The Wild Wood Enquiry

Ivy Beasley Mystery #3

by Ann Purser

 In a brand-new mystery from the author of The Measby Murder Enquiry, the cantankerous golden years gumshoe Ivy Beasley keeps her mental faculties sharp with a strict regimen of crime detection. 

Apart from the unwelcome noise made by the morning cleaning crew, life has been quiet at Springfields Home for the Elderly. Too quiet, in fact. Ivy and her team of sleuths, Enquire Within, have resorted to finding lost cats, and Gus is even threatening to return to his memoirs. But no sooner does he attempt to put a winning phrase together than he receives a call from his ex-wife, Katherine, who is in desperate needs of a place to hide.



Though Gus has a difficult time getting a straight answer from Kath—just as it was in their many years of marriage—something is most certainly afoot, and soon Enquire Within is back in business. This time they have their hands full, not only with missing pets, but missing jewels, and evidence of foul play uncomfortably close to their too quiet home…

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, British Literature, Cozy

294 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 2012

About the author

Ann Purser lives in the East Midlands, in a small and attractive village which still has a village shop, a garage, pub and church. Here she finds her inspiration for her novels about country life. She has only to do her daily shopping down the High Street to listen to the real life of the village going on around her.

Before turning to fiction, she had a number of different careers, including journalism – she was for six years a columnist in SHE magazine – and art gallery proprietor. Running her own gallery in a 400-year-old barn behind the house, she gained fascinating insights into the characters and relationships of customers wandering around. She had no compunction about eavesdropping, and sharpened up her writer’s skills in weaving plots around strangers who spent sometimes more than an hour in her gallery.

Working in a village school added more grist to the mill, as does singing in the church choir and membership of the Women’s Guild. She reminds herself humbly that Virginia Woolf was President of her local WI…

Six years hard study won her an Open University degree, and when she faltered and threatened to fall by the wayside, writer husband Philip Purser reminded her that he was paying good money for the course. During this period, she wrote two non-fiction books, one for parents of handicapped children (she has a daughter with cerebral palsy) and the other a lighthearted book for schools, on the explosion of popular entertainment in the first forty years of the twentieth century.

Ten years of running the gallery proved to be enough, and while it was very successful she decided to sell. The business moved down the street to another barn and owner, and Pursers stayed on in their house next to the village school – another rich source of material for the stories. Time to start writing novels.

Round Ringford became Ann’s village in a series of six novels, each with a separate story, but featuring the same cast of characters with a few newcomers each time. The list of books gives details of each story, and each features an issue common to all villages in our rural countryside. “Just like our village!” is a frequent comment from Ann’s readers.

Next: the Lois Meade Mysteries, each title reflecting a day of the week. Ann has always loved detective fiction, and determined to make it her next series. So Murder on Monday was born, followed by Terror on Tuesday, and Weeping on Wednesday. The rest of the week follows!

Mornings are set aside for writing, and the rest of the day Ann spends walking the dog, retrieving bantams’ eggs from around the garden, gossiping and taking part in the life of the village. She is never bored!

Reviews

[Susan]

Miriam and Rose find a severed hand in the woods, but by the time the police get there, it's gone. The police believe that it's a prank, or that the two women are hysterical. Meanwhile, Miriam's neighbor Gus is having problems with his conniving ex-wife. There's another man who seems involved with her. Miriam hires Gus and his three friends, Ivy Beasley, her cousin Deirdre, and her fiance Roy to investigate the hand in the woods. The plot isn't too clear-cut, but the characters are enjoyable.

[Ina]

I enjoyed reading the previous books in the Ivy Beasly series, but this book was rather disappointing. Not really a plot, very predictable and most of all; annoying characters! I liked Ivy and Roy, but Deirdre and Gus have become rather annoying characters. Even Rose Budd has become a delicate and weak character in this book. And can we please get rid of Gus' ridiculous neighbour Miriam Blake? Anyway. Not a great read in the series.

[Cathy]

I have a few weeks here with nothing to read, so I decided to finish this series. It is not getting any better.

[Diane]

3 1/2 Stars

[Georgia]

The lack of compelling characters or plot makes this a disappointing addition to the series. It just is not in the least plausible. Some of Ann Purser's earlier stories were written with deeply crafted characters with engaging plots and insights to village life. This does not meet that standard, sadly. It does serve in a small way to advance the Ivy/Roy romance saga towards marriage. There are glaring inconsistencies, though. Through out the Ivy books, back to her origins in the Round Ringford series, her middle name, often referred to in conversations with her dead mother, was "Dorothy". So far in the "Enquiry" books there have been references to her as "Ivy Olive" in one book and then "Ivy Elizabeth" in the fourth book. There seems to be a serious editing issue for her books. If you read only one of an author's list, it would be no big deal. While this is hardly an issue that will end hunger nor bring world peace, it is distracting to those who invest the time and effort to follow a story from beginning to end. My hope is that this lapse will be corrected and Mrs. Purser will continue to strive to bring us compelling tales from both Lois Meade/Long Farnden and Ivy Beasley/ "Enquire Within" for a long, long time.

[Jeannie and Louis Rigod]

I like this gentle cozy mystery series. It is written with humor, a good sensible mystery or more, and a touch of romance for sizzle. The fact that the characters are of a 'certain age,' makes it unique.

There is a lack of cases at the Springfields Luxury Retirement Home for the home business of "Enquire Within." To keep things going along, the four partners, Ivy, Roy, Gus, and Deirdre reluctantly accept a case of a missing kitten for the local store keeper.

Quickly though, another more challenging case appears. Gus receives a telephone call from his hated ex-wife and even though it is hazy what is wrong, Gus knows that something bad is amiss. The case quickly becomes a possible missing persons, a possible murder, a possible jewelry theft, and a possible suicide. The village is shocked and jolted by the goings on.

Our intrepid sleuths gather their trundle, walking shoes and off they go to solve these crimes.

I was very pleased with the outcome, sorry for the victims, and tickled by the romance and soon to be wedding of Ivy and Roy.

[Yeva]

The plot that never thickened should have been the title of this book. It went nowhere...slowly. I usually like everything by Ms. Purser, but this book was about nothing. There was a murder, but it was so lame. Was it a murder? Was it something else? By then, I couldn't have cared less. And then there was the whole severed hand thing. Really? The unsevered hand...right, I just spoiled it. But I didn't, because the story does that all on its on. Finally, I got to the end of this story, and it petered out and died. I was so disappointed. This was not a good read, though it does advance the storyline, so if I read the next in this series (and I'm not too sure about that) I should at least be on the timeline. This book wasn't really horrible; it was blah.

[Lynn Lerch]

Enquire Within a detective agency run by two people who live in a elderly care home and their two friends who live in the village have been looking for lost cats. Gus (lives in the village)is threatening to return to writing his memoirs. Gus' ex-wife appears and wants him to hide her. Then she disappears. A neighbor of Gus' searches in the woods and believes she saw a hand but the police don't find it when they go into the woods.By the end everything is solved and the friends are the heroes. Ann Purser has another winner.

[Elizabeth]

I thought this book was a well-written, well plotted cozy mystery set in an English village. I liked the fact that all the investigators were senior citizens. I enjoyed the animals Tiddles and Whippy and didn't really figure out all the answers to the mystery until the end of the book. I read this for my mystery book club, and a couple other members did not share my esteem for the book. They found the setting unrealistic and the tone of the book somewhat off-putting.

[Wilde Sky]

A team of amateur detectives working out of old people’s home investigate the appearance of a “severed hand”.

Not a bad story with reasonable characters, but the pace was too slow for me.

If you like quaint mysteries you may enjoy this book.

[Carol Heiss]

This is the first book in the Ivy Beasley series that I've read. I enjoy the author's Lois Meade mystery series very much. This book was OK but not up to the author's usual standards.

[Arlene]

I enjoyed the first of the Enquire Within mysteries but this one was slow going and by the end, I just wanted it to be over. Maybe Ivy and Roy's wedding will perk up the next book in this series.

[Katie]

great book

[Eileen]

I just finished this book. loved it.

[Diane]

The mystery seemed to get lost in the story line, but still a nice book to read

[Kathie]

Love this series and the characters. Great fun.

[Lois Hecksel]

A delightful cozy mystery with a detective agency run from a luxury retirement center. A clever plot, humor, and a touch of romance make this a fun read.

[Vicky]

More loose ends.

[Beth Yeary]

This enquiry was a bit more dangerous. Mainly because part of the past has come back to haunt Gus. The rest of the group is learning more and more about his past.