Extract: The Bookshop Detectives 3: Murder and Mojitos

Art Deco glamour, a Cuban crime queen and a grammar-obsessed killer collide in the #1 best-selling Bookshop Detectives’ high-stakes final instalment.

The Bookshop Detectives are on the case! Booksellers Garth and Eloise Sherlock (and their cowardly dog, Stevie) have been roped into hosting Murder and Mojitos, a glamorous Art Deco festival event starring Cuba’s queen of crime fiction.

This extract from The Bookshop Detectives 3: Murder and Mojitos by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin, $37.99) is published here with kind permission.

Eloise

A scream rips the air, bone shattering and incongruous against the pure, clear blue of the Hawke’s Bay sky. It calls forth a thunder of reassuringly fleet footsteps, thumping through the second-floor sliding door onto the deck of our roomy but slightly shabby home. Cicadas continue the scream, a myna bird cackles and three dedicated booksellers come to a screeching halt before me.

‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’ Amelia tucks black curls back into her sequinned flapper headband, her other hand holding a sloshing cocktail glass. She looks me up and down, assessing for damage.

I clutch the pearls that rest at the neck of my fringed pink dress. ‘Oh my goodness! There’s been a murder!’ I indicate the crime scene with a dramatic waft of the pearls.

The booksellers of Sherlock Tomes, fiercely independent word pedlars of Havelock North, jostle, then arrange themselves around the figure splayed on the outdoor furniture.

‘Jesus wept,’ whispers Phyllis.

‘That is one hundred per cent horrific,’ gasps Amelia.

‘What even is it?’ asks Kitty.

I, their Fearless Leader, do a bit of dramatic deep breathing.

‘Oh dear, oh dear. I’m afraid this,’ I say, ‘is Ziggy Ziggurat, proprietor of Flappers nightclub. Or should I say was, as she is clearly no longer with us. Your mission this evening is to find her killer!’

Amelia is the first to venture closer, reaching into her décolletage. No one breathes as she pulls out an item. Yes, it’s a magnifying glass.

‘Dammit. I knew I should have upped my game on the crime scene kit,’ says Kitty, rummaging around in a sparkly clutch purse.

Amelia leans forward, as close as she can get without making contact with the unfortunate Ziggy. She examines what lies before her.

‘It would appear,’ she says, ‘that the body has been here for some time. As you can probably see, even without the aid of my trusty magnifying glass, there is not one speck of flesh left on the entire skull.’

‘Bold. A very bold one, this murderer,’ observes Phyllis, her disgust evident in her hard Dublin consonants.

‘Hmm,’ says Kitty, narrowing her eyes with an aspect of deep concentration, despite clearly having no idea.

Amelia stands up suddenly and, breaking the fourth wall, turns to Garth, who is lurking in the corner next to the outdoor furniture cushion storage box. He’s sweating slightly in his pinstriped gangster suit, the trousers of which are pinching a little. He’s even shaved his beard off to mimic the clean-cut look of the Roaring Twenties. He’s so alien after decades of hirsuteness that I can’t quite bring myself to gaze at him directly.

‘Where’s that skull from, then? Can I have it for next Halloween’s window display?’

‘I think you’ll find, Detective Deco, that it is the skull of Ziggy Ziggurat. Have some respect.’

Phyllis snorts. ‘And the generous lashings of blood on the towel next to her . . . um . . . head. Heinz or Wattie’s?’

‘This is my area of forensic expertise.’ Kitty dips her finger into the blood and licks it. ‘Wattie’s.’

This sets the lot of them off into giggles, and it’s not long before Kitty’s blue mascara is running with tears of laughter and Amelia has to have a sit-down.

‘I say! You’re sitting on Ziggy’s legs!’ cries Garth, trying to keep the investigation on track.

My face hurts from grinning at my gorgeous team; it’s so good to see them enjoying the moment, having fun and welcoming in a new year. The previous year was a living nightmare that saw us using a fundraising book quiz to smoke out a poisoner working for our old foe, serial killer Arthur Pinter. We congratulated ourselves on a job tied up nicely with a Christmas bow but it wasn’t long before our peace was shattered. My breathing stutters as I recall the dead-of-night phone call from the UK.

‘Pinter’s escaped.’ The words of my old sergeant reverberate around my head now. I drain my glass of its Corpse Reviver No. 2, the lemon juice cutting through the absinthe to bring me sharply back to the present.

Amelia pats the cushion beside her, where Ziggy’s ‘body’ is covered by what looks suspiciously like one of Stevie’s dog blankets. She lifts its edge to reveal . . . nothing but more cushion and a swirl of abandoned silver-grey fur.

‘Looks like she had no body to go to the Deco Dance with,’ says Phyllis to further hilarity, some of which might be attributable to the cocktails imbibed at the start of the Sherlock Tomes Belated Christmas Murder Mystery Party.

‘Come on, love,’ I say, shaking my empty glass. ‘I think we need to feed people before we move on to the clues.’ Garth harumphs, his careful timings blown out of the water, but Amelia pats him on the arm as he slouches past her and he catches the festive bug, offering a brave lift of his smoothly shaved chin.

Sitting under the cherry tree in our courtyard garden, twirling cocktail umbrellas and dipping tiny sausages (vegan ones for Kitty) into Ziggy’s fake blood, you’d never pick that only a matter of months ago this group of enthusiastic readers foiled a plot to murder a bestselling author.

‘Is it weird not only that our Christmas party is in January, but that it’s a murder mystery?’ asks Kitty.

‘Totally,’ says Amelia, licking sauce from her fingers.

‘Sure, it’ll be February before we know it. The Art Deco Festival is just around the corner,’ says Phyllis, squinting into the sun as she raises a glass of green-tinged bubbles to her lips.

‘I think the point Kitty is making,’ I offer, ‘is that we’re playing at investigating a murder not long after having been involved in catching an actual killer.’

There is a contemplative silence. We’ve spent several evenings together since the capture of Pinter’s stooge and the news of his escape from Belmarsh Prison — evenings of post-traumatic tears, ‘what if’ conversations, wild schemes to run away and start again elsewhere, somewhere he’ll never find us. But this bunch of exceptional people always circles back to reasons to stay as we are: this is our home, books are our life, we’re safer together where we belong.

Stevie, sporting a splendid dark green velvet bow tie, sticks out his snoot just far enough from underneath the table that he can reach Garth’s hand, which is dangling unnaturally down the side of his chair. Said snoot gently snuffles something meaty and withdraws to its place of safety. Dear Stevie: large, lean and handsome as a hound from hell. Also generally terrified and not particularly in need of extra calories. I give Garth a look.

‘What?’ He’s all fake innocence and cheek, and I really can’t begrudge Stevie a bit of sausage at a party.

‘No news, then?’ asks Kitty, and we all know what she’s talking about.

‘No news,’ I say. ‘Paula thinks he’ll stay underground for a while. Back in the day he had safe-houses, so he could be hiding out in one of those.’

‘Would he still have safe-houses after twenty years in prison, though?’ Amelia raises a fair point, one I’ve considered at length on a number of occasions, usually about 3am. I shrug.

Talk turns to the upcoming Art Deco Festival, and the options for further outings of our wonderful costumes at the commemorative event that every year increases the population, albeit temporarily, by about a million per cent.

‘We can worry about all that later,’ says Garth. ‘For now, we have clues to discover in the dreadful murder of Ms Ziggurat.’

I outline the plan for a fingertip search of the garden.

‘Ah well,’ says Phyllis. ‘Best keep our skills sharp, just in case.’

The Bookshop Detectives 3: Murder and Mojitos is available in all good bookstores now.