ARSENIC AT ASCOT (Fiona Figg Mystery #7) by Kelly Oliver will be released on November 28, 2023 by Boldwood Books.
Agent Fiona Figg is back in London and filing papers for the war office’s codebreakers when she is summoned to attend a house party that will be attended by – and animal defense advocates. There is suspicion that one of the is . Fiona is tasked with finding the leak and infiltrating the group of activists. When one of the guests—a veterinarian who is working for the government—in murdered, Fiona teams up with her arch-nemesis Frederick Fredricks to uncover the killer.
ARSENIC AT ASCOT is a solid addition to the Fiona Figg Mystery series. Fiona may not be the best undercover agent, but she is dedicated to her job and ferreting out the truth. For once, her supervisor encourages her to dress up in her costumes—including her favored mustaches—and assume different identities while attending the house party and infiltrating a military base to get a closer look at the experiments being conducted on animals. Fiona and her compatriots—Frederick, Archie, Kitty, and Clifford—are all solid and (mostly) likeable main characters. Fiona’s blunders are always good for a laugh, but her wavering feelings for both Archie and Fredricks are growing a bit tedious. Her hormone level is on par with a teenage girl opposed to a widowed woman in her mid-twenties. That being said, I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.