Proof of Murder

You can tell what a summer's going to cost you by what comes down the hill. For Robyn Meade, it's seven lorries, a marquee the size of the chapel, and Bake Britannia — the biggest baking show in Britain — rolling its cameras, its money, and its egos into the little Cornish harbour of Porthgowan for a heritage village special.

But the show hasn't come for the village. It's come for a story about the village: a manufactured feud between Robyn's bakehouse and Curtis's café across the road, a caricature of the quay, and a glossy London contract dangled to sweeten the deal. Someone in an office decided what kind of place Porthgowan was before a single one of them had tasted a fairing. Now they mean to build that story right down the middle of a truce as quiet as the tide.

Then Dominic Fry — the show's ruthless producer, a man who builds villains for a living — drops dead at the gleaming hero mixer, in front of a rolling crew. The verdict is a tragic accident: faulty kit, dodgy wiring, one of those things. But Robyn spent ten years at the sharp end of professional kitchens, two Michelin stars behind her, and she has stood at a thousand distribution boards. She knows a properly wired set cannot kill a man like that by accident. Which means someone rigged it, on camera — and is letting the edit do the rest.

To clear her village, her neighbours, and herself, Robyn will have to un-edit a murder before the tide and the cameras carry the truth out for good.

Warm, sharp, and unmistakably Cornish, Proof of Murder is a cozy mystery rich with sea air, scorched ginger, village grudges, and one supremely unbothered cat. Perfect for readers who like their sleuths clever, their villages real, and their crimes hiding in plain sight.

Pour the tea. The cameras are rolling.