Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for this ARC.

Claudia Stitchwell, headmistress of a CofE Primary School, collapses in the school hall after her nut allergy kicks in and dies when no EpiPen is found in time. She wasn't well-liked and in particular four people had reason to want her dead - school cook Hattie, teaching assistant Kiera, deputy head Ben and school bursar Clive.

The suspicious parents of "Year 6 Tiger Class" have a lively group chat going that discusses everything from this week's spellings to now rumours that Ms Stitchwell was murdered, considering the school is usually a nutfree zone. We get the typical parents who think their children are the best in everything, the parents whose child loses clothes all the time, or who is never invited to a party and Laura who is always "in the wrong group, sorry". We have the odd vaccine denier and "trans is a life choice" bigot, but we also have great people who help out everywhere and try to make everyone welcome.

The book is written in multi POV between the four suspects (who are all unrelatable narrators) and is interspersed with chaotic chat transcripts, police interviews, receipts from the local supermarket and newspaper articles. I have to admit it took me a while to get used to this writing style, especially as the group chat format  was all jumbled up in the Kindle edition.

This book is a hoot! These parents and their gossip and attempts to investigate are hilarious. I also loved "Tickly Tiger's Diary", the class mascot who gets to spend alternate weekends with a child and their parents, and Office Manager Marcia's newsletters to the parents, especially the last one! The addresses go from Parents to Carers to Guardians to  Parental Responsibility Providers to Guiding Adults to Self-determining Care Providers to "whatever the bloody hell you want to call yourselves this week", LOL.

The narrative is fast and frenetic anyway but goes up to high-octane speed the further we get in the book, especially when Ben is fighting multiple fires at the same time - the dreaded Ofsted inspection, a school trip that ends in a Norovirus outbreak, his faraway son and his affair with Kiera. This was also around the time I really started to dislike him.

The person I hated the most though was Clive and I have to say it was a brave decision to make him the focus of everyone's hate for the majority of the book, and not the murdered headmistress. He did so many hateful things that his ultimate fate didn't come as much of a surprise and I was rooting for the ever so clever murderer.

The plot is so incredibly entertaining and the characters so well-drawn that I read it in one sitting and was sad when it ended. There are many twists and turns, it is funny as heck with many laugh out loud moments but also dark and knows when to be serious (anyone else having tears in their eyes at little Jacob?). None of the four suspects are flawless, they all have secrets to hide and have not always behaved well, which makes them very relatable.

I loved Over My Dead Body by the same author and I am happy to say she has done it again. This is such a unique, smart book that cleverly incorporates darker elements like religious bigotry, blackmail and abuse of power, and makes us actually be ok with someone possibly getting away with murder. You don't need to be a parent or work in a school but if you do, you will identify so hard with everything. Highly recommended.