Published By: HQ
Pages: 320
Released On: 15/01/2026
A killer is on the loose. The bodies are piling up. And Judith is hiding a deadly secret …
Someone from Judith’s past has turned up in Marlow and is stirring up trouble. With all the murders that the Marlow Murder Club have had to solve and her work setting crosswords, Judith’s been too busy to give her old life much thought. But now it’s knocking on her door and won’t go away.
On top of that, Marlow’s celebrities are getting murdered! When a footballer and a thriller writer are found dead, Judith, Suzie, and Becks must untangle a web of scandal to find the killer. But with Judith keeping secrets, the Marlow Murder Club find themselves drifting apart.
The pressure is on in more ways than one …
Can they find the killer and help Judith in time, or could this be the end of the Marlow Murder Club?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This is book five of the Marlow Murder Club series, with the previous being:
1. The Marlow Murder Club
2. Death Comes to Marlow
3. The Queen of Poisons
4. Murder on the Marlow Belle
Let me tell you, new Judith Potts day is always a good day.
I always worry when I come back to a series that is several books in, and particularly if it’s been a while since I read the last one, that I will forget where I am and it’ll take me some time to get back into it, but within the first page I was back in Judith’s world like I’d never left.
I also worry that with these kinds of series, where the books are, if we’re honest, very similar, that they have a shelf life and might get boring and repetitive. But this is book five and it hasn’t reached that point yet so I am here for many, many more.
I won’t spoil it by saying who she is but we get introduced to a new character, Eleni. I wouldn’t necessarily say she’s a nice character but I felt she was well written, and whether we were meant to be on her side or not, I was interested to read her story. And it was lovely to see a new character introduced into this world of such familiar faces.
Whilst Judith is still our main character – obviously, I mean her name is in the title – we get a lot more of Suzie and Becks, which is good, I like them. And I wonder if Robert is potentially looking to pass the bacon to them if and when Judith perhaps feels too old to continue? That’s no spoiler as there’s no suggestion he’s planning to retire Judith but it was just a thought I had.
Cosy crime novels tend to be a bit far fetched and this one is probably the most far fetched one of the series but I didn’t care. I expected it, to be honest, and I loved it; it’s exciting and fun and tense and brilliant. It did feel quite a bit darker than the previous books as well which was a nice avenue to explore.
There are quite a lot of characters in this one that some may have issues with keeping on top of but I found they were all used very well in their own stories and in Judith’s story.
I enjoyed the subplot going on concerning Judith and Eleni, and whilst I won’t spoil it by telling you what it is, it gives us an extra dimension to Judith and her past that was interesting to read about.
I’ve always loved the little clues and puzzles Judith leaves, I think they’re wonderful, even if I have failed to work out a single one in five books.
And the main point I make across all five books is I love that we have a predominately female cast, with three very strong female protagonists, all of which aren’t spring chickens anymore, which is refreshing to see.
I am notoriously terrible at working out whodunnits but even I was shocked by the travel here, I did not see it coming at all.
Once again, Robert has given us an entertaining, funny, exhilarating, complex, fabulous novel and I really do hope there are more Marlow books on the horizon as I’m not sure I’m quite ready to leave Judith, Suzie, and Becks.
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