Title: The Antique Store Detective and the Deadly Inheritance
Author: Clare Chase
Publication Day: August 28th 2025
Buy Link: Amazon
About the Book:
A mysterious death and a missing ruby necklace… it’s clearly a case for antique store owner and amateur sleuth Bella Winter!
Nobody was surprised when Clemmie Crowe passed away – she’d been sick for a long time. But Bella Winter isn’t sure it’s as simple as it seems. Why was Clemmie so agitated the day she died – and why did she ask a local policeman to call on her?
Bella’s certain Clemmie knew something about her relatives, the powerful Powell family. They used to own half of Hope Eaton, but now they’re planning to sell what remains… Including the Steps Café, owned by Bella’s best friends.
The sale has to be stopped. Where else will Bella get her sausage sandwiches? Perhaps Clemmie’s secret will be enough to put a spanner in the works. So when matriarch Althea Powell invites her to value their possessions, Bella jumps at the chance. She can find some gems, investigate Clemmie’s death, and stymie the sale all at once.
It seems to be going swimmingly… until it’s proved that Clemmie was murdered, and Althea’s priceless ruby necklace vanishes. The list of suspects is as long as Bella’s arm. Was it Althea’s shady stepson, desperate for cash? His older brother, who wants to sell up? Or even her husband, who keeps changing his will?
Then Bella finds the necklace in the last place she expects, upsetting everything she thought she knew. Where there’s a will, there’s bound to be a quarrel. But can Bella figure out whose inheritance means murder, before things turn deadly for her?
A completely charming English cozy mystery. Fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Betty Rowlands will love following the fiendish clues as Bella cracks her most puzzling case yet!
Clemmie Crowe is related to the once powerful Powell family. She’s been unwell for a while, but when Bella Winter and her assistant, John, go to visit her in hospice, they don’t expect she’ll soon be dead. Some things just don’t make sense to Bella – for instance, why did Clemmie want to talk to the police? What upset her about worry beads in a fancy French boutique bag? And was her death due to natural causes? When Althea Powell, matriarch of the family, asks Bella to come value some of their property in an effort to alleviate their financial problems, Bella figures she can get a look at High Seat House and its goods and do a little sleuthing, too.
I generally enjoy Clare Chase’s books. Her Eve Mallow series has been a lot of fun! Bella Winter doesn’t hit quite as well with me, but it’s still a good read.
Chase gives us a lot in this book. It felt more involved than many cozies, with multiple deaths and a whole lot of twists and turns. It also felt like it took longer to really start to connect the dots, and sometimes that slowed the story down. There seemed to be a lot of speculation, then chasing down a motive or an answer to a question, then more evidence being uncovered, then more speculation, lather, rinse, repeat.
One thing I didn’t really like was how it felt like local law enforcement was portrayed as truly incompetent or disinterested. In many cozies with amateur sleuths, the amateur and the professionals, if they don’t actively work together, at least have a civil relationship. Here it seemed like Bella would uncover information that could be useful and the police would pretty much ignore it.
One thing I did like was how Bella and her friends work together, and how her godfather, a former police officer, can offer a law enforcement perspective on things. They seem like a very congenial group!
Even with the amount of rabbit-chasing that seems to be done, the mystery did flow pretty logically. Chase also does a great job at leading us in what appears to be a pretty obvious direction and then changing it up at the end. All in all, this was a satisfactory mystery read, and I’ll keep up with the series!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to leave a review. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.
About the author:
Clare Chase writes classic mysteries. Her aim is to take readers away from it all via some armchair sleuthing in atmospheric locations.
Her debut novel was shortlisted for Novelicious’s Undiscovered Award, as well as an EPIC award post-publication, and was chosen as a Debut of the Month by LoveReading. Murder on the Marshes (Tara Thorpe 1) was shortlisted for an International Thriller Writers award.
Like her heroines, Clare is fascinated by people and what makes them tick. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in settings as diverse as Littlehey Prison and the University of Cambridge, in her home city. She’s lived everywhere from the house of a lord to a slug-infested flat and finds the mid-terrace she currently occupies a good happy medium.
As well as writing, Clare loves family time, art and architecture, cooking, and of course, reading other people’s books.
You can find Clare’s website and blog at www.clarechase.com
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