A novel of suspense. From Dulwich to the wilds of Hampshire.
Cosy crime set in SCARBOROUGH
10th September 2026
Music to Die For at the Seaview Hotel by Glenda Young, cosy crime set in SCARBOROUGH.
The Seaview hotel mystery series was shortlisted for the Best New Crime Series alongside bestselling series by Richard Osman and Val McDermid in the Dead Good Readers Awards.
This is No. 5 in the The Seaview Hotel crime mystery series. Helen Dexter owns the Seaview Hotel and is managing well since her husband passed away. Her team – with their idiosyncrasies – are a credit to her leadership, and they step up to the plate when she needs them.
Regular readers will know that the author is a huge fan of Scarborough (the novel is dedicated to the town, the author’s ‘happy place’). Helen’s hotel is perched above the North Bay and looks across the magnificent vista to the horizon, where there will be dolphins and seals playing in the sea.
The novel opens as Helen and Marie are in the midst of their endeavours to bring an old beach hut – Seaview Blue – into the 21st Century and rid it of its ghastly smell. It is proposed as an extra facility to offer guests, now that competition is rife when it comes to accommodation, and Helen is motivated to tread the fine line between tradition and modernity in her establishment (cue offering Full English Breakfasts!).
Helen shares with Marie that the band, The A64, are due to play in the Open Air Theatre and they will be staying incognito at the hotel and Marie’s ex husband is in charge of security. He isn’t the ideal choice for plenty of reasons. This is a comeback gig, after a very unfortunate event, and there is much excitement and anticipation, as they haven’t performed for 40 odd years. Their iconic song “Meet Me At Eat Me”, which is still hummed and sung on a regular basis to this day by many keen acolytes of the band, immortalises the cafe at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
And then a body turns up, the police officers remark on the regular occurrences of murder when it comes to Helen and her hotel!
This is cosy crime at its best, a nice location, a group of people with querulous interlopers who upset the balance, her cantankerous neighbour running Vista del Mar who sets a high competitive bar, plus – of course – Suki the greyhound. It can be read as a standalone, although the characters have been built in the previous books, so reading them in order might add an extra dimension.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
Join team TripFiction on Social Media:
Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction) and BlueSky(tripfiction.bsky.social) and Threads (@tripfiction)
Please wait...
