I loved how clever, bold, and full of heart this book is, with Zofia’s fierce drive and sharp humor making every page a joy, it was a pleasant and gripping read, the mystery layered, the characters unforgettable, the writing rich with emotion.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

As the cover suggests, Zofia Nowak's Book Of Superior Detecting is nominally a comic mystery, and one which attempts to build a grand comic grotesque in its protagonist. Zofia Nowak is working in London as a cleaner when we meet her, with definite opinions on the city, her clients and the 'Dirty Bitches' (other Polish cleaners) she lives with. The novel is set around the time of the Brexit referendum, partially to give it a slight political frisson and partially to allow her freedom of movement. Because whilst Zofia may appear to be a normal Polish cleaning lady, this is in fact merely a cover: she is there to investigate an LGBT author Steve and discover what he has to do with the disappearance of her son Janek. This leads to a grand mystery, a chase across the UK and Poland and quite a lot of Polish LGBT history, not just because Steve has written a novel about a gay man in communist era Poland, but because Janek is queer and had a complicated relationship with his mother. But then as written for half of the book in the first person, Zofia Nowak has complicated relationships with everyone.

As Zofia narrates the story, she also drops in tidbits about the practice of being a private detective, which she is gets from a Polish version of the Usbourne Official Detective's Handbook. The humour comes from this well-constructed older woman who has seen lots of hardship, but also caused a fair bit with her sharp tongue, and mile-a-minute opinions. The problem I had initially was that Cieplak writes her in a Polish pidgen English, aiming at an approximation of how a stereotypical Pole with passable English speaks. This is amusing but I found it quite patronising, not least because of the degree that which Zofia insists, and often displays, how smart she is. To miss out articles and depositions does make the voice click, but it also risks making the accent the joke. I came around to it, you have to, it is half of the book, but I am not sure how I feel about it. The other alternate chapters are about Steve (or as Zofia calls him Mr Writer), which is more of a palate cleanser, though Steve is a lot less interesting than Zofia.

I broadly enjoyed Zofia Nowak's Book Of Superior Detecting, despite this issue. This is more than just a comic mystery, indeed the mystery and the history of queer abuse in Poland is quite sobering in places. Cieplak bounces around issues constantly too, from Brexit to queer history, to more philosophical issues about who owns a life story. That is sometimes lost in Zofia's personality and speech patterns, but it is secretly quite ambitious even if I don't think it all quite works.

Zofia has come to London to find her missing son Janek, and is posing as a cleaner in order to investigate Steve, aka “Mr. Writer,” who she believes might have something to do with her son’s disappearance. Her voice grabs you from page one — she can be controversial, bossy, and harsh, often steamrolling people to get what she wants, but she is incredibly funny and astute as well. I haven’t read a novel with such a unique voice in a very long time, and she is without a doubt one of the absolute highlights of this story. I also loved the little snippets from her book of detecting at the beginning of each of her POV chapters.

Despite the humorous tone, this book handles a lot of complex themes very well. I would highly recommend reading this one!

Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superior Detecting by writer, academic and filmmaker Piotr Cieplak is a queer mystery novel set to be published by Renegade Books on the 26th June 2025.

We follow Zofia Nowak, a Polish woman living in London (‘Chicken Town’) posing as a cleaner to aid in her work as a detective, and ultimately, get vengeance for her estranged son, Janek. We also follow Steve, a queer writer and university lecturer, dubbed ‘Mr. Writer' by Zofia, grieving for his late Polish partner Patryk and tentatively seeing an actor, Adam, also Polish. Steve is Zofia’s target and she soon wrangles her way into the role of his cleaner. How are Steve and Janek connected? And, for that matter, how are Adam and Zofia?

These two parallel, connected stories of Zofia and Steve feel tonally different in so many ways and yet still so similar, often in the same ways. We have the older woman investigating to figure out just what happened to her missing (presumed dead by the Polish police) son, staking out Steve and his world. And yet is that not what Adam and Steve are doing, figuring each other, and themselves, out, albeit in a romantic way?

I was drawn to this novel firstly by its really intriguing cover, and the glowing words of recommendation on it from one of my all-time favourite authors, Helen Oyeyemi, whose work I adore. And I'm glad I was, with the unlikely duo of Zofia and Steve being one of the best written I can think of, as their investigations take them from London to Warsaw and eventually Mazury.

There are some great witty and comedic moments for a story ostensibly about tragedy, such as Zofia’s cantankerous nature and disapproval of English life and ‘Dirty Bitches’ she lives with (also Polish). One great moment comes on the plane ride to Warsaw when Steve refers to himself as ‘some gay Orpheus mincing down to Hades… with Zofia as the ferrywoman.’ This is juxtaposed brilliantly (tragically) with a harrowing account of Steve's treatment by the homophobic Polish police following Patryk’s death (albeit with kind detective Roman there as well).

Zofia is so well drawn and characterised brilliantly, she is complex, funny (not always intentionally), and while I was initially unsure about the voice used for her sections, it works incredibly well, and you can tell that Cieplak knows the sound well. I'd venture he has known women like Zofia in his life, too, given her complexity and the way it is very hard to dislike her even in spite of her flaws.

Honestly, this book explores some very complex and varied themes (and all are handled well, in my opinion); persecution of LGBTQ+ people, particularly in Poland, politics, guilt, generational trauma, friendship, love, survival, motherhood, abuse, and that's barely scratching the surface. There's even the rise of the far-right, with a Farage/Netanyahu/Le Pen-like figure looming large over many elements of the story.

If you want a witty, well-crafted crime story, with queer themes, and brilliantly drawn characters, look no further than Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superior Detecting.

I read an eARC of this book on NetGalley so thank you to the author and the publisher.

I am loving the recent trend we’re seeing of older female protagonists in fiction. It’s such a unique perspective that comes with different experiences and challenges and makes for really interesting reading. We have Zofia, who is temporarily living in London while she tries to find out what happened to her son. She’s biting, judgmental, driven, bossy, often quite funny, sometimes mean. She is relentless in getting what she wants and she’s like a hurricane as she barges her way into peoples’ lives to get what she needs from them. We alternate between Zofia and a writer she is stalking called ‘Steve’ or ‘Mr Writer.’ He is grieving and harbouring a secret and Zofia has her sights set on him to help with her investigation. She forces her way into a job cleaning for him so she can snoop and then proceeds to overturn his life while also forming a tentative alliance with him to help with her detective work.

This was a compelling and interesting mystery told from a unique voice. Zofia as a character is what makes this book, she adds a level of meddling that is absurd but also gets things done.

Zofia is a mother on a mission and will not let anyone get in the way of finding her son Janek. I found the pace to be slow and had trouble connecting with the story. I did appreciate Zofia's unrelenting observations and found her ignorant bliss of her own character defects to be quite amusing.