S.A. Reeves Audiobooks

The Bookshop Mysteries: cosy crime that opens with a body in the weir

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

463 listener ratings

Who is S.A. Reeves?

A weir is a very English place to leave a body. It is public and picturesque, the sort of spot people walk dogs past on a Sunday, and that contrast between pleasant surroundings and something badly wrong is the engine of the whole cosy crime tradition. The Bookshop Mysteries: A Woman in the Weir puts both halves of the bargain in its title.

S.A. Reeves works in the amateur-detective mode, where the sleuthing is done by somebody with no professional standing whatsoever and every reason to be curious. A bookshop is close to the ideal setting for it: everyone passes through, everyone talks, and whoever stands behind the counter hears most of it. Our catalogue files the series under crime and thriller alongside general fiction.

S.A. Reeves in audiobooks

Emily Mount narrates, and cosy crime asks for a particular sort of reading voice: companionable rather than sinister, able to handle a village full of speaking parts without letting any of them tip into caricature. Just under nine hours is the standard shape for the genre and reads as an evening or two.

The response has been notably strong, an average of 4.5 across several hundred ratings, which for a series opener is the kind of figure that suggests people came back for more. Start here, since this is where the sequence begins.

If your ideal listen involves a small community, a suspicious death and an amateur sleuth who really ought to mind their own business, this will do nicely. The shelf below has the rest.