Title: The Kensington Kidnap by Katie Gayle
The Kensington Kidnap
by
Katie Gayle
Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)
Publisher: Bookouture
This was a fun cozy mystery that kept me reading past midnight.
Epiphany "Pip" Bloom is pretty much a disaster with a passport. She's had jobs all over the world but that any country is still willing to grant her a visa is stunning. She's left a fair amount of damage to her employers and others in her wake. While she seems nice enough, she isn't reliably employable or terribly responsible and it's taken a toll on her being able to do things like pay rent and live without financial worry. Her mother's stopped helping her out with cash so when we enter the story, Pip is worried she's on the cusp of eviction by her kind, hot and helpful flatmate, Tim. She finagles a job under an assumed identity and hijinks and hilarity ensue along with a decent mystery of where a missing teen has gone.
Also along for the fun were a boxer that offers Pip lessons and possibly more, her sister Felicity/ Flis who has the best malapropism habit I've ever had the pleasure to read. Pip remarks that speaking with Flis is often like doing crosswords for the vocabulary workout. And last, there's Most, Pip's three-legged rescue (or stolen depending upon who you ask) cat. As an aside, I don't know why the adorable kitty on the cover has four legs. All these characters added to the story and were well-drawn in their own right. I would have liked more on Tim but that's probably because he was my favourite guy.
There's a murder but it's not the focal point of the story and it isn't revealed until rather late in the book. As the main issue for this cozy is the kidnap, which has happened before we enter the story and propels the plot effectively, I felt the mystery and the tension held up well. Some aspects of the villainy were easy to figure but I was surprised with some turns also and that was enjoyable. The conclusion was well done and Pip not only had success but learned some things along the way.
The only downside for me was that Pip had an instance where she seemed to dismiss & devalue a character for his speech impediment. It struck me as rude, and I was delighted when it's revealed he's top in his field of zoology.
Overall, I enjoyed this and look forward to the next book to go along with Pip and her people on another adventure.
Recommended.
Summary: A missing teenager, a mysterious cult and a case of mistaken identity – just another day’s work for Epiphany Bloom.
Epiphany ‘Pip’ Bloom is down on her luck. She can barely afford cat food, and just because Most has three legs doesn’t mean he eats any less. So she absolutely can’t afford to mess up her latest temp job. But when she walks through the door of the private investigation firm, her new boss mistakes her for a missing persons expert. He then charges her with finding Matty Price – the teenage son of two A-list celebrities – who has mysteriously disappeared from his home in Kensington.
It ought to be a disaster, but Pip reckons it’s actually an opportunity. She’s always been curious (nosy, her mother calls it) and has an uncanny knack for being at the wrong place at the right time (she doesn’t want to know what her mother thinks of that). After years of trying to find something she’s good at, has Pip managed to walk straight into the job she was born to do?
She owes it to herself and poor missing Matty to find out.
But searching for Matty takes Pip into the strange, intimidating world of the rich and famous. And it soon becomes clear that some of these people’s love for themselves doesn’t extend to their fellow humans.
As Pip investigates further, she realises the question isn’t whether Matty ran away – it’s whether she will find him alive and make it home safely herself...
An absolutely brilliant, light-hearted cozy mystery for fans of M.C. Beaton, T E Kinsey, Lauren Elliott and Joanne Fluke, featuring an irresistible new heroine.
The Kensington Kidnap
by
Katie Gayle
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