Book Review: Murder at the Mill | M. B. Shaw

Festive, cozy, and with a vintage-feel—I am in love with Murder at the Mill, the start to M.B. Shaw’s new series featuring the fantastic Iris Grey! In a mystery that is more driven by sleuthing and uncovering the truth than it is danger or gruesomeness, Iris will charm you with her perceptiveness and dogged determination to uncover what happened and who is responsible. A murder on Christmas Day will spark a journey with many reveals along the way. In the best version of a cozy, we learn that even in a small, charmed town, everyone has secrets.

About the Book

A picture hides a thousand lies . . . And only Iris Grey can uncover the truth

Artist and painter Iris Grey arrives at Mill Cottage in a picture-perfect Hampshire village, looking to escape from her crumbling marriage to playwright Ian. On the grounds of Mill House, Mill Cottage has it all—a quaint charm, beautiful scenery, and a view of the goings-on of Mill House’s famous family, the Wetherbys. When Iris is commissioned to paint a portrait of Dominic Wetherby, a celebrated crime writer, she knows that the portraiture process will give her even more of a glimpse behind the family’s perfect façade.

At the Wetherby’s Christmas Eve party, the mulled wine is in full flow–but so too are tensions and rivalries among the guests. Something is not quite right about the Wetherby family, but Iris can’t put her finger on it. When Christmas Day rolls around, the youngest member of the Wetherby family, Lorcan, finds a body in the water. A tragic accident? Or a deadly crime?

With the snow falling, Iris enters a world of village gossip, romantic intrigue, buried secrets and murder.

Reflection

It is hard to know where to place this book in the pantheon of mystery/thrillers. It has elements of a cozy mystery—a charming small town,an amateur detective with a quirky hobby, and a dead body arriving on the scene in a most unexpected way. But there is a depth and intellect to Murder at the Mill that place it above and outside what many of us think of as the traditional cozy mystery. It has a vintage Agatha Christie feel to it, and the reveal is clever, shocking, and completely delightful for the mind.

The way Shaw weaves together the pieces of this story is masterful. Not a single clue or strange occurrence is without purpose. There are no overly gratuitous red herrings that are solely there to cause confusion. Every single moment is important, and the mystery itself is intellectually gratifying—a puzzle that I wanted to solve right along with Iris!

The characters are expertly created. Aside from Iris—who is as beautiful as she is quirky and intelligent, and a character who’s style of dress is described as “deranged jackdaw”—we have the Wetherby family who is a delightful mystery of their own. The mother Ariadne is angelic and talented and caring, but there is something hard to pinpoint about her. Dom is charismatic and magnetic, but does his attractive personality mask a darker side? And the boys, Lorcan, Billy, and Marcus, each have a distinct role to play with a unique personality. I can see why everyone is so obsessed with the Wetherbys!

And let’s not forget some of the other characters… Jenna,the wife to Marcus, who simultaneously is an insider and an outsider in her own family. And then there is Rachel, the attractive, enigmatic producer who is drunk and upset at the Christmas Party. Ian, the angry ex-husband who is jealous of his wife’s success and desperate for her to stay with him. Graham, Dom’s late best friend’s younger brother, who is a successful attorney and quite taken with Iris Grey. All of the characters are magnificent! I could goon and on!

I don’t want to spoil the mystery, but I’ll say that the journey to the whodunit is fantastic, that by the time you get there you will be shocked by the reveal! At one point or another I suspected nearly everyone.And then even after the reveal, there is a completely delightful follow up sequence—a second mystery, if you will. I am just beyond thrilled with this wonderful book, and it is one you should definitely read this holiday season!

I want to thank the team at Minotaur for my copy of this book.