book cover of Call the Shots
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Call the Shots

(2026)
(The second book in the Golden Age Telephone Gossips Mystery series)
A Story by

 
 
Just like silent waters run deep, so quaint villages hide shadowy secrets.

A quiet, sleepy sort of place, Thistle-Upon-Avon is nestled in a lazy meander of the river. Here, as in villages everywhere, friends gather over afternoon tea to exchange the latest gossip. But this is no idle chatter. These ladies solve murders.

The English countryside, May 1927

Thistle-Upon-Avon has a new guest. Sir Nigel Trewby, a noted politician, has retreated to the tranquility of the countryside to work on his memoirs. But while on the telephone one day, he suddenly tells Gladys at the exchange that he’s been shot. Sure enough, when help arrives, the man is dead.

The only complication is that no one, not even Gladys, heard the fatal shot.

As the Home Office chaps descend on the village, misinformation, gossip and suspicions take hold. Lady Upton feels like she’s walked through the glass darkly: the Government agents seem intent on obscuring the truth; Sir Nigel proves to have been far from honorable; and plenty in the village appear to have had a reason to wish him dead. Worse still, everyone seems to be after something hidden in the village. But what is it, and who has it?

Before long, Lady Upton discovers that the only person making any sense is her habitually unreliable husband, John. Fortunately, a conundrum like this is just what the lady relishes. Armed with teacups and candlestick telephones, the amateur detective and her sleuthing friends set out to uncover secrets, lies and even foreign spies.

Will a villainous network bring Thistle-Upon-Avon to ruin, or will Lady Upton be the one to call the shots, and prove, once again, that nothing remains secret in an English village?

‘Call the Shots’ is Book 2 of the Telephone Gossips Mysteries. Suspended in the golden hour between the two wars, the series evokes the charm and idyll of English village life in the late 1920s and early 1930s. But for all the rosy nostalgia, all is not as it seems. The glint of the silver tea service hides a flicker of envy in the eye. The melodic tinkling of fine bone china masks the rattle of a skeleton in the closet. And while the parlourmaid in her snow-white apron serves tea and the lace tablecloth flutters gently in the wind, social tension, ambition, secrets, and murder bubble just beneath the pristine surface.



Genre: Cozy Mystery

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