Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs

Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs ISBN-13: 9780425281680 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released: March 7, 2017

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description from Back Cover:
When Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is invited by Doreen Briggs, one of Charleston’s most prominent hostesses, to a “Rat Tea,” she is understandably intrigued. As servers dressed in rodent costumes and wearing white gloves offer elegant finger sandwiches and fine teas, Theo learns these parties date back to early twentieth-century Charleston, where the cream of society would sponsor so-called rat teas to promote city rodent control and better public health.

But this party goes from odd to chaotic when a fire starts at one of the tables and Doreen’s entrepreneur husband suddenly goes into convulsions and drops dead. Has his favorite orange pekoe tea been poisoned? Theo smells a rat.

The distraught Doreen soon engages Theo to pursue a discreet inquiry into who might have murdered her husband. As Theo and her tea sommelier review the guest list for suspects, they soon find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse...


My Review:
Pekoe Most Poison is a cozy mystery. It's the 18th book in a series. You don't need to read the previous books to understand this story, and this book didn't spoil the previous ones.

The main characters acted fairly mature and respectable in this book. They asked good questions and found a number of people who had motives and opportunity. I suspected whodunit from the moment we're introduced to that character, but whodunit was not obvious. Afterward, I had to think a bit to identify why I was suspicious of whodunit and no one else.

I know I grumble about heroines who nearly end up victims of whodunit, and this ending really flipped things. But I was really baffled as to why the heroine didn't just call the police when she realized whodunit as her behavior was unnecessary and could have landed her in trouble.

There was a minor amount of "mild" bad language and no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable story.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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