Murder at Gulls Nest

Jess Kidd

THE name’s Nora... Nora Breen to be precise. She’s a former nun with more history than she should have, possesses the observational skills of Hercule Poirot, and you are almost certainly destined to meet her again, and again, and again.

Nora Breen Investigates, the charming new murder mystery series from much-loved author Jess Kidd (pictured below), has landed at ‘dead centre’ of the cosy crime scene in a burst of glorious 1950s seaside sunshine and with the promise of some stellar super-sleuthing.

Murder at Gulls Nest is the first case for the adorable Nora who has cast off her nun’s habit and been released from her holy vows so she can track down her missing friend and finally find an outlet for her renowned powers of intuition… and satisfy what some might call her downright nosiness. But don’t be fooled into thinking that sharp-eyed Nora is all sweetness and light…there are dark shadows in her past which play into her current life and – like the deceptively astute Miss Marple – she is determined enough and brave enough to dig deep into territory far more unsavoury than a nun would normally experience.

For thirty years she has lived as Sister Agnes in a convent in the north but now Nora Breen is relishing the lightness of her head and the novelty of all-round vision without her wimple and veil as she heads to a new beginning at Gore-on-Sea in Kent.

Her destination is Gulls Nest, a once grand place but now an ageing and unsettling boarding house where ‘the dreamers and schemers wash up.’ It’s also where Nora’s fellow nun – a much-loved and gentle young novice called Frieda Brogan – was living after leaving the convent on health grounds and who has since disappeared without trace.

It’s up to Nora – who is haunted by a line in one of the girl’s last letters – to find Frieda and put to good use her inquisitive nature, judged to be ‘disrespectful’ at the convent and her cleverness, regarded by Mother Superior as ‘the sin of pride.’

So she takes a room at Gulls Nest, hides her identity and settles in to watch and listen. Over frosty housekeeper Irene Rawlings’ dubious – and sometimes inedible – dinners, Nora gathers evidence about the other lodgers and immediately senses an undercurrent of tension.

When one of the lodgers is found dead, Nora – to the frustration and amusement of local police Inspector Rideout – decides she must find the murderer. Nora suspects the victim knew Frieda... could solving this mystery help her to understand what has happened to her friend?

The first of Kidd’s fast-paced and immersive mystery series sparkles like the ocean on the beautiful Kent coast and star of the show is undoubtedly the enchantingly inquisitive and

intelligent Nora whose almost childlike joy and humour at rediscovering the wide world and its many wonders outside her convent is a delicious side dish to the main event. But this is an author who bestows only the very best character studies to each and every one of her unique players, and accolades should also be awarded to her likeable partner in crime and dry wit, Inspector Rideout, and what is surely the motliest bunch of guest house boarders this side of Gore-on-Sea.

Brimful of Kidd’s dazzling writing and perfect plotting, and with an exquisite sense of time and place, the rundown, seedy Gull’s Nest proves to be a veritable vipers’ nest of shocking secrets, and with Nora holding on tightly to her own, there is never a dull moment for readers as tensions run high and the murders mount up. Add on the backdrop of a class-conscious nation still emerging from the ravages of six years of war, plus Nora’s entertaining and moving emergence from dowdy nun to dynamic detective, and you have the makings of a very special new crime series!
(Faber & Faber, hardback, £16.99)