Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Genre: Cosy Mystery
Available On: Amazon & Audible

After the snow-swept shenanigans of Murder in the Snow, you’d think Lady Eleanor Swift had earned herself a break. So did she. Unfortunately, fate (and Verity Bright) had other plans. What starts as a long overdue seaside holiday to celebrate her thirtieth birthday swiftly (aha, pun intended!) becomes a murder investigation—because of course it does. But this time, it’s personal. 

Very personal.

And I devoured every minute.

This fifth instalment sees Eleanor, Clifford, Gladstone, and the entire Henley Hall crew head to Brighton for what’s meant to be a relaxing getaway. Ice cream, donkeys on the beach, dipping toes in the sea, attempting not to die of exposure—it all sounds perfectly charming. That is, until a dead body is wheeled out of the hotel just as Eleanor arrives. 

The dead body of her husband.

The one she thought died six years ago in South Africa.

Cue the absolute unraveling of Eleanor’s emotional equilibrium. While previous books have hinted at her complicated past, Mystery by the Sea tears the lid clean off. The revelations come thick and fast—secrets, betrayals, and a marriage that was clearly never what it seemed. And honestly? This depth was what the series needed.

I’ll give you a full summary of the plot for those interested (no real spoilers!) but if you’d rather skip to my broader thoughts, just jump down to the next section…

Plot Summary: Mystery by the Sea

After a year packed with corpses, chaos, and the occasional near-death experience, Lady Eleanor Swift decides to treat her entire household to a well-earned holiday in Brighton. It’s meant to be a relaxing seaside escape—a chance to celebrate her thirtieth birthday, breathe in some salty air, and perhaps enjoy an ice cream or three. Clifford, ever the dependable butler, comes along for the ride, while the rest of the Henley Hall staff are lodged nearby in a modest guesthouse. Eleanor and Clifford, naturally, are staying at the Grand Hotel.

But this is Eleanor Swift we’re talking about. And within moments of stepping into the hotel lobby, she’s greeted not with champagne or seaside sunshine, but a dead body being wheeled out under a sheet.

Worse still? She recognises him.

The victim is none other than Hilary Eden—Eleanor’s husband. The very same man she believed had been executed six years earlier in South Africa. Very much dead again. Which begs the question: how was he alive in the first place, and who decided to rectify the mistake?

With suspicion swirling, Eleanor—who technically has both motive and opportunity—finds herself in the police’s crosshairs. Determined to clear her name and get to the bottom of Hilary’s mysterious resurrection (and second demise), she and Clifford launch into an off-the-books investigation.

As they dig deeper, secrets unravel. Hilary wasn’t just back from the dead—he was hiding something, and it looks like more than one person at the hotel had a reason to want him silenced. Among the suspects are ex-soldiers, shady businessmen, a suspiciously glamorous woman with far too much interest in Eleanor, and a charming South African guest who seems to know more than he should. And then there’s the matter of the map Eleanor finds in Hilary’s belongings—one that hints at hidden treasure, old betrayals, and possibly unfinished business from the days of empire.

Throw in a reluctant assist from DCI Seldon (who, thanks to some not-so-subtle scheming from Clifford, just happens to be holidaying nearby), and you’ve got a twisty, emotionally charged whodunnit with personal stakes, historical shadows, and just enough absurdity to keep things light.

Eleanor wants answers. Closure. Maybe even justice. But what she uncovers will change the way she sees not only her marriage, but herself—and it just might alter the course of her future, too.

Why This Book Works So Well

It’s still fun and frothy in all the right places, don’t get me wrong. Polly and the ladies are having a whale of a time at their boarding house down the street, and Clifford remains a masterclass in deadpan brilliance. Gladstone continues his reign as the most scene-stealing canine in cosy crime. But the emotional stakes are higher this time. The humour is still there, but so is something more bittersweet—grief, regret, closure. 

Eleanor’s navigating a personal mystery as much as a criminal one.

The mystery itself is classic Bright: a tight, locked-room-style setup with a limited suspect pool, red herrings galore, and some excellent twists. I clocked a few clues, missed others entirely, and was still surprised by the final reveal. There’s also a side plot involving treasure and old vendettas that adds an extra layer of intrigue. And while I usually find the recapping in these novels a bit much, this time it felt more in service to the complexity of the plot than simply filler.

The Slow-Burn Romance Finally Started For Real

Romance-wise, DCI Seldon (or Hugh, as we’re now allowed to call him! And YES this IS why the love interest in Nightshade wound up being called Hugh, because what a name!) makes a welcome appearance. Thanks to a bit of light manipulation from Clifford—who is, let’s be honest, the puppeteer behind 90% of Eleanor’s life at this point—Hugh just so happens to be in Brighton to help celebrate her thirtieth birthday. Pure coincidence, obviously.

Their scenes together are, as ever, beautifully restrained. There’s an understated emotional intimacy to their interactions here that feels far more grounded than in previous books. And for once, Seldon doesn’t just function as a gruff narrative roadblock. Yes, he still wheels out the tired old “please stop investigating, you’re a danger to yourself” line, but this time it comes from a place of care rather than condescension. He’s not here to stop her—he’s here to support her, even if that means watching helplessly from the wings while she charges headfirst into another criminal conspiracy with a notebook, a bulldog, and a deep disdain for the concept of personal safety.

What’s most refreshing, though, is that Eleanor has finally stopped fannying about with Lancelot.

There is no love triangle threatening to drag itself out across the next fifteen books. No more dithering over the floppy-haired golden retriever of a man who called her “Darling Fruit” and once circled his parent’s exceedingly posh dinner guests on a bicycle (a highlight I did miss, admittedly). He’s gone from romantic contender to fond footnote, and honestly? It’s a relief. The series is moving forward. The stakes feel more personal. And Eleanor, finally, is beginning to grow.

That growth extends well beyond her love life. Until now, books one through four have mostly painted Eleanor in the same light: spirited, determined, charmingly clumsy, and permanently adrift in the aristocratic world she’s inherited. Aside from her brief and not-terribly-serious foray into politics in A Witness to Murder, she’s mostly bumbled around like an extremely well-dressed bloodhound, sniffing out killers while feeling like she doesn’t quite belong.

But in Mystery by the Sea, something shifts. She’s not just reacting—she’s reflecting. There’s emotional depth here that hasn’t always been present in previous outings. Eleanor is finally starting to reconcile her past with her present, and to see that her so-called shortcomings—her unconventional upbringing, her disdain for decorum, her refusal to play the part of a “proper” lady—are, in fact, what make her formidable. They’re also what make Hugh a viable love interest. He’s not some dashing aristocrat who fits the mould. He’s a grounded, principled, fiercely intelligent man from a different world—one who respects her precisely because she doesn’t play by the rules.

And as a match for our wayward heroine? Honestly, he’s kind of perfect.

So, What Went Wrong?

Surprisingly? Very little. While this series as a whole isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of milky 1920s tea, Mystery by the Sea is, in my opinion, the strongest entry yet. It’s sharper, more emotionally grounded, and offers real character development rather than just another round of Eleanor trips over a corpse and fumbles her way to a solution. Of the first five books, it’s easily the most compelling and best written.

That said, no book is perfect—and this one isn’t immune to the occasional wobble.

Let’s get the usual out of the way first: Clifford. Sweet, omniscient, time-bending Clifford. I adore him. Everyone adores him. But how, exactly, is he still functioning at this level of physical and emotional competence? The man is scaling walls, cracking codes, foiling pickpockets, analysing evidence, babysitting Eleanor, managing hotel staff politics, defusing social tension and making sure the dog gets his supper. Is he a retired MI6 operative? Is he part cyborg? Is he powered by pure tea and sheer butlerly willpower? Whatever it is, I’m not mad. Just… increasingly suspicious.

Then there’s the repetitiveness of the sleuthing style, which hasn’t quite shaken the early-series habit of treating us to every single note, recap, and re-explanation of the clues. If Eleanor recaps her list of suspects one more time to someone who was literally present for the original conversation, I may start carrying a small notebook just so I can dramatically throw it across the room in solidarity.

Suspending Your Disbelief Is A Must

You also have to take—with a rather large pinch of salt—the eyebrow-raising number of convenient coincidences and frequently implausible timings of events. The sheer happenstance of Eleanor arriving at the hotel just as her supposedly dead husband’s corpse is being carted out on a stretcher requires some serious suspension of disbelief.

But in fairness, this is a series where corpses seem magnetically drawn to one woman and her bulldog, so at this point I think we’ve all agreed to roll with it.

This is what I mean when I say this won’t be everyone’s sort of book. If you’re not into stories that operate in a kind of bizarro world—where one woman functions as the epicentre of increasingly improbable events, and there are more murders in the average week than Barnaby sees in Midsomer, or Jessica Fletcher could even dream of writing about—then you’re probably in the wrong place.

These books will drive you nuts.

So if you’re still reading, I’m assuming you’ve already made peace with that sort of narrative nonsense and are here for the chicanery and implausible chaos. I certainly am.

As an extension of that point, it’s worth flagging one small thing that felt slightly underbaked in this outing: the police investigation. While I understand that having a bumbling or disinterested local inspector helps keep Eleanor front and centre, DI Grimsdale is so impossibly obtuse he makes Seldon look like a socially adept Sherlock. A little more credible resistance—or at least a flicker of competence—wouldn’t go amiss. It’s hard to feel any real stakes when the official investigation is always five steps behind Eleanor and Clifford, being routinely outwitted by a bulldog and a redhead with a compulsive need to meddle.

Final Verdict on Mystery by the Sea

Despite these are minor quibbles in an otherwise delightful read. If anything, the sheer implausibility is part of the charm. You don’t pick up a Lady Swift mystery expecting gritty realism—you read them for the warmth, the wit, the escapism, and the increasingly unhinged antics of a very good dog and his tenacious human.

And Mystery by the Sea delivers all of that in spades.

Mystery by the Sea is one of the strongest entries so far. It balances the charm and comedy of the earlier books with genuine emotional weight and a properly tangled mystery. If you’re already invested in the series, this one will hit differently—in a good way. If you’re new, I wouldn’t start here purely for spoiler reasons, but it’s a brilliant reward for readers who’ve stuck with the series up to this point.

It’s smart, sharp, and surprisingly heartfelt. A birthday to remember, and a mystery I won’t soon forget.