Whitcoulls Recommends: The Bookshop Detectives, Murder and Mojitos and The Kingpin

The Bookshop Detectives, Murder and Mojitos by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward. Two real life booksellers from Hawkes Bay have created a fictional bookshop named Sherlock Tomes which in this, the 3rd in the series, is cosy crime full of literary mayhem. Sherlock Tomes are invited to work with a visiting writer from Cuba who’s coming to Hawkes Bay for the Art Deco Festival, given the shared architecture style of the two countries, and the bookshop has the opportunity to run a literary event while she’s in town – which of course goes terribly awry.. This is warm, witty and highly amusing. 

The Kingpin by A.A.Dhand. A pharmacist in the city of Leeds is drawn into the underworld through both the temptations of his brother, newly released from prison, and a local cop with a terminal illness who now has nothing to lose. Idris Khan is the pharmacist in question – his dispensary is on the edge of a large housing estate where he supplies methadone to local addicts and he lives in a hard, morally grey world. This is really gritty inner city crime, made more interesting by the pharmacist’s understanding of medicines and how to use them for very specific results.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks dB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now is Joan McKenzie, head Book Bar at Wick, Coos.
Good morning, Good morning, right, you got a couple of
new books for us, I do.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
The first one's a thriller. It's called The Kingpin by
AA Darned Dhad and he's written a number of prior books,
but this is the second one in this particular series.
The first one was called The Chemist, and I've read
rave reviews about it, But I believe you can pick
this one up without having read The Chemist because it
worked for me. I did, and I had no problems

(00:41):
getting into the story.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I interviewed AA dannt fascinating guy because of course he
was a pharmacist, get exactly, yes, and the Chemist was
a great yarn Yes exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
So I was about to tell you that the lead
character in this book is a guy called Idris Kahn
who's a pharmacist in the city of Leeds and it
appears that he got involved in something nasty in the
first book because there was a murder which brought him
to the attention of a police inspector who is himself terminal, unwell,
feels he's got nothing to lose and he's keen to
tie up a few loose ends. And Idris's pharmacy is

(01:13):
located next door to a housing estate where he supplies
methodone to a whole lot of junkies who call it home,
and he also hands out regular scripts for the rest
of the local population. And this estate has a ruthless,
notorious guy in charge. It reads like real gangland stuff,
and Idris is put under pressure when his brother suddenly

(01:34):
arrives unexpectedly. He's been in prison, and he has a proposition,
which is that the two of them should take over
the drug supply for the whole of Leeds and Bradford,
which would mean getting rid of the big guy who
currently runs it. And what's really done well in this book,
I think is the moral and ethical dilemma because he's
got these great pharmaceutical skills, as clearly does the author,

(01:56):
and it's easy for him to make a murder seem
like a medical event. And while he and his brother
are planning their next moves, the dying police inspector comes
calling with a nice peace of blackmail if I just
will use his talents to help get rid of some
of the CoP's own enemies. Then he won't be prosecuted
for murder.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
He's a great protagonist. It's a really unique kind of setup. Yeah,
it's really good, excellent, Okay, I'm looking forward to that.
Tell me about the Bookshop Detectives, Murder and Mahito's.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
So this is more murder, but in a much more jolly,
frivolous sense. This is the third in a series called
The Bookshop Detectives by Louise Ward and Gareth Ward, her
booksellers who live in Hawks Bay, and they've based this
best selling series of cozy murder mysteries in and around
a fictional bookshop they've called Sherlock Homes and Havelock North

(02:45):
and it features the booksellers Garth and Aloise. So you
can see the names are very similar to the names
of our authors, so you kind of get where this
is going. Prior to their ownership of Sherlock Tomes, the
fictional couple, we're in the police force in the UK,
which is exactly the same background of these authors. Still
with me, yes, okay, So this is the third in
the series in which Sherlock Holmes is off the opportunity

(03:08):
to host an event with the so called Queen of
Crime from Cuba, who's coming to the Hawks Bay as
part of an art deco festival, given that both Cuba
and the Hawks Bay have similar architectural styles. But of
course nothing goes as it should and everything descends into chaos,
and the owners of Sherlock Homes start receiving a series
of deliveries of books about Cuba, which you might think

(03:30):
were coles to Newcastle, but there's a coded reason for it. Aloise,
our fictional heroine, has been haunted by an apparently obsessed
serial killer named Arthur Pinter, and at first he seems
he's organized these deliveries through a rival bookshop, as I guess,
literary calling cards all the way from the UK. But
then they realize that he's actually in town, walking the

(03:52):
streets of Havelock North, and it turns out that this
mister Pinter was the first literary agent of the Cuban
Queen of Crime. So our literary heroes, with their police
backgrounds these were detectives are perfectly soon to figuring out
what is up to and dealing with the bodies along
the way. Okay, is this adult young adult it's adult,
it's cozy, it's witty, it's funny, it's warm, it's hugely entertaining,

(04:17):
it's really clever.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Okay loves thank you so much to join those two books.
The last one was The Bookshop Detectives, Murder and Mahitos
by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward, and also The Kingpin by.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
AA Darn And let me just say, there's a couple
more days for all of the young people out there
to go and vote in the Whit Cause Kids Top fifty,
which will be launching later this year. So tell us
your three favorite books and they'll go in the mix
for the final list.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Thanks Joan.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, Listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.