‘The Secret Sauce’ by MJ Porter

My Review (5 stars out of 5)

A suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory prompts Chief Inspector Mason to start an investigation. Along with his female sergeant, O’Rourke, Mason must work out what caused the death of factory worker Harry Armstrong. Found in a vat of the secret BB sauce, did the man commit suicide, or is there something more sinister going on? Mason soon decides that someone wanted Armstrong dead – but why?

Set in England in November 1944, this is book three in the Erdington Mysteries. As with the other books, The Secret Sauce can be read as a standalone. This time we find Chief Inspector Sam Mason confused by a bizarre case where a man appears to have drowned in brown sauce. Apart from the fact the man shouldn’t have been in the factory in the first place, Mason is perplexed by missing sauce bottles. Could the dead man have set up his own illegal supply of the popular sauce, or does Armstrong’s war record include something dodgy, and if so, did someone find about it? Then there’s the discovery of two mysterious lines of letters and a date – 1944. Could it be some sort of code, and who was it intended for? Aside from the murder, Mason hears about an explosion in an ordnance store at a local RAF base. Could this too have something to do with the dead man?

The details of day-to-day life such as wartime shortages add to the story and bring it to life, just as in the other books in the series. Having said that, I don’t think this one is quite up to Ms Porter’s usual standard, which is a shame. Nevertheless, it’s a great story that kept me turning the pages right to the end.

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