October Book Club: The Only Way is Poison by Lou Collins
The Only Way is Poison by Lou Collins
(Chloe Essex Cozy Mysteries #4)
I seem to be friends with a lot of mystery authors. Occupational hazard. Lou Collins is one of them, and her Chloe Essex series is the reason I now occasionally use British slang without fully understanding it. Quite dangerous, I am aware.
If you’ve read Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series and ever thought “this is great, but what if Stephanie lived in a small English village,” Chloe Essex is your person.
Chloe is back in Speckled Hill, Essex, where she grew up, everyone already knows her, and that cuts both ways. The small-town dynamics will feel familiar even if the setting doesn’t, and the British humor and vocabulary are half the fun. Context clues carry me most of the way, but sometimes the words themselves are funny before I’ve figured out what they mean. (ie. faffing and titivating)
This is book four, which means Chloe and her world are well-established and comfortable in the best way. Reading it feels like queuing up the next episode of a show you already love. The mystery this time is multilayered, with a current case and a historical thread running alongside it. Chloe’s inner monologue through all of it is sharp, slightly self-aware, and consistently makes me laugh out loud.
If you watch British mystery shows (Thursday Murder Club, Father Brown, Agatha Raisin, that whole cozy BBC corner of the universe) this series fits right in, just with more humor and Chloe’s very relatable tendency to get herself into situations.
Kelly Brakenhoff is the author of 18 books and a seasoned ASL interpreter. She splits her writing energy between two series: cozy mysteries set on a college campus and children’s books featuring Duke the Deaf Dog.
In 2025, two of her children’s books were selected for the CBC Favorites Award Lists, honored by teachers and librarians nationwide for excellence in children’s literature. Parents, kids, and educators love the Duke the Deaf Dog books and activity guides because they introduce ASL and the Deaf community through engaging stories.
And if you enjoy a smart female sleuth, want to learn more about Deaf culture, or have lived in a place where livestock outnumber people, the Cassandra Sato Mystery series will have you connecting the dots faster than a group project thrown together the night before it’s due.
A proud mom to four adults, head of the dog-snuggling department, and grandma to a growing brood of perfectly behaved grandkids, Kelly and her husband call Nebraska home.