Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and author Helena Dixon for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Murder at Midwinter Farm is the 22nd book in Helena Dixon’s Miss Underhay Mystery series. There’s a bit of an ongoing story regarding Kitty Underhay’s husband, Matt, and his past, but otherwise these books stand pretty well on their own.

It’s almost Christmas in Devon, and Kitty Underhay is trying her best to help out her friend, Alice. Alice’s fiancé Robert recently purchased Midwinter Farm at auction, and they are trying to fix it up before their wedding. Kitty and Alice are there to hang curtains on the day the man comes to install the telephone. Unfortunately, they need to add a pole before the phone can be installed. He begins digging at the spot between the other pole and the house when he uncovers a body.

Many years before, the tenant farmer at Midwinter Farm vanished under mysterious circumstances. Both Kitty and the police believe it is his body that has been found. Alice was already upset with Robert for buying the farm without consulting her, and thinks a body turning up is a bad omen for their marriage. They ask Kitty and her husband, Darcy, to investigate for them. Kitty is determined to find out what happened and ease her friend’s conscience about living there.

Murder at Midwinter Farm is a great bit of light summer reading. A murder is a heavy thing to deal with, but it happened many years before. As it turns out, no one really liked the deceased, either. He was estranged from his son, to whom he owed a great deal of money. It was rumored that he was the bagman for a gang of thieves. Jewels and silver from a burglary just prior to the man’s disappearance have also never been recovered. Alice is nervous being in the house by herself when she’s trying to spruce it up, and also worries about Robert living there and parking his vehicles for his tour company on the premises.

There is a degree of repetitiveness in the story, but I suspect it’s what solving a mystery can be like at times. Still, it makes it feel like there’s an awful lot of padding to the story. Some of the mystery I guessed early on, but the truth was kept secret until the end, which was good. It kept me interested through some of the monotony.

There’s also a little more here in the ongoing story of Darcy’s former friend, Redvers Palmerston. When Darcy is checking out the docks in Plymouth, thinking the one missing man might be there, he thinks he spots his old friend. At first he thinks he’s seeing things, but it likely was Redvers. Kitty worries about his PTSD being triggered as the sighting brings up memories of the Great War for Darcy. It’s a great tie-in to the real world and shows that certain things will not disappear after the book is over.

If you like mysteries for summer reading, I don’t think you can go wrong with this series. Murder at Midwinter Farm is a nice break from some of the heavier topics I’ve been reading as of late. The mystery is well-crafted and enjoyable. I love the setting in England and the time period is captured well in Dixon’s descriptions. I believe it can be picked up and read here, should you choose. I will eventually go back and read the earlier books in the series since I am enjoying the stories for what they are.

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