I’m so thrilled that our favourite ex-nun sleuth, Nora Breen, is back. A perfect follow-up and storyline progression after her debut crime solving. It appears that out of season, sleepy, coastal resort town Gore-On-Sea is fast turning into the fish and chips version of St Mary’s Mead with bodies popping up all over the place. Nora is the no-nonsense, level-headed and dependable person the town is fast learning to lean on.
An excellent mystery series by a superb author.
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own unbiased opinion.

The second in this lovely cosy crime series set in 1950s Kent and featuring former nun, Nora Breen. Teaming up again with Detective Inspector Rideout, Nora finds herself puzzling over a serial killer who seems to be extremely ingenious in the way they operate.
The story starts off slowly but the pace definitely quickens in the second half of the book as the murders mount up. Once again Jess Kidd's easy style of writing makes this an enjoyable read. The highlight of the series is of course the character portrayals. Both Nora and Rideout are wonderful characters and I'm looking forward to reading more about them in the future.
Highly recommended.

I love the Nora Breen series of books by Jess Kidd. This second instalment, Murder at the Spirit Lounge, sees Nora assist Detective Inspector Rideout in solving the murder of the medium, Doreen Chimes, who met her demise at a seance she was holding at her house. The bodycount in Gore-on-Sea begins to rise as all the guests at the seance turn up murdered.

Nora Breen is a great gutsy character. She’s recently left a convent having lived most of her adult life as a cloistered nun. She’s now living in a boarding house on the South Coast in Gore-On-Sea and navigating her place in the world helped by her friends. At the boarding house she’s friends with the housekeeper Irene and wheeler dealer Will, who both look out for her. She has a great rapport with Detective Inspector Rideout and Hosmer the owner of the Photography shop, both of whom perhaps hold a candle for Nora, who is oblivious.

It definitely hovers in the historical cosy crime side of things. The backdrop of the early 1950s is fascinating as the country is still scarred by World War II with servicemen disfigured and psychologically damaged by the war, rationing still in place, but with a sense of a country trying to rebuild.

I can’t wait for the next instalment of Nora Breen investigates.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Faber and Faber Ltd, for making this e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I absolutely adored this book and devoured it over a couple of days! It has easily been one of my favourite books of the year and I can’t wait to read more from the author in the future

The second book in this series and ex nun Nora Breen is still at the Gulls Nest after the successful outcome of a murder case with local D.I. Rideout. He seeks her out again to help him in a case where a Medium dies at a seance which he is attending. A lot of murders follow!

I love the character of Nora Breen. She always seems to be in charge of any situation and is very smart at judging events and observing clues. Rideout appears to be smitten by her and it will be interesting to watch how this relationship develops.

I guess this is what you could describe as a quality cosy. Cosy because it follows the trope of the civilian assisting the police in solving a murder in a small town. Quality because that is the only way to describe this author's writing style. I loved it and look forward to more of the same.

he remembers what Rideout said about the night of the seance...but perhaps the killer hadn't needed to be there? Perhaps he had an accomplice? The scurry and flutter of her thoughts starts to form. As she had observed to Rideout, this case, these murders, seem theatrical."

The second in the Nora Breen mystery series, set in a fictional Kent seaside town in the 1950s with a former nun helping a local police detective, is even better than the first! This is why I love series novels, when the characters and settings become familiar but they have new adventures. This is a fiendishly complex mystery for determined Breen and rakish DI Rideout (wonderfully well-drawn characters) to solve after the sudden death of a medium. It reminded me a little of the Elly Griffiths Brighton mysteries (set a a similar time in the Brighton theatre world). I could not put this down so am hoping there's more to come in this series.

Yes Nora is back for a second outing, supported ably by the team of regular characters which readers are loving. After Nora's first bit of amateur sleuthing, she finds herself becoming Inspector Rideout's right hand woman when a murder takes place during a seance leaving those who attended at risk of being 'knocked off' themselves. Nora and Rideout find themselves up against the clock to find the killer.

I cannot stress how likeable the characters are in the Nora Breen Investigates series. Firstly there's the rather spectacular Nora and Inspector Rideout and then there's the supporting characters, a favourite is Irene, Nora's ebullient (not) landlady who has some great laugh out loud moments. Jess Kidd manages to mix the humour with some dark themes, what war does to men and women, the psychological damage and how Nora faces her own past. If you are looking for an entertaining, well written read then look no further, I look forward to spending time with Nora, Rideout and Irene again. A joy.

Nora Breen is fast becoming my favourite amateur sleuth. I love the development of her character as she shakes off the confines of the convention, finding her style, her friends and her freedom. This second book of crime at the sea side is just as fast paced and amusing as the first and I look forward to the next instalment of Breen and Rideout solving crime.

Murder at the Spirit Lounge is the second book in the Nora Breen Investigates series by award-winning London-born author, Jess Kidd. Former Carmelite nun, Nora Breen first encounters popular psychic, Doreen Chimes when Gore-on-Sea’s Detective Inspector Hilary Rideout requests her presence at the lady’s residence, Ravensholme, reporting a minor theft.

Nora is a little concerned when Rideout seems uncharacteristically gullible about the medium’s powers. The next time she sees Doreen Chimes, the woman is mysteriously dead, mid-message from beyond, during a séance attended by only a select group of invitees, one of whom is Rideout. Shocked, they may be, but each attendee must be questioned, as must the missing Ravensholme charwoman.

On a more pragmatic note, with her cash reserves running low, Nora is thinking she’ll need to visit a second-hand store for clothing if she doesn’t get a paying job soon, when fellow Gulls Nest lodger, Bill Carter presents a novel solution that very much appeals to her. To her surprise, she is soon comfortably attired in masculine wear, which comes in handy on a later trip to London.

Photographer and jazz enthusiast, Mr Hosmer understands Nora’s financial predicament, and recommends her to Martine Hartigan, the editor of the Gore-on-Sea Herald, in need of a reporter. He hopes that doing things like reviewing the food offered by the Marine Hotel’s new French chef will keep her out of harm’s way.

But lunch there proves otherwise, as Nora witnesses one séance attendee, apparently hallucinating, jumping to her death from a window, while the young woman’s mother, also present at Doreen Chimes’s death, is found dead in her bed. What frightened Harriet Braybrooke was the spectral figure of a uniformed young man, also seen by Nora.

Trace evidence in Lady Constance Braybrooke’s room provides a firm link to Doreen’s demise, apparently murder. Rideout and Breen quickly understand that each person at the séance is therefore in danger of being murdered. Links are sought between the victims and the seemingly disparate remaining potential targets: a curmudgeonly military type lodged at Gulls Nest; an actress staying at a theatrical boarding house; a developer ensconced in the Marine Hotel’s penthouse suite; and Rideout himself.

Interrogations, trace evidence, manner of death, research, and Nora’s interviews with two of those remaining, lead to visits to a refuge for shell-shocked servicemen, and a London Gentleman’s Club, as Rideout and Breen follow up every possible avenue in search of motive. By the time three more have been murdered, Nora has observed that there’s a definite theatrical quality to this very inventive killer’s work: electrocution, poisoning, suffocation, maddening, fire and garrotting have all been employed by a master of disguise. Along with Rideout’s colleagues, Nora is extremely worried when he is the last man standing.

There’s plenty of dry, and sometimes, black humour in the banter between characters, and Kidd gives Nora some great lines:
“’Miss Breen, I would caution you against letting your imagination run away with you,’ he says, uppishly. ‘I appreciate that ladies are more excitable, less level-headed—’
Nora snorts. ‘And I would caution you, Colonel Fulford, to sift through your mind’s flotsam before letting it froth out of your mouth.’”

There are serious moments too: about a shell-shocked serviceman, Rideout observes “‘We had a job to do, and we had to keep on doing it day after day. So naturally many of us– and not just our group captain– frowned down on the men who chose to unravel.’” To which Nora replies “You thought those men had a choice of whether or not to unravel?”

Some exchanges, Nora isn’t sure about: “‘He’ll think you’re my fancy woman.’
‘Don’t even joke about it.’
Rideout starts the engine. ‘Would that be so dreadful after all?’”
Rideout does now seem to be resigned to Nora sticking her coulter in: “You have an open invitation, Breen. You’re usually to be found wherever the trouble is anyway.”

Before matters are resolved, there are red herrings and distractions in the lead up to a nail-biting climax. This is another delightful helping of Nora Breen and her Gore-on-Sea associates, and fans will have fingers crossed that Jess Kidd has more of this cast up her literary sleeve.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Faber & Faber Ltd.