The Dinner Lady Detectives

Dinner Lady Detectives #1

by Hannah Hendy

When Margery and Clementine's kitchen manager is found dead, the police want to write it off as an accident, but the women know that there's much more to this story.Will they be able to track down the perpetrator before time runs out?

Margery and Clementine are enjoying a peaceful life together in the small, idyllic town of Dewstow, and eagerly awaiting retirement (and the next episode of Antiques Roadshow ). But their calm life is shattered when their kitchen manager is found dead. The police are adamant that it’s an open-and-shut case of accidental death. But Margery and Clementine are convinced there’s something far more nefarious going on, and they take it upon themselves to investigate. As they inch closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will stop at nothing to keep the pair quiet.

A delightful, quintessentially British cozy mystery perfect for fans of S. J. Bennett and Robert Thorogood.

Genres: Mystery, Audiobook, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Cozy, LGBT

304 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 2021

Reviews

[Holly B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the synopsis of this one. I do enjoy cozy mysteries and the setting in Dewstow, South Wales UK was intriguing. The dinner ladies, Clementine and Margery work together in the cafeteria of a school, serving the students in the lunch line (why do they say dinner)? A British thing maybe?

A slow paced beginning sets up the murder of their kitchen manager, when she is found dead in the walk-in freezer. Let's just say the police department needs to send their detectives back to police training because they immediately decided this was an accident. The ladies aren't the sharpest crayons either!

The writing and tone is simple and light, much like many cozy murder mysteries. It gets more interesting in the second half, but is pretty long-winded over many mundane things (snooze). I learned the ladies are actually a committed couple although they are pretty grumpy and seem to argue quite a lot. Lots of clues seem to appear (no bread crumbs here) and just be "thrown" at them until the big reveal (womp,womp).

Those looking for a light, corny mystery featuring a cranky couple who don't seem capable of solving a crime may enjoy following them along in their escapades.

Thanks to NG and the publisher for my early review copy. OUT November 18, 2021

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 2 out of 5]

EXCERPT: Seren leaned forward, conspiratorially. 'There's been a death!'

Margery dropped her teacup in shock. 'Good God!'

'Margery, please don't swear!' Clementine said, turning her head to Seren who was nodding her head vigorously as though she was a person of great importance. As though no one had ever caught her eating profiteroles in the school kitchens walk-in freezer. 'What do you mean, Seren? Who's died?'

'It was a terrible accident! Well, that's what they're saying down at the leisure centre,' Seren said, still nodding. 'I wouldn't have believed it myself, but accidents do happen. You know, just last week I broke my back tooth eating a Cadbury mini-egg.' Margery and Clementine exchanged a look. 'Anyway, she was one of our own. Our kitchen manager, Mrs Hughes!'

'Mrs Hughes?' Margery said, struggling to find her voice. 'You can't mean Caroline Caroline Hughes?'

'Unfortunately, I do, and I have it straight from the mouth of the man who found her! Gary Mathews. Do you know him, works on security? Found her dead Friday night.' She picked the teacup off the floor and handed it back to Margery. 'Do you know the worst bit about it?' Seren paused dramatically. Margery and Clementine shook their heads, enraptured. 'She didn't even get to deliver her last batch of Avon.'

ABOUT 'THE DINNER LADY DETECTIVES': Murder is a dish best served ice cold...

Margery and Clementine are enjoying a peaceful middle-age together in the small, idyllic town of Dewstow, and eagerly awaiting retirement from their work on the front line serving meals to the students at Summerview secondary school.

Their calm life is shattered when their kitchen manager is found dead in the school’s walk-in freezer. The police are adamant that it’s an open-and-shut case of accidental death. Margery and Clementine are convinced there’s something far more nefarious going on, and they take it upon themselves to investigate.

As they inch closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will stop at nothing to keep the pair quiet. Will the perpetrator get their just-desserts before their time runs out?

MY THOUGHTS: There have been a few good muder-mysteries released this year featuring older protagonists. I was hoping that The Dinner Lady Detectives was going to join the group but it became evident very early on that this was not to be.

The characters are faintly ridiculous, with nothing realistic nor relatable about them. I initially thought that I might begin to like them better as the book progressed, but that was not to be either. They just irritated me even more.

The plot is very slow moving and, frankly, highly implausible. A body is discovered locked in a walk-in freezer, surrounded by blood, and the local police deem the death accidental. Really?

It just got more improbable as the book progressed, and I rapidly lost interest. I seriously considered abandoning the read several times, but having invested a week of reading time, I forced myself to finish.

Definitely not my cup of tea.

⭐⭐

#TheDinnerLadyDetectives #NetGalley

I: #hannahhendywrites #canelo_co

T: #HannahHendy @canelo_co

#contemporaryfiction #cozymystery #murdermystery

THE AUTHOR: Hannah Hendy is a professional chef by day and author by night.

Hannah lives with her brand new wife (covid wedding!) and two cats in South Wales, UK.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Canelo via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sounded like a promising cozy mystery involving two older schools dinner ladies solving the murder of their manager but it didn't turn out to be quite as much fun as I thought it would be. The kitchen manager was talked about as if she was a really fun person who liked to play funny pranks on people but most of the 'pranks' were mean and horrible and not at all funny. You'd think that might have been the reason she was found dead in the kitchen's walk in freezer but no, the police mark it off as an accidental death, despite there being copious amounts of blood spread all over the freezer and scratch marks on the door.

The two dinner ladies, Clementine and Margery are a couple, but I was a long way into the book before I realised that they were supposed to have a romantic relationship, as there were no signs of that between them. They didn't even seem that compatible as Clementine never seemed to listen to Margery and dragged her unwillingly into all sorts of things. I was also disappointed that their detective work also never seemed to lead to any serious clues and it took a nudge from someone else before they found any useful evidence. All in all a bit disappointing.

With thanks to Canelo and Netgalley for a copy to read

[Darla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the premise and thought it would be such fun to read about lunch ladies solving a crime. There were a couple of scenes that were "Lucy & Ethel" funny so I'll give it three stars. The kitchen crew was not much fun as a whole and I did not connect with Margery and Clementine. The whole thing just seemed so haphazard and cluttered to me. I'm sure many will enjoy this more than I did. Just not my cup of tea.

Thank you to Canelo and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

[Katie Mckinnon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro: middle-aged lesbian couple as the heroes. Con: the rest, sadly.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an hard book to review. It is a fun, cozy read. The problem is that it's a little muddled. While the characters are interesting and very realistic, the story is told with so much irrelevant detail that I never became engrossed. I also couldn't fully engage with the POV, Margery, because she's never really described. This may seem a small thing, but she's involved in various physical activities. It would have been nice to visualize appropriately. Based on what she did, my image kept changing. I am reading the next book, but I'm really not sure about this series.

[Lata · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a good cozy, and was looking forward to this story of older women sleuthing.
The one thing I liked about this was the longterm essentially marriage between two women. Otherwise, unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed with this book for these reasons:
-the writing was not particularly compelling
-the characters were all unlikeable, with one in particular, Clementine, whom I could not abide.

Thank you to Netgalley and Canelo for his ARC in exchange for my review.

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

On my blog.

Rep: sapphic mcs

Galley provided by publisher

The Dinner Lady Detectives is an occasionally comically absurd cosy mystery that follows two dinner ladies as they become detectives (the clue’s in the name isn’t it really?) in order to find out what happened to their kitchen manager.

What follows is a wild ride as the two end up, among other things, crashing into a fishpond, arrested for trespassing on a crime scene, and getting into a war of words with a gym receptionist. It’s not a serious read, for all that it’s about murder.

On the whole, then, reading this was a lot of fun. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the absurdities and the chaos that Clementine and Margaret wrought. If they somehow chose to stop being dinner ladies and start up a detective agency instead, I think it would be great.

The mystery in general was, I guess, a little obvious—this was more in the kind of sense that once you know who it is you go back and suddenly certain interactions that you thought, that has to be too obvious, are shed in a different light. That’s fine, though, because you’re not really here for the mystery. You’re here for the chaos and fun and it delivers.

So this is, in the end, definitely a book I’d recommend. Especially if you’re on the lookout for cosy mysteries, a subgenre that doesn’t seem to be that represented in LGBT lit.

[Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) · Rating 3 out of 5]

As my dear grandma would have said - "Too daft to laugh at."

All my life I lived with my grandmother until her passing a year ago, and I was raised on a steady diet of Miss Marple, Murder She Wrote, and Rosemary and Thyme. These two facts combined mean that I have an extremely soft spot for the elderly, especially senior citizens getting in trouble and solving crimes, and that's probably the only reason I'm giving this 3 stars instead of 2.

I feel that comedy is one of the hardest genres to write, because absolutely everyone likes to think they have a good sense of humour, and this is... rather rarely the case, at least when it comes to actually writing comedy. It's a particularly thorny issue when it comes to cozy mysteries, because you have to balance the quaint light-hearted comedy with the fact that, y'know...



(Or has there?)

Unfortunately, the author has not nailed the comedy aspect at all. It's often overwrought and inappropriate, which CAN work (Mr. Bean), but can also fall flat on its face in an epic way (Mrs Brown's Boys). It was very surface-level humour rather than anything particularly clever, but it did get the odd chuckle out of me, and I have encountered far worse attempts at humour, and for the most part it was... tolerable.

The mystery itself was pretty good. No absolutely insane twists or anything, but it keeps one guessing (or it kept me guessing, at least), and it wasn't too unrealistic.

The main characters, Clementine (fantastic name) and Margery were... just okay. Deep characterisation is hindered by incorrectly utilised humour, and they didn't really seem like a couple to me. I know they've been together thirty years and I'm not expecting them to be all lovey-dovey like they're in the honeymoon period, but I expect some chemistry.

Overall, although this book wasn't bad, it was very squarely average. Wouldn't really recommend it, I'm afraid.

[Sherry Parker-Lewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I assume this was meant to be a light murder mystery. The plot was light and had great potential. I found the writing ponderous. The descriptions, metaphors and dialogue were “clunky”. To get through the book, I found myself scanning quickly through each page looking for the minimum I needed to read to stay with the plot and I didn’t need to read very much.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dinner ladies Margery and Clementine have lived together for more than 30 years in Dewstow and both work in the kitchen of a local school, Summerview Secondary. When their manager, Caroline Hughes dies in a mysterious accident, unperturbed by the danger they could find themselves in, the pair decide to investigate.

Reading The Dinner Lady Detectives was heaps of fun. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the absurdities and the chaos that surrounded Clementine and Margery. I could easily imagine them starting up a detective agency following their retirement, should they choose to. The mystery itself was good and for me, the author, Hannah Hendy struck a balance between sentiment and dark humour. I'm looking forward to more adventures with Clementine and Margery.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Canelo via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

[chloe🪐 · Rating 4 out of 5]

So funny at times, I was laughing so much, my partner thought I was crazy!! It’s so perfectly put and I can really imagine these 2 60- something year old ladies doing all of the crazy things Marjory and Clementine did in this book! ♡

Read it in a couple of days, such an easy read and I would love to read the other books in the series!

[Chriss Corkscrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is just stupid. The plot is stupid - a murder mystery that literally ends up being solved by the two main characters being told who did it. The characters are stupid - non-existent personalities beyond a few crudely drawn stereotypical characteristics overladen with every single one of them being as thick as two short planks - and the writing is so stupidly lazy that for half the book, I thought the writer was being ironic until I realised, nope, she’s really not. I paid £1.50 for this in a cheap bookshop. It wasn’t worth it.

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love classic mysteries--the closest modern equivalent is the cozy-- and especially enjoy those with a British setting so I had high hopes for this one. As many have pointed out, it's a slow start. I'm usually okay with that, especially in a first in series book when characters and setting have to be established. My main problem in this one was that there were so many unlikeable characters-- one of whom was Clementine, who is the partner of Margery. I wasn't sure at first if they were indeed a couple since there seemed to be no moments of tenderness between them; and I found Clementine to be more than a bit of a bully. While it's a bit of a cozy "feature" that the victim be unpleasant, I found most of the other characters to be either inept, silly, surly, or stupid.

That's why I put the book down all those months ago and didn't pick it back up until now. I am one of those people who very rarely gives up on a book and I feel guilty about reading other things until I finish the one I'm on, so my reading dropped off drastically.

I finally decided I had to end the blockade. The story picked up a bit and I plowed through. I think the main problem is that some of the things that were intended to be funny I didn't find amusing. Practical jokes, for one thing; I dislike them. There were some very good lines in the descriptions usually that I did find amusing-- Margery bewailing her ancestors settling on a spot centuries ago where the lawn chairs would blow away in a storm, for example-- but other things fell flat for me. Maybe it's cultural, maybe it's just different senses of humor.

Another bump in the road was that there was the time worn (and needs to be retired) misunderstanding which just needed people to talk to clear it up. It is used all too often as a lazy attempt to create false tension in the narrative.

Finally, the solution was rather out of left field and came in an info dump near the end. All the clues that were followed were pointless, basically.

I did like that there was finally an acknowledgement of the relationship but am not sure I wanted Margery to settle. She seemed happy about it but as I said I found Clementine to be a bit of a bully.

Will I read another? Good question. I don't know. I'm not ready to go seek the next one out, but if I run out of other things to read at some point I might. The writing is okay in this one, even though there are some unlikely events, some TSTL moments, and the main characters behave as if they are at least 20 years older than they are supposed to be. I did like Margery, so there's that.

[AmBerGUR · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars!!! I liked it. Lovely and funny and also witty with lesbian couple sleuthing!! It made me laugh although I sometimes find Clem pretty annoying but I still love her character. Will continue to read the next book :)

[Susie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable cosy crime. I liked clem and margory the dinner lady detectives. They were funny and had real characters. I'm already looking for the next book.

[Kimberly (kimmerthebooknerd) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun mystery. I would definitely call this a cozy mystery on the line of Murder, She Wrote! I love the dinner ladies and their interactions. I love the relationship between Clem and Margery. Looking forward to more adventures with The Dinner Lady Detectives.

[RikuRoxas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main thing going for this book is that it's short. There are some good points and even a twist or two I didn't see coming, but it's mostly quite bland and seems like something that was quickly thrown together.

The two main characters, Margery and Clementine are not interesting at all. I couldn't even like them at the start of the book, they seemed like nasty older ladies and even to each other. They're both in their early 60's but it's clear the writer has no idea what that means. The author mentions one of them having an ear horn and they sit and watch Antiques Roadshow and knit and not much else. At one point they even mention that telephone operators don't plug calls in anymore. That stopped before either of the women were born.

The writing at points is unbearable, I genuinely cannot tell if the author is being satirical or not. One of the first few pages almost made me put the book down as one of the ladies dropped a tea cup in shock when finding out someone at work had died...picked the cup up and dropped it again after finding out she didn't deliver her Avon orders. I found that if you threw a little sex in, it could have been written by Rocky Flintstone.

We also hear about minor characters such as "Mrs Melon" the Greengrocer and "Mrs Large" the small music teacher. It seemed like a game of Happy Families. Considering the two main ladies have the surnames Butcher and Baker, I think this was taken a little too far.

The time setting seems quite complex too, it's almost like the author wasn't aware when the book was set. There are some very modern references to things such as Friends being on Netflix (which puts this story in at least the start of 2018) and someone being on Facebook, but also a woman smoking out of the window in the school kitchen, a VHS camcorder being carried around and a portable CD player in the school hall.

One thing I did really love about this book is that the relationship between Margery and Clementine isn't explicitly stated through most of the book. We find out they have been a couple for years, but it's not much more than hinted at for a while. I'm a strong believer that stories about LGBTQ people should not need some sort of disclaimer or "coming out" section because they shouldn't be needed in real life. We need to normalise this. A lot of respect to the author for taking this route.

There were fleeting moments of something better, and I believe it could have really been a good book with a little more time taken and if it was fleshed out a little. Some points genuinely did make me gasp to myself as since most of it was so obvious, the little twists did catch me off guard. I could see this being a cheesy BBC comedy drama one day with a bit of refinement.

My final note is the use of "Clem" when talking to Clementine, I understand it is a shortened version, but given the definition of Clem, it wasn't pleasant to read a lot.

[Lata · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a good cozy, and was looking forward to this story of older women sleuthing.
The one thing I liked about this was the longterm essentially marriage between two women. Otherwise, unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed with this book for these reasons:
-the writing was not particularly compelling
-the characters were all unlikeable, with one in particular, Clementine, whom I could not abide.

Thank you to Netgalley and Canelo for his ARC in exchange for my review.

[Abra Kurt · Rating 2 out of 5]

From Miss Marple to Murder She Wrote to The Thursday Murder Club, I adore a good cozy mystery and quirky, smart seniors solving murders. Unfortunately this book doesn't deliver on its charming promise. The characters are thinly drawn, and the overuse of adverbs and flowery verbs (snorted! gasped! scoffed!) in the dialogue was distracting and eventually annoying. The premise of 'dinner lady detectives' was unique and intriguing but lacking in quality execution.

[Jo Jenner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and it is my definition of a cosy mystery.
There was no way I was ever going to solve the mystery but I really enjoy Margery and Clem and loved being along for the ride

[Craig Kingsman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even know where to start with this book. No, I do. At the beginning with a prologue that really should be chapter 1. It doesn't get any better and ends poorly too with an unsatisfying climax.

[Emily Welch · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit naff. I found it so confusing and annoying that two main characters had such similar names!!

[BRIONY · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Not for me

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the body of Caroline Hughes is discovered in the walk-in freezer of the Summerview secondary school kitchen, her colleagues are stunned. The police are quick to reassure the dinner ladies that their elderly kitchen manager’s death was simply a tragic accident, but when long time employees Clementine Butcher and Margery Baker, espy the coolroom’s bloodied innards, they disagree. With little more than a hunch and a stray earring to go on, Clementine and Margery begin their own investigation, determined that whoever is responsible will get their just desserts.

Having enjoyed a number of cozy mysteries featuring elderly amateur sleuths recently I had quite high expectations for The Dinner Lady Detectives, but unfortunately I felt its potential was unrealised.

I thought the basic premise for the story was appealing, and I enjoyed several scenes, but I found the way in which the mystery played out was disappointing. It almost seemed as if several of the mystery plot elements were an afterthought, and the clues felt disjointed. The plot was also hampered by slow pacing and there was a lack of suspense generally expected in a mystery.

I did like Clementine and Margery, a couple of some thirty years living quietly in the tiny village of Dewstow, South Wales, but I sometimes had difficulty distinguishing between them. The rest of the cast was problematic in that few held much appeal, including the victim who had a fondness for mean-spirited pranks.

While I wouldn’t consider The Dinner Lady Detectives to be a terrible read, I’m afraid I did find it lackluster at best.

[Alannah Grimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is LITERALLY about me and Niamh. Maybe minus the lesbianism (up for debate). Two dinner ladies in their sixties who have lived together, slept together in the same bed for 30 years, watched the same soaps and sat together playing cards with their cat Pumpkin, solve a real life murder mystery. I thought it was a super fun little cute book that at some points made me a little emotional because I became so attached to their relationship and they got married at the end 😭😭 I was slightly confused throughout the book about their relationship because they alluded to it being romantic at some parts but then they also implied that they only considered a civil partnership because they’d lived together so long? Idk. But the book was written by a LESBIAN so that immediately improved my experience. Overall loved it, prob wouldn’t read it again because once I’ve read a plot twisty book I don’t see the point, but honestly I didn’t really expect the outcome of the mystery being solved but it also wasn’t that shocking? Idk i liked it, it was fun. I’m bad at writing reviews

[Ria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margery and Clementine work as dimmer ladies at Summerview secondary school.
Their lives are pootling along when one day their calm and serene lifestyle is shattered.
They go into work to find their kitchen manager dead.
The police just think it's a terrible accident so record that as the cause of death.
But Clementine and Margery are suspicious as things aren't adding up, they delve into the death and suspect it's really murder.
But as they dig ever deeper they find themselves in danger when awful things start to happen.
Can they catch the killer before the killer catches them?
A wonderfully fresh, cosy mystery set in the world of the local dinner ladies.
Great fun and looking forward to the next instalment.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book - two dinner ladies who are trying to find out what happened to their colleague, Caroline Hughes, when she was found dead in the freezer.

As with all policemen in these types of books, they deem her death an open and shut case of accidental death. But super sleuths Clementine and Margery are not convinced.

The book had all the promise of a cosy, good old fashioned whodunnit. But unfortunately the plot was quite weak and the characters didn’t really have any endearing qualities. But despite this, I did enjoy the book and it was a fairly quick read. I will read the next one in the series before deciding whether I want to read all six of them.

[Olivia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐️

This was a cute little murder mystery 😌~ quite predictable but I still enjoyed it

Also I love the fact that the two main characters are a lesbian couple and that’s not the main plot line, they’re just two old (one quite miserable) ladies trying to solve a murder

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good enough to continue on to the next book.