Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Mystery of Yew Tree House by Lesley Thomson, which will be published tomorrow. My thanks to Poppy at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Head of Zeus for my advance review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Rachel at Rachel Read It.
About the Book
Eighty years of secrets. A body that reveals them all.
1940. At Yew Tree House, recently widowed Adelaide Stride is raising her two daughters alone – but it’s not just the threat of German invasion that keeps her up at night. She is surrounded by enemies posing as allies and, while war rages, she grows sure that something terrible is about to happen.
2023. Soon after Stella Darnell begins her holiday at Yew Tree House, a skeleton is found in a pillbox at the bottom of the garden. The bullet hole in the skull tells her that the person was murdered.
This triggers the unravelling of a mystery eighty years in the making. Soon, Stella will learn that Adelaide was right to worry – the fighting might have been happening abroad, but the true enemy was always much closer to home…
Format: Hardback (320 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 14th September 2023 Genre: Crime
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My Review
The Mystery of Yew Tree House is the ninth book in Lesley Thomson’s ‘The Detective’s Daughter’ series featuring cleaner turned amateur detective, Stella Darnell and her partner, tube driver Jack Harmon. Although the book could be enjoyed as a standalone there’s a lot of background information about Stella and Jack’s personal and professional history for readers new to the series to absorb, as well as some references to past cases. I’ve only read one other book in the series, The Playground Murders back in 2019, so it took me a little time to refamiliarise myself with past events and the relationships between returning characters.
At one point, a character remarks to Stella, ‘I can’t see the attraction of holidaying in a village. They are described as idyllic, but they are places of poison. Behind the facade of a pond, a green, a war memorial, lies cruelty and violence’. Too right. In fact, Bishopstone seems a peculiar place for Stella and Jack to have chosen as a holiday destination since the area holds unpleasant memories for both of them.
Stella and Jack have reached a turning point in their relationship with Stella, in particular, concerned about the prospect of them becoming a permanent family unit. Given the resilience she has shown in other situations, I thought her worries about whether she possessed suitable parenting skills were misplaced. Having said that, perhaps Stella was right to worry because Jack’s seven-year-old daughter, Milly, proves a bit of a handful, determined single-handedly to track down the murderer. Oh Milly, if only they’d paid more attention to you!
The story moves between the present day and a timeline which starts in 1940. I particularly enjoyed the past timeline and would have been happy to have had more of this. I thought it was clever to have the start of the mystery be in wartime, a time when people were displaced, families were often separated, ordinary citizens were armed and trained in how to kill, and the blackout was the perfect cover for illicit activities. I was particularly fascinated to learn about preparations put in place in the event of Britain’s occupation by the Nazis.
The Mystery of Yew Tree House is a skilfully plotted crime novel with plenty of twists and turns, false trails and surprise reveals. If you guessed all of the latter, you’re a genius.
In three words: Intriguing, clever, engaging
Try something similar: The Ghost Tree by M. R. C. Kasasian
About the Author
Lesley Thomson grew up in west London. Her novel, A Kind of Vanishing, won The People’s Book Prize in 2010. Her second novel, The Detective’s Daughter, was a #1 bestseller and the resulting series has sold over 900,000 copies.
Lesley divides her time between Sussex and Gloucestershire. She lives with her partner and her dog.
Connect with Lesley
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