Guest post – Perils in Yorkshire by Emma Dakin

Perils in Yorkshire The British Book Tour Mysteries Book 3 by Emma Dakin

Claire Barclay’s tourists are dutifully following the process of chocolate making in a factory in York. Her American ladies from Tucson, the couple from Bristol and the couple from London appear fascinated by the lecture and demonstration. All except Phillip. He has disappeared—again. Claire races down the stairs, suspecting Phillip has headed for the kitchens, and trips over the body of a security guard. She immediately calls 999, waits until help arrives and tells her story to the local constable. She herds her group to their boutique hotel, settling them the night and tries to reorganize her tour. While it was sad and upsetting to find such a young man dead, she doesn’t see any connection between the body in the chocolate factory and her tourists until Mark, her lover and a Detective Inspector with the Major Crimes Investigation Team, tells her that Phillip, the wanderer, is an undercover Scotland Yard detective and on a job. She is angry that Phillip is using her tour for his own purposes. She wants to remove the group from the city of York quickly and the next morning drives them all, including Phillip who refuses to leave the tour, north to the Yorkshire Moors, a vast land of almost bleak wilderness and the setting of many mystery novels. She stops for a picnic at the famous Ralph’s Cross where moorland green with springtime heather, stretches for miles. Her bucolic plans are interrupted when her American ladies report the sudden death of Phillip in the surrounding bog. Mark tells her Phillip was on the trail of a drug distribution scheme. Claire is determined her Tucson ladies will not be dragged into the murder inquiry or any other police investigation, but they are equally determined they will. They are intelligent, expert mystery novel readers and observant. They precipitate Claire and themselves into a messy situation with the murderer.

One of the joys of writing Perils in Yorkshire was exploring York, the Yorkshire Dales and the Yorkshire Moors. I ate in the pubs my characters ate in. I bought the same tweed cap for my son that one of my characters chose. I walked the walls of York. I explored Ralph’s Cross on the moors, looking for a place to hide a body. I listened to that dialect of the Yorkshire people and picked up the differences between the old farmers and the young teens. Into this wonderful setting, I dropped three intrepid retired ladies from Tucson, Arizona. Mysteries don’t phase this trio. They read reams of mysteries and feel qualified to help the Major Crimes Investigation Team. Claire has her hands full with these three.

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