Betty Fletcher bakes the best scones in the Cotswolds. She also knows six ways to kill a man with a rolling pin.

Retired from a life she can never talk about, sixty-two-year-old Betty has built a quiet existence in the village of Bramblewick. She runs The Flour & Flower bakery, trades gossip with her nosy neighbour Mrs. Higgins, and shares her home with Major — a retired police K9 German Shepherd who takes his guard duties very seriously.

Then her bakery rival turns up dead in her pantry. Murdered with her favourite rolling pin. And every clue points straight at Betty.

To clear her name, she’ll need to dust off skills she swore she’d buried — covert surveillance, tactical interrogation, and forensic observation — all while maintaining her cover as the village’s favourite harmless granny. But when a coded ledger reveals a connection to a Cold War enemy she thought was long dead, Betty realises this isn’t just a village murder.

Someone knows who she really is.

With a bumbling but well-meaning constable on her tail, a poisoned dog in her arms, and a killer who smells suspiciously like her own bakery, Betty must decide: stay hidden and go to prison for a crime she didn’t commit, or step back into the shadows and risk everything she’s built.

Major votes for the one that involves cheese scones.

The Spy Who Baked Me is the first book in The Baker’s Spy Mysteries — a cozy mystery series with a sharp edge. Perfect for anyone who believes retirement is just a cover story.

Contains: a dangerously competent grandmother, a very good boy, village gossip weaponised as intelligence, and absolutely no on-page violence (but quite a lot of threatening baked goods).