A new cosy crime novel due out in September 2025
And now for something completely different, as the saying goes. After DI Crowe try Cass Crombie, an amateur sleuth definitely not in the Miss Marple league.
A Brush with Death by Jean Burnett is a quirky, cosy crime novel set in the 1980s (1987), the era of Margaret Thatcher, Boy George, and the first mobile phones which all appear in the book.
The inspiration for a campus set cosy crime novel came from the author’s own experience working at a university, and the misadventures and encounters she remembers from that time.
There is humour as well as crime in the book and it will be enjoyed by those who remember the period – and those who don’t.
This is a departure from Jean’s historical and Regency novels, although she has it on good authority that the 1980s are now considered historical!
Jean’s previous publications include:
Who Needs Mr Darcy (published as The Bad Miss Bennet in the USA).
Scandal in the Sun (The Bad Miss Bennet Abroad)
The Devil’s Tune – Fran Kempton (pen name)
Vagabond Shoes-a travel memoir
A Victorian Lady in the Himalayas (edited)
More about A Brush with Death
If you always suspected that universities were a danger to society-A Brush with Death will confirm your worst fears. Never mind the intellectual possibilities, the lecture room and offices can be lethal, and someone will stop at nothing to achieve their end. But what do they really want?
When her best friend dies on campus, apparently executed by her own computer, Cass Crombie goes undercover as a cleaner (domestic operative). Armed with a brush and a buffer she encounters failed PhD students, obsessive lecturers and desperate foreign scholars, a lost Shakespeare play (is it authentic?) and the first mobile phone (“It will never catch on!”)
Aided by her eccentric artist friend Philippa, Cass soon becomes more involved than she planned with attractive police officers and lowlifes on and off campus.
‘They all hate each other but do they hate enough to kill?”
Full of 1980s quirkiness, this cozy crime novel will keep you guessing – and laughing.
