Published By: Baskerville
Pages: 352
Released On: 18/06/2026
In an idyllic Sussex town, murder is fermenting…
Barclay Flint is the charmingly eccentric proprietor of The Bottle Bank wine shop, nestled in a picturesque Sussex town renowned for its gloriously anarchic Bonfire Night celebration.
Barclay can taste a kaleidoscopic universe in a single glass of wine and delights in matching customers to the grapes of their dreams. But when his close friend, struggling regenerative vineyard owner Victor Crawshaw, is found dead, Barclay finds himself a prime suspect.
To crack the case and clear his name, Barclay must deploy his wine detection skills and follow his nose through the rolling Sussex hills where a tangle of old resentments and rivalries awaits to ensnare him.
With a killer on the loose and Bonfire Night fast approaching, the town crackles with anticipation. This year the fireworks might not be the only things to explode…
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Baskerville for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I have been excited about this but also apprehensive. It sounded great and I am a fan of Olly’s but “celebrity” books can be a bit of a let down.
It’s cosy crime with a capital CC. It gives you everything you want from the genre. If you’re a fan of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club or Robert Thorogood’s Marlow series then you’ll like this. It’s genteel, not very involved, easy to read, if slow.
My main…not problem, but something that kept bothering me was the amount of metaphors and similes. I have no problem with them at all, in fact they can really help the reader visualise the scene. But when it’s every other sentence, and everything is described that way, it gets a bit tedious and jarring.
It’s not a hugely long book, which is good because I think it would have felt very drawn out if it had been much longer and you’d start to lose interest.
There’s too many characters to keep on top of, especially as they all seemed to be main characters, it was hard to remember who was who and what they had to do with anyone.
Obviously this is set in the world of wine, with the vineyard owner, the wine shop etc. And so obviously there was a lot of wine talk – write what you know, eh? But the main characters of Barclay often gives really long wine tasting notes that, whilst interesting, did leave me wanting to skip over them as they became a bit monotonous.
It reminded me a little of Miss Marple. It’s quaint and a bit twee, an isolated, small community, the eccentric shopkeeper, the failing wine maker, the dastardly neighbour etc.
I’d have liked the whodunnit to come earlier. I know you have to set the scene and introduce everyone etc. but it didn’t happen till about 20% through and it did mean the start was really quite slow and it doesn’t really pick up until the second half or so.
It is very description heavy. A somewhat weak plot and so-so characters. Overall it is cosy and fun, easy and quick to read, and it doesn’t require much concentration. The pacing needs tidying up, the cast of characters needs to be smaller, and I’d have liked a more streamlined way of writing. It’s got promise and I assume it will develop into a full series, but I probably won’t bother with the follow-up.
Books By Your Bedside 