Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody and Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door (Jane Darrowfield #1 and #2) by Barbara Ross #bookreview #mystery

Title: Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody

Author: Barbara Ross

Publisher: Kensington Cozies

Publication Date: June 30, 2020

Page Count: 272

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Jane Darrowfield is a year into her retirement, and she’s already traveled and planted a garden. She’s organized her photos, her recipes, and her spices.  The statistics suggest she has at least a few more decades ahead of her, so she better find something to do . . .
 
JANE DARROWFIELD, PROFESSIONAL BUSYBODY
 
After Jane helps a friend with a sticky personal problem, word starts to spread around her bridge club—and then around all of West Cambridge, Massachusetts—that she’s the go-to girl for situations that need discreet fixing. Soon she has her first paid assignment—the director of a 55-and-over condo community needs her to de-escalate hostilities among the residents. As Jane discovers after moving in for her undercover assignment, the mature set can be as immature as any high schoolers, and war is breaking out between cliques.
 
It seems she might make some progress—until one of the aging “popular kids” is bludgeoned to death with a golf club. And though the automatic sprinklers have washed away much of the evidence, Jane’s on course to find out whodunit . . .

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Title: Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman

Author: Barbara Ross

Publisher: Kensington Cozies

Publication Date: December 28, 2021

Page Count: 250

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

Jane Darrowfield is using her retirement years to work as a professional busybody, with most of her business coming from her West Cambridge, Massachusetts, community. This time her client is right next door . . .
 
JANE DARROWFIELD AND THE MADWOMAN NEXT DOOR
 
Megan, who’s purchased the house next to Jane’s, needs some help from her snooping neighbor. Megan’s been having blackouts, hearing voices—and feeling like someone’s following her. Are these symptoms of an illness—or signs that she’s in danger?
 
Considering the extensive security system in Megan’s house, it seems like she should be safe—yet she soon vanishes into thin air. Some think she’s run away, but would this ambitious young lawyer on the partner track really miss a meeting with an important client? And where’s Megan’s cat?
 
The mystery is about to deepen when the cat is finally located in a hidden panic room—and as Jane and the police look into Megan’s friends, family, and past, it may be time to sound the alarm . . .

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Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody and Jane Darrowfield and the Madwoman Next Door by Barbara Ross are the first and second books in the cozy Jane Darrowfield mystery series. As with most cozy mystery series each book in the Jane Darrowfield series will contain it’s own mystery to be solved within the book so they can all be read as a standalone or in any order if choosing to do so. There will be of course character development that carries over from book to book for those who follow the series from the beginning.

Like most Jane Darrowfield had been looking forward to her retirement and those golden years after working. However, in her first year after retirement Jane has already traveled, organized and planted a garden so now she wonders what next. After helping a friend with a personal problem Jane comes up with the idea to become a personal busybody, someone to go to when you need a hand with things that police or lawyers and such can’t help you out.

Word gets around about Jane’s new busybody persona and she is asked to come to a retirement community and help with some hostilities among the residents. However soon after arriving one of the residents is bludgeoned to death with a golf club and Jane finds herself looking for a murderer. After things are wrapped up at the golf club Jane takes on a new case with her neighbor, a young lawyer who feels as if she might be going crazy. As Jane is looking into all the events in the young woman’s life things take a drastic turn when she goes missing.

The Jane Darrowfield mystery series gained my interest by having an older protagonist in this one and I was happy to find I actually enjoyed getting to know Jane and her new “profession”. This series is another that I’d classify as quirky just due to the whole idea of a professional busybody and it definitely came with some laughs along the way so I really enjoyed the first two books of this series and will look forward to coming back to it in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

About the author:

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries and the Jane Darrowfield Mysteries. Her books have been nominated for multiple Agatha Awards for Best Contemporary Novel and have won the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Portland, Maine. Readers can visit her website at http://www.barbararossauthor.com

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