Dead as a Scone

by Ron Benrey and Janet Benrey

Book Overview

Nigel Owen, curator of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum, receives word that a clever, exceedingly dangerous criminal sits upon the board of trustees. But before Nigel's source can reveal the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159310197X
• ISBN13: 9781593101978
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Barbour Publishing
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book!

I just adored this book! It makes me appreciate tea and England and God. The characters are so life-like and full of depth. Definitely a book to savor with a good cup of tea (chai for me!).

Reels in the reader

Ron and Janet Benrey are a professional writing duo who live in Maryland. Ron is a graduate of MIT, holds a masters in management and a law degree. Janet is a native of Kent, England and has a degree from the University of Pittsburgh. They have written several books together, and Ron has had an extensive career writing books and articles for CEO's. He also is a veteran speaker for Fortune 100 companies. The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum is an esteemed establishment with an acting director in the person of Nigel Owen, a permanent curator named Flick Adams, and an elderly heiress named Dame Elspeth Hawker. Dame Elspeth suspects someone is switching pieces of the museum's collection and substituting fakes. She has a pretty good idea who is behind it, but before she can report to the trustees, she is the victim of a murder. Only Flick Adams, who has a Ph.D. in food chemistry and a fairly extensive background in toxicology, is suspicious. Dame Elspeth has been her valued friend, and Flick is certain that the doctor, Sir Simon Clowes, also a trustee, is wrong in his diagnosis that Dame Elspeth expired from heart problems. Flick finds herself in hot water when she shares her theories, but Nigel finally makes the right choice and comes to her rescue, in spite of his misgivings: "Why had he offered to help? Probably because vague pangs of remorse kept reminding him that he had intentionally ignored two opportunities to do right by Flick Adams. He might have eased Flick's sequential scoldings-first by DI Pennyman and then by the trustees-if he had repeated what Elspeth said on the day she died." DEAD AS A SCONE is a delightful and warm tale written in the Agatha Christie "cozy" style. The team of Ron and Janet Benrey craft a tantalizing love story behind the whodunit tale of poison, pets hovering by to encourage the sleuths, and the world of art, tea, and baking. Old and grievous wounds figure as the motive, and the setting of the museum in the actual town of Tunbridge Wells reels in the reader with visions of marble, dead bodies, and intrigue. Shelley Glodowski Senior Reviewer

A Winner!

I loved this book! The first few pages drew me in like a good cup of tea by the fire, and the intricate plot kept me riveted. I liked the two main characters (and their pets!), and look forward to more books with them in it. This one's a winner. I heartily recommend it!

Such is Life in Tunbridge Wells

This is a mystery novel which keeps a commuter from Tunbridge Wells forget about railway miseries when he/she is on his/her daily journey to the City of London. The well described Englishness of the tea museum characters travels through all pages and there is the flair of the gentile, decaying Spa Town throughout the book. It is certainly big fun to put real faces to some of the characters if you are a citizen of Royal Tunbridge Wells but equally it must be fascinating for an outsider to read into a plot which folds out of the old fashioned behaviour of fuddy-duddies who nevertheless take decisions of great importance. The authors are masters in analysing eccentric English committees who rely entirely on the recommendations of clerks to take their decisions. That this can lead to murder is not likely, ... unless there are personal motives involved. And that seems the case in mysterious Royal Tunbridge Wells . . . Having gone to the effort of opening an Internet site: "www.teamuseum.org" to present the virtual tea museum, Janet and Ron Benrey have set standards which will be difficult for any writer to keep up.

A cozy for sure!

I'd given up on new authors producing the kind of pleasurable, cozy mystery that I grew up with. But here it is! Coming to the end of the book and wanting more is a sign that the authors have succeeded. I grumped because I'd finished and then perked up when I found this was to be a series. Can't wait for the next one!