Sewer Mayhem

Jacob Hicks Murder Mysteries #2

by Annie Appleton

When an unobtrusive shop owner gets murdered, Jacob Hicks and Emily are drawn into solving the mystery. The situation grows worse when a horrible sewer smell starts spreading itself along Woolaston Road and into the shops. All this sends the chairman of the shop owners association into a panic, as he desperately wants things to get back to normal before the judges of a prestigious competition arrive.

Meanwhile Paddy the Rat and his pal Vinnie hope for a quiet holiday in the sewers under Woolaston Road, where they visit Vinnie’s cousins Gus and Leo. Their peace is soon disturbed when a mysterious backpack full of treasure appears in the sewers, sending Gus into a frenzy. Of course the nefarious Rat Mafia soon has its eyes set on the treasure as well.

As Jacob’s pal Dave tries to find the source of the sewer smell, Jacob and Emily delve deeper into the mystery of the murder, while fending off a nosey newcomer and dealing with a baffling string of seemingly unimportant burglaries.

Will Woolaston Road ever recover from all this?

292 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 30, 2019

About the author

I’m Annie Appleton, author of cosy mysteries with a twist.
My books blend my love for mysteries, animals and the slightly surreal in a humorous style. I realise there are talking rats in my books, but I firmly believe in my readers’ ability to suspend their disbelieve.

I love cats, baking and reading mysteries. I’ve also done my fair share of knitting. Besides that I have spent nine months of my life working on containerships and many a night looking at the sky in search for the International Space Station.

In 2004, I was lucky enough to move to the English City of York, where I ended up in a close-knit, but vibrant community. I soon fit in, thanks to a part-time job at the local deli and an allotment society vegetable plot.

I’m now back in my native Netherlands, where I live with my three little rats, a garden that’s occasionally full of weeds and a pond filled with frogs and newts.

Having written two non-fiction books about York, I’m is now using my time in York as inspiration for my cosy mystery books.

The first series centres around Jacob Hicks, local physics teacher and generally regarded as the ‘village idiot’, and Paddy the Rat, observer of all things human.

Reviews

[Lexie Conyngham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another adventure for both humans and rats set in York (and under York). I love the rats: they are excellent comic characters but with their own troubles and traumas, too. The humans are mostly fully paid-up members of the awkward squad, with some strange and dark quirks – Jacob, for example, lurks about people’s gardens, convinced they don’t mind him being there, observing the wildlife, while at the weekends he tries to devise a computer programme that will reveal how his best friend’s little brother vanished when they were children. Emily, despite her best efforts, is a force for good with rats in her pockets and blue hair. It’s not surprising that the rats find the humans bewildering, even as they thwart a burglar and help to solve two murders.