There is a warmth and friendship between the characters that adds to the reading experience. Everyone is ready to help in their own way and it seems very natural. The obvious exception is the perpetrator, who is, in melodramatic fashion, particularly evil and sociopathic. The reader knows who it is as the novel is told from various points of view, but they don’t know the lengths he will go to or why. The landscape – the gorgeous ondulating landscape draws you in and I loved the characters. There was also a more serious story – one man returning to face his past and his father and everything was nicely and neatly wrapped up – although with just enough threads to leave you wanting more.

While Samson and Delilah combine resources once more, before too long they have become embroiled in untangling this mystery which has lain at the town’s core for decades. It is a mystery that some would much prefer stay buried. I designated it as a semi-cosy as it has darker themes than I expect from the usual gentle cosy. As this was my first experience of this series I have no idea if they are all as dark. Caroline Roberts-Cherry, managing director, added: “We are incredibly excited to be developing The Dales Detective for television. Following the huge success of The Madame Blanc Mysteries, we feel incredibly well placed to hit all the right notes with this much-loved book series, and create a long running show loved by fans new and old.” In the seventh novel in Julia Chapman’s Dales Detective series, Date with Betrayal , betrayal is rife in the idyllic Yorkshire Dales as Samson O’Brien, owner of the Dales Detective Agency, is targeted by a hitman. Can Bruncliffe save him? A brilliantly engaging and witty mystery, perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series. Samson and Delilah do not work well with each other, actually she hates him. But with funny circumstances, call it fate, they have to work together. It doesn’t help that both his detective agency and Delilah’s business are lettered the same, ‘DDA’ and in the same building! They will have to put the past behind them if there is to be any business coming their way, and now with suspicious deaths, they embark on different mysteries in every book.

Customer reviews

I have not read this series before and what an omission that has turned out to be. I thoroughly enjoyed Date with Evil, which is an amusing cosy with a sharp edge that doesn’t shy away from the worst in human nature. I loved Delilah and Samson together, they turn out to be a really good combo – good for each other and their business. Delilah ends up putting a lot into helping Samson and they both solve the mysteries the town brings them. Full of wit, warmth and characters you’ll care about, continue the murder mystery series with Date with Malice.

In the seventh novel in Julia Chapman’s Dales Detective series, Date with Betrayal, betrayal is rife in the idyllic Yorkshire Dales as Samson O’Brien, owner of the Dales Detective Agency, is targeted by a hitman. Can Bruncliffe save him? A brilliantly engaging and witty mystery, perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and M. C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series. We left the town at the end of the last instalment with Samson’s name cleared and (nearly) everyone safe after the entire town was involved in a showdown with corrupt coppers, eastern European mafia and money launderers. However, now Samson is free to return to his job in the Met. Will he leave Deliah and Bruncliffe? And have they rid the town they love from the evil within? Or did the roots go much further? There were a few minor disappointments: fiction in general seems to miss out on proofreading and the text has several typos. As usual, the use of strings of 'someone doing or having done something' phrases impeded the flow: a little variation in sentence structure would make the stories read even better. And I was surprised by the characters' slowness to note that 'steward' could be 'Stuart'...!Because Delilah Metcalfe knows what is coming. A hitman. Sent from London with one objective: to finally silence the troublesome O’Brien before his corruption case can make it to court. In the eighth novel in the Dales Detective series, Date with Evil, Samson and Delilah are about to discover that all of their new cases may be connected to a network of evil that seems to be surrounding Bruncliffe. Will they solve them all before the danger comes directly to their door?

With suspicion hanging over someone they both care for, the two feuding neighbours soon realize that they need to work together to solve the mystery of the dating deaths. But working together is easier said than done . . . Meet two sleuths from a sleepy Yorkshire village as they investigate murders and discover the secrets behind the twitching curtains. Date with Death is the first cosy crime novel in Julia Chapman’s Dales Detective series, perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and M. C. Beaton.Bruncliffe is the type of place I would love to live, if only they’d have me. Chapman has created a superb cast of characters with all the domestic gossip, rivalries, fallings-out and community spirit anyone who grew up in a small town will love and recognise. Date With Danger” is the fifth novel in the “Dales Detectives” series and was released in the year 2019. This time around, Delilah and Samson are on the trail of a sheep rustler turned murderer. The Dales Detective series will be developed by Saffron Cherry’s Caroline Roberts-Cherry and head of scripted Jane Langford (Hollyoaks, Metastasis, Jordskott S2, Origin). From stolen washing to inheritance investigations, Bruncliffe’s Dales Detective Agency is being inundated with cases. I quite enjoyed the premise of the murdered folk all being from the same dating agency (although I'm sure this has been done before in some way, shape or form in other cosies) as well as the way in which Delilah and Samson (eventually) go about sorting it out. It seems rather far-fetched that no one would bother to inform the police about their suspicions, but it works for the story and makes the eventual hunt far more suspenseful, knowing that Delilah and Samson are on their own.