I am delighted to share an extract today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
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Genre: Murder Mystery Series
Publication Date: July 2026
Estimated Page Count: 300
Standalone First Book in a new series
Extract:
Introduction
Bob and Shirley run the Goose and Gander pub in Great Oakley, a Suffolk village that has won ‘Britain’s safest village’ ten years running. Bob is an ex-fireman with no tact whatsoever. Shirley is a landlady who believes life is too short for a small gin. They tell the story between them, taking turns, and very rarely agree.
This is the opening of the book. Bevvy Hogg, who ran the village slimming group, has been found dead in the pub garden and is several dress sizes smaller than she was last week.
Extract
Shirley
Murder?
In our quiet, little English village?
Great Oakley is a place of hanging baskets, tearooms and riverside walks. We’ve won ‘Britain’s safest village’ 10 years running. I keep three pound coins, a box of toffees and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my dashboard at all times, and I’ve never needed to lock my car.
So, no. I do not think Bevvy Hogg was murdered.
Certainly, she was disliked. Bevvy ran the local Waist Watchers group, yet came to our pub for fish and chips, treacle tart and a bottle of Chardonnay every Friday. She enjoyed our roast on a Sunday too, which includes three large slices of beef or lamb, buttered carrots, cauliflower cheese, a giant Yorkshire pudding and a generous pile of crispy roast potatoes.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no judgment about Bevvy’s eating habits. We like hearty meals here at the Goose and Gander.
Our main customers are elderly walkers and tourists wanting big portions, real ale and large-print menus. That’s why our meat pie slices are so large that they hang off the plate. But Bevvy lectured her Waist Watchers members about saturated fat and alcohol, whilst regularly eating deep-fried fish and chips and swigging prosecco.
Nobody likes a hypocrite. But that doesn’t mean she was murdered. It was just all very odd.
Especially her unexplained weight loss.
Bob
Bevvy Hogg? Oh yes. Suspicious circumstances, for sure. The oddest of which being … well, she’d lost a lot of weight.
Bevvy was a larger lady for as long as we knew her. There’s nothing wrong with that. My wife, Shirley, is fuller figured and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.
Shirley enjoys her meat pies, roast dinners, syrup puddings, Guinness, wine, gin and prosecco. Sometimes, all in the same sitting. She makes no apology for her weight, and nor should she. But Bevvy was a slimming coach who helped others reach a healthy BMI. She hated being clinically obese, yet could never quite manage to lose weight herself.
So it was strange to find her both dead and, well … so much slimmer.
Did I mention it was me who found the body?
Shirley
Bob found her. Bevvy, I mean. At 6am on Sunday morning.
The poor woman was face down on the flagstones in our pub garden with an empty treacle tart plate beside her.
Bob always starts his day early. He’s up at dawn tending to his vegetables. Then he’ll jet-wash the patio, clean the parasols, trim the lawn edges with manicure scissors, weed the flower beds, fill the bird feeders and put out water for Cyril the fox.
Bob keeps himself fit. He’d look like a hunky Dr Who if he didn’t cut his own hair with nail scissors and wear high-vis clothing. And don’t get me started on his woolly bobble hat. I call it his instant idiot hat. It’s especially bad when he wears it abroad. We become an immediate target for pickpockets.
Bob was very calm about finding a dead body in the garden. He used to be a fireman, so he’s seen worse. He didn’t bother me with it, knowing I like a lie-in on Sundays.
Once Bob had attempted mouth-to-mouth, he got his gardening clipboard and made notes for the paramedics and the police. He noted ‘weight loss’ as the most remarkable thing.
Bob had two more observations.
First, Bevvy had taken her cardigan off and was showing her bare arms.
Well, I was shocked by that. It might not sound odd to you, but Bevvy never showed her arms in public. I won’t say why out of respect for the dead. But let’s just say she had her reasons.
Second, Bob observed a strange, yellow mark on the patio, which he noted as ‘unidentified’.
Bob
I didn’t notice Bevvy at first, because she was on the patio. And I’d gone straight to my tomatoes. They’re coming up well this year, and I wanted to harvest a few bags for our Ploughman’s lunch.
As I headed to the shed for my secateurs, I saw Bevvy. She was face down on the patio, looking rather blue in colour. There was a broken plate nearby and an unusual, bright-yellow streak on the flagstones. Bevvy’s beige cardigan seemed like it had been flung off in a hurry and hung damp with morning dew from a garden table.
I could tell Bevvy was dead. And also, that she was a lot thinner than usual.
Hopefully, Bevvy’s relatives will drop by the pub so we can offer a free drink and our condolences. We do pride ourselves on looking after the community. A good village pub is a home from home.
Also worth knowing – we serve barista coffee and pots of tea if anyone fancies a hot drink. You don’t have to drink alcohol.
Watch out for Shirley if you ask for tea. She has strong opinions about how it should be made.
Shirley
A proper English tea is made with milk. And it’s important to put the milk in after the hot water, otherwise the hot water cooks the milk. When Bob and I were first married, he used to put the milk in first. It was our first post-marriage argument. Luckily, I managed to educate him, and he’s made proper tea ever since.
Bob
I’ve made Shirley countless cups of tea, and I always put the milk in first.
She never notices.
Book blurb:
Bob and Shirley run a lovely country pub. They also solve murders …
A warmly funny, gloriously British cozy crime and murder mystery series that can be read as standalones or part of a series. Set in a village where the pub is the heart of country life and served with warmth, wit and a very good Sunday roast.
“Murder? In our quiet, little English village?
Great Oakley is a place of hanging baskets, tearooms and riverside walks. We’ve won ‘Britain’s safest village’ 10 years running. I keep three pound coins, a box of toffees and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my dashboard at all times, and I’ve never needed to lock my car.
Certainly, Bevvy Hogg was disliked. She ran the local Waist Watchers group, yet came to our pub for fish and chips, treacle tart and a bottle of Chardonnay every Friday. But I don’t think she was murdered …”
When Bevvy Hogg is found dead in the Goose and Gander pub garden, with an empty treacle tart plate beside her and several dress sizes slimmer than anyone remembers, Great Oakley’s winning streak as Britain’s safest village comes to an abrupt end.
Purchase Links
Author Bio –
Suzy K Quinn (hello – it’s me!) is writing this bio in the third person. Which feels duplicitous and also a little egotistical. But here goes …
Suzy K Quinn writes book club books and murder mystery series, and has sold over 1 million copies worldwide. She’s a bestselling author in the US, UK and Germany and will soon, very possibly, have written more books than she’s read.
Suzy lives in Wivenhoe, Essex, with her husband and two daughters. She is a twin, an incompetent parent of two and now fully decaffeinated. Her twin sister, Cate Quinn, is also a bestseller author. When Suzy isn’t writing in cafes, she is walking around woods dictating like a lunatic.
Suzy loves her readers and is ALWAYS happy to chat on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suzykquinn You can also get a free book at her website:
http://www.suzykquinn.com
Social Media Links –
Profile – https://www.facebook.com/suzykquinn/
Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/suzykquinn
Tiktok @suzykquinn
Instagram @suzykquinn
Twitter @suzykquinn
Threads @suzykquinn
Giveaway to Win an e-copy of Bob and Shirley’s Killer Cuppa Puzzle (Open INT)
One of Great Oakley’s five open gardens served poisoned tea. Can you work out which one before Bob does?
‘Like Murdle and a cozy mystery rolled into one.’
Murder mystery logic puzzle stories for fans of The Killer Isn’t Alice, Murdle and Can You Solve the Murder?
These are ‘Puzzlories’. Read them like stories, solve them like puzzles. Each one takes about an hour to read and solve.
It’s Open Gardens weekend in Great Oakley. Five gardeners have opened their gardens to the public, and each is offering a unique drink, cake, flower and interesting garden feature to their fellow villagers.
Unfortunately, one garden owner poured poisoned tea. Probably not on purpose. But you never know. There are more murders in Britain’s safest village than you might imagine.
Village pub landlady Shirley Duffy visited all five open gardens before returning to the Goose and Gander for a much-needed beer and a sit down. One of those five gardens was the scene of the crime.
The trouble is, Shirley’s memory is known to be … selective. She can remember every cake she’s eaten since 1987, but not necessarily when and where she ate it. And she can’t remember which garden served tea on Saturday afternoon.
Shirley’s husband, Bob, is frustrated that Shirley can’t remember one garden from another. But he finds many things about his wife frustrating, and loves her anyway.
As Bob presses Shirley for details, the clues pile up. Your job is to note them down and work out who served the tea before Bob does.
Twenty clues, one in every short chapter. Fill in your detective’s grid, cross off your suspects and name the poisoner.
Grab your notebook, put the kettle on (carefully) and see if you can beat Bob to the answer.
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Gleam box below. The winner will be selected at random via Gleam from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
https://gleam.io/sR8sl/win-an-e-copy-of-bob-and-shirleys-killer-cuppa-puzzle-open-int
