It’s a perfect summer’s day in Southbourne. And Partial Sue’s in one of her rare generous moods. She wants to treat all the ladies of the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop to supper.

But before the ladies can shut up shop and head to the chippie, the air is filled with the strains of ‘Greensleeves’. And a clapped-out old ice-cream van lurches into view. 

The gang can barely believe their eyes. Especially when they see who’s behind the wheel. Daisy’s daughter Bella.

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Newly divorced Bella’s only just rid herself of her rotten husband. Now she’s landed herself in an even stickier situation.

This banger may be stocked with sweet treats, but its freezer once held something much more sinister — the dead body of its former owner!

Everyone in the village knows the van’s sinister history. Except poor Bella. The culprit slipped away without a trace. But the village folk all say it’s just a matter of time until the Vanilla Killer strikes again!

When Bella starts receiving poison pen letters, the ladies can’t help but worry. What if their beloved Bella’s next?

There’s only one thing for it, the ladies agree over a steaming pot of tea. They need to put the Vanilla Killer on ice . . . before anyone else dies.

Fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood, Janice Hallett, Simon Brett, Ian Moore and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett will adore this exciting new talent in cozy crime.

My Review

Three pensioners and a dog named Simon Le Bon investigate a cold case, excuse the pun, (no not a historic murder, but a body in the freezer of an ice cream van) in this cosy mystery. In reality the dog doesn’t do much investigating, but he can spot a sweet treat at a hundred paces. Always useful at a dessert-based crime scene.

I’m used to reading gritty crime thrillers, but every now and again I like to delve into lighter genres and this was hilarious. The humour is often quite subtle and I did wonder if everyone would get all the jokes and references. I got vibes of the sitcom Jam and Jerusalem, set in Clatterford, a fictional village in England, and the silliness of it all. But our three brave women investigators are much cleverer.

The Vanilla Killer is set in Southbourne, on the south coast near Bournemouth. It appears to exist. The main characters are Fiona, Partial Sue, and Daisy, plus Daisy’s daughter Bella, who has inadvertently become the new owner of the ‘haunted’ ice cream van. They run the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop. There are lots of other characters, like snobby Sophie from the Cats Alliance over the road, and the Wicker Man who pops in from time to time. I haven’t read the first three books so I don’t know the origin of the nicknames.

There is a lot of tea drinking going on all the time, but as we know, it’s the (very British) solution to everything, though there are times when only a gin and tonic will do. Just my opinion!

The book is a great romp of a cosy mystery and I feel I really should read the other three books next time I am in Bournemouth – we went there a lot pre-pandemic – in fact I swam the Bournemouth to Boscombe Pier-to-Pier in 2017.

Incidentally, for those of us who remember, I did love an orange Mivvi, never a strawberry fan.

Many thanks to @ZooloosBT  for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn’t very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn’t make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.

After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he switched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas?). He soon realised there’s no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America’s Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.

Book Links
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/221521337-the-vanilla-killer
Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/vanillakiller-zbt

Peter’s Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeterBolandWriter
Twitter: https://x.com/PeterBoland19
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/peterboland.bsky.social

Joffe Books’ Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joffebooks
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Website: https://joffebooks.com/