The Whitstable Pearl Mystery" by Julie Wassmer - this is the first in a series of books featuring Pearl Nolan, a 39 year old single mother who runs a restaurant in Whitstable, Kent and has also started a detective agency. Her first case starts when a man asks her to track down a local fisherman who owes him money from an investment which went wrong, but when she goes to visit the fisherman on his boat she finds him dead, caught in his anchor chain and drowned. Then her new client also turns up dead,found by Pearl, which makes the police quite suspicious of her! The detective in charge has been transferred from London and hates small towns and isn't too happy when Pearl, despite the obvious conflicts of interest, continues investigating and naturally learns more than he does. Although slightly predictable, I didn't guess the killer and there were enough back stories for the characters to keep me interested, it's also quite well-written for the cosy crime genre. There is also a TV series and I watched the first episode last night, which is based on this book. It was Ok but felt very rushed and I felt some of the casting was a bit off, though Frances Barber is perfect as Pearl's bohemian mum who helps her in the restaurant. There are several more books in this series and it looks promising. One quibble though - she mentions a character performing a 1974 Saturday Night Fever move, well SNF didn't come out until 1977......!7/10