Breakaway Books

Authored by Chris Chibnall; Published March 2025; Mystery

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️

Death at the White Hart has all the right mystery components for me. Plenty twisty, with just enough flair to the detectives to keep me interested and attached.

In Death at the White Hart, Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge has transferred from the bustling Liverpool police department to her small English hometown to give her marriage a fresh start. But when a body is found on the road with antlers glued to the head, she knows the murder investigation will be anything but ordinary. Nicola, resource-strapped and new in town, must figure out who in this community could have killed the (less than beloved) barkeep. She and her partner Harry are initially flummoxed by the murder, seemingly a callback from a case nearly a century old—has the killer somehow returned?

This mystery suited me right down to my bones. I love a story with red herrings thrown out left, right, and center, and just a hint of spookiness. With just about every townsperson keeping their own stable of secrets, I found it extremely enjoyable to try to guess which secrets are actually relevant to what happened on the night of the murder. Despite not being a small town person myself, it’s this kind of mystery that reminds me that it can be the perfect setting for a whodunnit. More than that, the narrative is perfectly paced, never lingering too long or moving along too quickly. In the end, when the truth is laid out from start to finish, it is immensely satisfying to go back and follow the bread crumbs. 

More often than not, though, the sticking point for me in mysteries is the personal lives of the detectives and how much to integrate them into the plot, and the author nailed the balance here as well. I found myself invested enough to care about Nicola and Harry but not distracted from the mystery. It was enjoyable to watch as Nicola, Harry, and their colleague Mel start to form a cohesive team, and I loved watching Nicola regain her confidence, shaken after discovering her husband’s affair. I connected with the way she defaulted to beating herself up rather than finding blame elsewhere, and it made me root for her all the more. Harry, who I expected to be either annoyingly eager or somewhat misogynistic, turned out to be a delightfully humorous companion, young and fresh without being too naive. As Nicola grew to trust him, I did too. 

I sped through Death at the White Hart and was simultaneously intrigued and charmed. I’m sure you will be too!