Pancakes and Corpses

Pancakes and Corpses is the first Peridale Cafe cozy mystery by Agatha Frost, and the book that introduces Julia South. Recently separated and rebuilding her life around her small Cotswolds cafe, Julia never intended to investigate a murder — until she discovers the body of her most awkward regular.

Peridale's new Detective Inspector, Barker Brown, is smug, dismissive, and entirely willing to look at the wrong people. With her friends and neighbours drifting into the frame, Julia sets out to find the real killer herself, using the one advantage she has: everyone in the village talks to the woman who serves them cake.

The book establishes the series' shape — a nosy village, a cafe kitchen, a sleuth nobody takes seriously, and violence that stays off the page.