Felix, Phoebe’s husband; and Mil, the owner of the local pub.

They all live in Inkbury, a picture-perfect English village where a surprisingly high number of strange murders take place.

In book one, the foursome managed to solve the murder of a local art dealer before figuring out who was sending Phoebe poison pen letters in book two.

By book three, June believes she has what it takes to become a bona fide private investigator after solving the murder of a dating app investor, which brings us nicely on to book four – The Village Detectives and the Deadly Brew.

Meet Vin Wyche and His Chaotic Family

Vin Wyche is a local footballing hero whose retirement has been spent transforming a local brewery into a profitable and highly successful business. That hasn’t always been easy given Vin’s reputation as a bit of a bad boy.

However, things have not been going well recently, so he has handed the reins of the company over to his daughter Ashleigh, herself a Lioness (plays football for England), and with her partner they are trying to keep their heads above water.

The problem is that their family won’t stop interfering and, worse still, somebody is trying to sabotage the business. So Ashleigh decides to hire Juno to figure out who keeps messing with the brewery.

So let’s take a look at the suspects. First up is Vin himself, though he’s hardly around and unlikely to mess with the business he loves. Next we have Ashleigh, again with little or no motive given that she’s the one who hired Juno.

That leaves us with Paige, Vin’s new and younger wife; Chris, Vin’s son who is angry he was passed over to run the brewery; Brian, his brother who runs the finances; his ex-wife who is a 90s girlband legend as well as two sets of parents – Vin’s and his ex’s.

Let me tell you, that is a lot of people, especially when all but his ex-wife also happened to live on the property. In fact, there are almost too many people because remember, we also have the four detectives, brewery employees, and a couple of villagers thrown in for good measure!

The Plot Thickens

With Juno and Phoebe on the case of sabotage, things take a turn for the worse when a body is discovered trapped in a conveyor belt at the bottling plant.

The local detective, lacking much-needed manpower, decides to let them continue their investigation as long as they share any of their findings with him.

And so off they go, digging into the family and the business, trying to rule out their suspects one by one.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Here’s the thing about The Village Detectives and the Deadly Brew, there’s a lot of talk but not actually a lot of action.

I’ll give you an example. For at least the first 30% of the book, Juno is constantly fretting over ‘The night of a thousand blushes’. It consumes her. Something embarrassing happened, and now she has all but retreated from village life.

She doesn’t want to investigate, and she doesn’t want to talk to Mil, so at least a third of the book is spent trying to just convince her to take the case.

So what is ‘The night of a thousand blushes’ I hear you ask? What is this monumental obstacle that has stalled Juno’s life? It must be something really major, right? Wrong. It isn’t. Not even remotely. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with case.

By the time she gets past it and we move on to the investigation, there are soooo many other things happening in each of their lives that I could hardly keep track of the who’s who of it all.

Off the top of my head, there are over 20 characters in this book, and almost all of them are lying about something, so trying to work all of that as well became nearly impossible.

Now, I know that doesn’t exactly scream ‘great book’ and sure, it has its fair share of things that irked me, but overall it was still a good mystery that had plenty of layers, red herrings and misdirections that kept me guessing.

It is a good series, and the more we get to know the main characters, the more likable and relatable they become. So, do I recommend The Village Detectives and the Deadly Brew? Yes, I do. It’s well-written, well thought out, and everything is tied up with a nice, neat bow at the end.

A fifth book in the series is in the pipeline, The Village Detectives and The Crime of Passion, and is due out in May 2027, so you have plenty of time to catch up on the first four before publication day.