PUBLISHER DESCRIPTION
In London’s fashionable Chelsea, a Halloween bash goes terribly wrong. Emmeline Wardle, daughter of a frozen foods baron, throws a party which results in the demise of two university schoolmates. Handsome golden boy Trevor Parsons is dead. So is pasty computer nerd Clive French. Both died on the Wardle estate within minutes of one another, and both died the same way – an axe to the skull. Given the social connections of all involved, New Scotland Yard sends a real baron to investigate: Chief Superintendent Anthony Hetheridge, also known as Lord Hetheridge, ninth baron of Wellegrave.

This time around, Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield and her partner, Detective Sergeant Deepal “Paul” Bhar, have their work cut out. Bhar must contend with Emmeline Wardle, a spoiled blonde with a penchant for the finer things, including a certain illegal white powder. Kate must decide if Kyla Sloane, model-pretty and delicate, is being truthful about the events of that fateful night. And if Kyla’s connection to a former lover of Bhar’s means nothing – or everything.

Blue Murder is the second book in author Emma Jameson's Lord and Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series. It was interesting to learn that to "scream blue murder" is a British slang term for complaining in an angry way. All of the books in the series have the word "blue" in the title and there are seven book in the series to date.

In Blue Murder two men were found dead at a Halloween party hosted by Emmeline Wardle, the teen daughter of a frozen food baron. Handsome Trevor Parsons was found with an axe in his head and computer nerd Clive French was also found dead in the garden of the home. Clive also had an axe in his head. Clive was not invited to the party but showed up anyway. Since all of the party goers, thirty nine, were children of the wealthy New Scotland Yard asked Chief Superintendent Anthony Hetheridge, ninth baron of Wellegrave, to investigate. His girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield was also involved in the investigation as was her partner, Detective Sergeant Deepal "Paul" Bhar.

I really enjoyed this novel. In fact, it was even better than Ice Blue. The dialogue between the police officers showed the closeness of their relationships with each other. The three of them work well together. I am not usually a fan of a police procedural but this cozy mystery hit the spot. The British flavor of the setting helped, even though many of the colloquiallisms were very American. They still came off as British. ( )

British-detective, British-humor, London, class-consciousness, mental-illness, mental-health-issues, family-dynamics, friction, friendship, procedural, romance, laugh-riot, law-enforcement*****

This is a great twofer! The intricate procedural concerning the bizarre murders of two college students at a drugs/alcohol party in a posh neighborhood (including some dodgy history of DS Bhar) is very well done. The romancing of thirty something DS Kate (and her semi functional family) by just-turned-sixty Chief Superintendent (Baron) Hetheridge is another good one. And it's all tied together by a great sense of humour that had me guffawing at many intervals!
I really appreciate the talents of voice actor Matthew Lloyd Davies to help me with easy differentiation of characters in the audio, and he always underplays the scenes! ( )

In Chelsea, London a Halloween party goes badly wrong when two young men are found dead. The deaths are investigated by Chief Superintendent Anthony Hetheridge, Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield, and Detective Sergeant Deepal Bhar.
Didn't really like any of the characters. ( )

i am HERE for this marriage

EDIT:

i realized recently that i don't really "review" books that i super enjoy. mostly because i'm better at formulating my thoughts when i don't like something, but when i do like something i take a -1000000 to speech and it comes out as just lksdhfljksdhfjlhsdjlfhgsdf, y'know? but i'm going to try to do a review on this one because it was fabulous and i'm really starting to love this series.

first of all: i am heavily biased. i'm literally at this very moment trying to write a may/december romance that grew out of my love for inspector linley and, more specifically, nathanial parker. so i kinda knew i was going to like this one on the way in. what i didn't expect was how much i was going to like it.

i started this series literally yesterday and i've already read the first two books and bough the rest of the series. the first book sets up kate and tony and, honestly, i'm loving that we didn't really get any romance until the second one. one of the BIG tropes in may/december romances is love at first sight. there's none of that here. this is a very organic romance. the hero and heroine talk about their issues and try to solve their relationship problems like grownups with communication. huh. fancy that.

another thing i really like about this one is how kate is 31ish. so SO many may/decembers have a really uncomfortable age gap (for me, at least) where the girl is barely an adult and the man is straight up in his forties. but there's none of that here. kate is a fully functioning adult who knows what she wants out of life and has had enough experience, both with life in general and with other men, to set up boundaries and know what she needs out of a relationship.

furthermore, super nice to see tony (the "december" half of the relationship) being comfortable with his age. in the first book he might have been slightly nervous about his sixty years, but in the second one he's completely comfortable with kate and their relationship to the point where he proposes to her!! and good on kate for refusing him the first time. she took her time to think about it and they talked about it and there were only minor hurt feelings involved because they're ADULTS and they COMMUNICATE.

can you tell that i get really salty when characters don't talk to each other and then argue about things because they won't express their feelings or state their opinions and it leads to miscommunication and me yeeting my phone/the book/my kindle across the room? good. if you're writing something, please make sure your characters talk to each other.

for a second there i neglected to mention that this is also a mystery series and that a good 75-80% of this book was dedicated to the solving of a crime and my unreasonable love of ds paul bhar. hi, this is the paul bhar appreciation society, how may i direct your call? oh, you wanna talk about his character development beyond wisecracking sidekick and how much you love his mother? bitch, tf, me too!!

we got a deeper look a paul, his romance author mother, sharada, and his family dynamic in this one. there's even a smidge of tragic backstory to spice things up if that's what you're into.

the mystery aspect of this book was good. i read a comment that said the plot was a bit iffy because of how late in the book the murderer was revealed, but i don't necessarily agree with that. i think this one was less about the mystery itself than how the mystery affected tony and the team. it was more of a plot device than the entire plot itself and i'm okay with that. paul got a lot more screen time in this one, we got romance advancement with tony and kate, and even a peek into why henry is living with kate and his relationship with his mother.

anyways, i'm really starting to genuinely love this series beyond the keysmash level. there are so few good may/december romances (and i've been looking, believe me), so this is like finding a diamond in the middle of a pile of uh..... not diamonds. so, onto the next. ( )