Whitstable Pearl Mysteries

Pearl Nolan always wanted to be a detective but life, and a teenage pregnancy, got in the way of a police career and instead she built up a successful seafood restaurant in her coastal home town of Whitstable – famous for its native oysters. Now, at 39, and with son Charlie away at university, Pearl finds herself suffering from empty nest syndrome ... until she discovers the drowned body of local oyster fisherman Vinnie Rowe, weighted down with an anchor chain, on the eve of Whitstable's annual oyster festival. Is it a tragic accident, suicide – or murder?

Pearl’s detective agency takes a back seat as she prepares to offer a warm welcome to a group of special visitors. A local arts festival is being held to honour a cultural exchange visit from representatives of Borken - Whitstable’s Twin Town in Germany. Yet very soon, personality clashes surface among the participants; local politicians try to use the festival for their own ends, while others jostle for improved billing on the festival programme. Tempers flare, old feuds re-surface, and on the eve of the first event, a cryptic message is received by the local police.

It really is murder on the dance floor.... A new dance school opens in Whitstable run by celebrity tango champions – Tony and Tanya Ballard. Pearl Nolan knows herself to be an ace cook and a sharp private eye but has always left the dancing to her mother, Dolly, a former member of the town's infamous Fish Slappers dance troupe. But Pearl becomes intrigued by the Ballards when they visit The Whitstable Pearl restaurant, and she realises that dance classes could provide the perfect cover for her clandestine relationship with DCI Mike McGuire....

Pearl Nolan receives a wedding invitation from an old school friend she hasn't seen for years. Amy, a journalist, has chosen somewhere very special for her wedding ceremony—the 17th-century Kent country house of Mount Ephraim—and the invite includes a pre-nuptial stay for Pearl and other guests at this historic venue. Nestled in an 800-acre estate, and surrounded by beautiful gardens and a lake, Pearl sees this break as a chance to leave crime behind, along with her own detective agency and her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl.

Pearl Nolan's coastal allotment has always been a quiet haven – somewhere for her to relax and cultivate special ingredients for her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. But a sudden clamour for allotments by the DFLs – Down From Londoners – causes tension in the local community when the council decides to accommodate them by dividing existing plots into smaller parcels. When anonymous complaints are submitted to the council about each of the local allotment holders, Pearl's services as private detective are called upon.